Dick Logan

I’ve been seeing a small comeback of business articles showing up on sites like reddit and digg.  Something you should realize before reading these articles is that most of these people don’t own or have not had experience in running their own business.

The quality of the articles are always poor.  I get link-baited by promising titles like “How to make your company succeed” and “How to survive a recession”, only to find that the articles have no real value whatsoever.  They provide no specific details or steps to make your company better.  They usually act like cheerleaders saying, “Keep up, you can do it!” and “It’s hard work, but in the end it’s going to pay off!”.

What I’m weary of most though are the people that claim new blogs can make money.  I thought blogging for a considerable amount of money was old news and almost impossible because of all the competition over the years. Having said that, it makes me wonder about these sort of articles ending up on the front page of business reddit lately and how newbie the redditors and diggers are for upmodding them.

Oh boy.  At his own campaign support meeting, an unpaid volunteer spoke very bluntly to McCain about his lazy campaign staff.  While looking noticeably uncomfortable and too afraid to swat a fly away that lands on his forehead to avoid any attention that would be paid to it, he listens to the volunteer say that the unpaid workers did all the work.  The video can be seen here.

I am by no means a lawyer or well educated in law, but can we sue or press charges of any kind to prevent the failed Freddie Mac CEO walking away with $20 million dollars and us having to pay the bill?  Could there be someway that we could pool money, like we did for Helen Thomas to buy flowers, to hire an attorney that would fight for every single person in America?

I was reading this article by Business Pundit that explained how 3 top American icons: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, GM, and Anheuser-Busch have significantly changed in the past week. Although I am saddened by the fact that Anheuser-Busch is no longer an American beer, the news that the SUV, hummer, and easy loans have been wiped off the map has left me optimistic that the United States is on the right path.

If the American dream involved someone owning an SUV and a house that they couldn’t afford, then fuck the American dream. No one’s lifestyle is going to be significantly different by owning a smaller car instead of an SUV. If someone bought a house they couldn’t afford, they simply don’t deserve the house. Houses aren’t free, despite what the bank loans in the last couple of years were making them appear to be.

Whose American dream is this anyway? It certainly isn’t mine. I’m 22 years old and far more concerned about the environment and US economic policies than my parents ever were. I have a feeling this American dream belongs to the Baby Boomers, grown-up hippies and soccer moms who enjoyed the spoils of winning a world war without even having to fight. Now that it’s my generation’s turn in the societal and economic limelight, I’m fucked because of the carelessness and greed employed by my parents.

If that’s what the American dream is like, good riddance to it. We’ll be better off without it. I only hope that when the Baby Boomers are all gone within the coming decades my generation can reverse their ways and proudly say to them: “At an end your rule is… and not short enough it was.”

Ad placement is the one of the two biggest factors you have control over when it comes to improving click rates with your content, that and choosing the proper coloring scheme.  More often than not, many webmasters shrug this part of the process off and position the ads wherever they seem convenient.  This is a mistake because careful consideration must be done in order to assure the best placement of the ads and in doing so earn the highest amount of money possible.

What I’ve done with alot of my sites is put the Adsense ads at the top of single blog posts.  That way the visitor is sure to see the ad right away and cannot avoid it.  Since I’ve implemented the changes across my sites I have increased my Adsense revenue by 10%.

Do not be afraid to show your ads, you worked hard to produce the content and it’s your site and you can do what you want with it.

In a sad turn of events, one of the most successful and powerful American businesses is no more.  Anheuser-Busch has been bought out by a Belgian company, InBev, who make Stella Artois and Beck’s beers.

While attending college these last four years, whenever I bought a case of bud light or natty I was proud it was a symbol of my country.  I even bought stock in the company because I knew nothing could beat it.  So I was caught off-guard when I read the small headline on the CNN website that said of the buyout.  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, I had to read it twice.

I suppose that’s what happens in a weak economy.  I’m sure the current economic status of America could have something to do with it, maybe the business was just trying to bail out before the economic shit really hits the fan.  With the Fed bailing out Bear Sterns, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac, this is probably the first of many companies in America that will jump ship from a sinking economy and dollar.

One of the reasons why America is so powerful and influential is because of its companies.  As evil as they are, when we lose them we lose our cultural reach and soft power around the globe.

I am so pissed off right now. I’ve just found out that for months my blogs and other sites have been, without my permission, blocked by my own hosting company.

I seriously did not know what the heck was going on with my SERPS. I just figured that Google had just given up on me, discarded me for better content. If that had anything to do with me losing my pagerank then I am going to be terribly upset. This blog had a pagerank of 2, with a future pagerank of 5, and now it is zero. My other blog, a 4, now zero.

I am now definitely paranoid about if they’ll change it back. Does that mean I have to check all of my sites everyday in fear of my hosting company blocking me?

The people that make up the New York Tolling board, who set toll prices every person has to pay, drive New York toll free for life. This is despicable. How can a rule be fair when the people that make them don’t have to abide by them? The board members get free tolls for life, even after they leave their position. And it’s not like they can’t afford it. Former Chairman Peter Kalikow owns at least eight exotic cars, one being a a 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder; a similar model sold recently for $10.9 million dollars.

Who is going to stop the corruption? How can it be stopped when the people abusing their power are making all the rules?

Image from quickhidehere.blogspot.com

You know what would be really cool?  If Google would actually include my webpages in its search engine.  I think I have some pretty good things to say, to share and do, and I’m definitely not a spambot.  So why can’t I get in, huh?

I just realized today that my actual pages aren’t even in the search results.  If you were to look for “dicklogan”, it would take you to my Digg, Stumbleupon, and other online media sharing accounts.

I was hoping that the links from Digg and some forums would be at least strong enough for the Googlebot to want to save the pages, but I guess that’s not the case.  It looks like I’m going to have to become a more aggressive link exchanger if I want to see any results.

But it’s getting hard.  Sites are becoming more competitive than ever.  It is not uncommon now for even a blog to have a group of two or more people working on it constantly.

Gotta keep drudging along and doing what The Man wants I guess.

Senator Arlen Specter says he has been diagnosed with an acute form of the zombie virus and expects to remain in office.  “I feel as healthy as I’ve ever been”, says the senator, gnawing on the brain of a Kentucky journalist.  “A few brains here and there aren’t going to hurt me, and I feel the same as I’ve ever been”.

Senator Specter is looking into legislation that would make legal the purchase of brains from freshly dead corpses in hospitals and accidents.