Petey's Pipeline E-zine

Issue #38

September 18, 2006

Contents

Business First An Empty Proposal
Random Ramblings & Miscellaneous Musings The Case for Hemp Legalization: Family Farms
Write Thinking Punctuation – the Marks of Professionals (the Exclamation Mark)

Business First (Editorial)

An Empty Proposal

As if I didn't already have enough problems . . .!

A few days ago I received e-mail asking for a link exchange. It was from a company, based in Pakistan, which specializes in Web page optimization and linking strategies. Because I always check out a Web site before agreeing to exchange links with it, I clicked on an embedded link that took me to the site's home page.

Once there, I found a professionally designed Web page, which included a menu bar with a "links" button, and a minimal amount of text describing effective linking strategies. So far, it's looking exactly like the kind of site I prefer to link to. I decided to read the home page text.

As it turned out, that proved to be a wise decision. About midway through the text there's a paragraph explaining that the best linking strategy is to have lots of links coming into your site and none going out. A red flag immediately shot into the air and quickly expanded to the size of the Goodyear blimp.

Whoa! What kind of link exchange are they proposing, anyway? I clicked on the "links" button and soon arrived at a links page that contained little more than an invitation to exchange links, and a directory of link categories. I clicked on one of the categories.

The page that opened contained no reciprocal links, no outbound links of any kind. The only way to get off the page was to hit the browser's "back" button, or close the browser. I chose the "back" button, then clicked on another category, which produced the same results. Tried a third category, got more of the same ol' same ol'.

It was obvious, then, that the Web site was proposing a link exchange whereby I link my Web site to its home page, and in return that Web site would place a reciprocal link to Perfect Text on a blind page, an obscure page that can't be spidered by search engines. In other words, the inquiring Web site wanted something for nothing.

No thanks! That's not my kind of deal.

Click!

Delete!

One problem solved!

• • •

For an occasional dose of insight and opinion, read Petey's Pipeline Blog.

You're invited to comment on e-zine articles or Petey's Pipeline Blog postings at any time. Whether you agree or disagree, your thoughtful, carefully considered comments are welcome. However, anything suggestive of a temper tantrum, psychotic episode or hysteria will be deleted.

Address article comments to the editor. Send your blog comments c/o Petey.

Running a spelling check on your text before posting comments is strongly encouraged. Perfect Text, Petey's Pipeline E-zine and Petey's Pipeline Blog exist, in part, to make all of us better writers. Let's not defeat that purpose by being hasty or becoming careless.

Random Ramblings & Miscellaneous Musings

The Case for Hemp Legalization: Family Farms
by Phil Hanson

What would legalized cannabis hemp mean to the thousands of family farms that continue to operate despite the farm-economy deck being stacked against them?

For starters, it would mean a new source of income, a stable annual revenue stream, and higher profits for the multitude of small farms that seem to be forever at the mercy of corporate interests with the power to dictate prices and control markets.

It would wrest economic power away from giant corporations and return it to local businesses, endowing more people with opportunities to participate in local economies that enrich local communities.

Legalized growing of hemp makes possible an alternative resource that, when fully exploited, can substantially reduce the introduction of polluting insecticides and herbicides into the environment. Hemp needs little in the way of pesticides, and rarely (if ever) any herbicides, and it can be grown with natural fertilizers, meaning that large quantities of petroleum-derived fertilizers remain out of the environment. The results are additional net gains for the environment and lower operating costs for farmers that grow hemp.

Cannabis hemp makes an excellent rotation crop and a profitable cover crop when planted in fallow years. It's the single best chance family farmers have of improving productivity and increasing profits.

Growing hemp helps to contain topsoil erosion, cut transportation costs, minimize the use of synthetic fertilizers, open new channels for research, and ease the transition from a wasteful, destructive, fossil-fuel dependent, unsustainable economy to an economy that's both "green" and sustainable.

Where cross-pollination is an undesirable occurrence in seed crop production, state and/or local regulations often call for buffer zones, between crops, five or more miles wide. Because hemp grows tall and has dense foliage, it makes a good buffer crop to help stop the unwanted influx of potentially damaging seeds, pollen and spores.

Hemp grows best in moderate climates and in well drained, slightly acidic soil. Like corn, hemp needs lots of moisture to achieve maximum growth, meaning that adequate rainfall or irrigation is essential to crop success. Generally, hemp can be grown wherever corn can be grown, but without the environmental damage that growing corn entails.

The more one learns about hemp the easier it is to recognize its potential to become the primary resource in a sustainable, environment-friendly economy. Its value as a feedstock for numerous industries is too great to permit its continued suppression. And the nation's family farms are too important to allow them to continue to languish at the pleasure and convenience of huge agri-biz conglomerates.

Copyright © 2006 by Phil Hanson
All rights reserved.

Write Thinking

Punctuation – the Marks of Professionals

Getting punctuation right is critical to making your writing intelligible and coherent. As with misspelled and misused words, misused or missing punctuation takes your message off track and confuses your readers. To help you avoid the avoidable, the next few installments of Write Thinking deal with punctuation marks, in all their many forms, with example sentences provided for clarification.

The Exclamation Mark

An exclamation mark follows all exclamatory sentences that convey deep feelings, strong emotions, or surprise.

An exclamation mark follows interjections and statements that spur immediate action or emphasize commands.

An exclamation mark follows an interrogative sentence that's meant to be exclamatory.

Disclaimer

The articles appearing in Petey's Pipeline E-zine are based on information believed to be true at the time of publication. Neither Perfecttext.com, Petey's Pipeline E-zine nor their publisher assume any liability or responsibility as to the accuracy or efficacy of any information, products or services that are submitted, advertised or rendered by contributors to Petey's Pipeline E-zine. While we make every effort to screen out scam artists and bogus offers, you should still do your homework. Caveat emptor!

Top of Page

E-zine Archive