[ryanwaggoner]

Source?

oogle is smart enough these days to tell an "artificial" link from a "natural" link. As a result links from the sidebars or blogrolls of other websites, link from signatures and most links from profiles are not decent links and will do very little to affect the rankings of your domain.

This makes no sense. As a blogger, a link in my sidebar on every page is far more valuable than a single link in the body of a post.