“Spam? Lots of people read..........”
Of course they do.....thats the whole point! You object to me calling it what it is, when it was YOU who made this particular post with the added piggyback of hoping that FR readers would click BOTH “stilleto” links you included, thereby doubling the potential hits on the “stilleto” blogsite with the google ads?
Lets just call it what it is, OK? The least you could and SHOULD do is place a FreeRepublic link prominently on your blog......BECAUSE IT’S THE DECENT THING TO DO! The one-way street you have benefited from sucks.
I only included the link to the second article because I thought this post needed the additional context. Again, I cannot control whether (a) you or anyone else reads anything I post and (b) whether you or anyone else clicks on the links within the items I post (in fact, until a Freeper explained to me how to imbed the links in my post, I was just telling people to go to the original source if they felt like clicking the WaPo or other article that was quoted). As for Google ads, my understanding is that if an ad isn’t clicked on (and I don’t think anyone can force you or anyone else to click on those ads) no one makes any money (each click is worth a fraction of a cent).
Bottom line: no one is forcing you to do anything you don’t want to do.
However, I do agree that since some of the items I have posted from The Stiletto generated a respectable number of views on FR - plus lots of comments - that there should be a reciprocal link to FR. I totally disagree with you on the amount of “respect” to accord “royalty” - no more and no less than any other human being, IMO - but I do agree with you on this.