Sarah Palin Lashes Out at Bloggers, Mainstream Media, Tina Fey and Katie Couric

Okay, it wasn't a week ago that plezWorld made a pact not to bring this woman's name up on my BLOG again, but... you'll have to take 10 minutes out of your busy schedule to check out the video below. Can you say, "one French fry short of a Happy Meal"?

Tina Fey, oops, I mean, Gov. Sarah Palin said:

“I did see that Tina Fey was named entertainer of the year and Katie Couric’s ratings have risen. I know that a lot of people are capitalizing on, oh I don’t know, perhaps some exploiting that was done via me, my family, my administration — that’s a little bit perplexing, but it also says a great deal about our society.”

Yeah, Palin is in full victimhood mode here. And I must warn you, as funny and ridiculous as this seems, this was an actual interview with the real Sarah Palin.

"Sarah the Victim" Interview

~ ~ ~

plez sez: give me a friggin' break! what this sad episode says about our society is that just over 45 percent of the electorate voted to send this woman and john mccain to washington to lead this country during our most trying period in over 50 years.

she opens up the interview blaming "anonymous bloggers" like plezWorld for spreading misinformation about her alleged son, trig (i still don't believe it was misinformation)... and then goes on a nine-plus minute victimhood rant about tina fey's portrayal of her, the mishandling of her by the mccain camp in relation to the katie couric interviews, the mainstream media's handling of her, class-envy of caroline kennedy, the respect given to BARACK OBAMA's family contrasted against the treatment of the high school dropouts hanging around her household! by now i'm sure you've heard that her future son-in-law - levi johnston - is not only a high school dropout, but he's an unemployed dropout because he had to quit his apprenticeship because... he's a high school dropout! and no, i'm not making this up.

and then after bitchin' and moanin' about how she was received by he media, palin makes it clear that we're not done with with her yet; she plans to stay in the political limelight for years to come!

at one point in the interview, she goes "mama grizzly" about the "saturday night live" skit during which fey's version of palin said, "I believe marriage is meant to be a sacred institution between two unwilling teenagers." and then in the next breath says that if she had it to do all over again, she would still go on the show! huh?!?

this anonymous blogger (AKA plezWorld) and his insignificant blog wishes hellfire and damnation on john mccain for opening pandora's box by thrusting sarah palin and the wasilla hillbillies into the public eye. will we ever be rid of them?!?

~ ~ Citations ~ ~

Read the CNN.com article about Palin lashing out.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

SiteMeter Down Again

SiteMeter took another 24 hour break over the weekend. It's 9PM and I still can't track my stats nor see any reports.

SiteMeter is like crack and I'm going cold turkey!

CNN.com SPAM

From CNN Public Relations:

Earlier this week, a spam message purporting to be from CNN began circulating the Internet. We decided to blog about this to alert those of you who hadn’t yet received it to be on the lookout for it; and also to assure those of you who did receive it that the message was NOT, in fact, from CNN.

As you may know, spammers often disguise or forge the source of their e-mail to give recipients the impression that the message derived from another system, especially one tied to a recognizable brand. In this instance, the spammer chose to use the CNN brand.

The message, claiming to contain CNN’s Top 10 news stories and videos of the day, is fraudulent and did not originate from CNN. If you have received it, we suggest that you delete it from your mailbox. Further, we recommend you delete any e-mail message from your mailbox that you believe may be illegitimate.

Thanks to all of you out there who alerted us to the existence of this spam purporting to be from CNN.

plez sez: Fradulent Spam is Everywhere... i guess it's just a by-product of the Internet Age.

well, plezWorld was a frequent recipient of said SPAM... actually, i received a message each day for the past week. one thing that tipped me off that it was SPAM: all of the messages showed up in my SPAM Folder AND none of the links in the e-mail message were for CNN.com. DUH!

ya'll be carefull, it's a jungle out here!

SiteMeter IE Issues Resolved

The following update was posted to the SiteMeter.com home page earlier today:

Dear SiteMeter Users,

We have become aware of a compatibility issue with our SiteMeter tracking code and IE 7 ([and] IE 6) browsers that started sometime last night.

The problem was related to some work we were doing on the backend system for our upcoming website launch.

We’ve identified and resolved two separate but related issues -

1 - IE Users viewing pages - There was a problem with users who placed their SiteMeter tracking code outside of their HTML Body Tag. Because of the changes we made this created a failure for visitors viewing sites using Internet Explorer 7.

2 - Accessing SiteMeter and Stats - Individuals trying to access or view their SiteMeter stats by clicking on their SiteMeter logo/icons were unable to gain access. This again appears to have affected only individuals using IE7.

At this time both problems have been fixed and our services are fully operational.

For those who removed the SiteMeter code from your pages please be assured that the problem has been resolved and we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.

Sincerely,
The SiteMeter Team

plezWorld apologizes to all the bloggers and friends who were unable to access this site over the past 24 hours. hopefully, SiteMeter.com will do a better job of testing their software updates/patches prior to releasing them to an unsuspecting Internet universe... especially, on a Friday afternoon!

plezWorld Down? SiteMeter Crashing IE Sites!

for some reason, on August 1st, i could not access plezWorld. get a weird message that Internet Explorer cannot access my page.

BLOG UPDATE (08/02/2008 11:00AM EST):
my good friend over at Electronic Village, scooped me with some info that it was the blog counter SiteMeter.com that was generating the error.

All websites that used the javascript code for SiteMeter.com are currently inaccessible from Internet Explorer 6.0 and 7.0. Here is the site that has a fix for the SiteMeter.com error.

Basically you need to do one of the following:

Remove all javascript for SiteMeter.com from your site (i have a counter on each page, so there can be over 100 references on my blog)

Go to Internet Explorer Tools and restrict access to SiteMeter:

Click on the menu Tools -> Internet Options.
Click on the tab Security.
Click on the icon Restricted Sites.
Click on the button Sites.
Under Add this website to the zone:
Type the text "http://*.sitemeter.com" (without quotes).
Click the Add button. Click Close. Click OK.

i'm going with the second option, so that WHEN SiteMeter.com fixes the problem, i can quickly un-Restrict the site. so far, it is the best way to track the traffic that goes through plezWorld.

plezWorld from A to Z

As I often do, instead of spending the evening plopped down in front of the television, I find myself plopped down in front of my computer, checking out blogs and news articles from various newspapers. Well, I was wandering aimlessly through the blogosphere late last night and stumbled upon this meme at Bab's Bitchin:

A is for your age:
Forty-something

B is for your burger of choice:
Half-pounder with Swiss Cheese and Bacon (adorned with lettuce, tomato, mayo, and ketchup... hold the mustard)

C is for the car that you drive:
Ford Explorer - Eddie Bauer Edition

D is for dog’s name:
Ace was our Labrador Retriever when I was growing up

E is for an essential item you use each day:
Toothbrush

F is for your favorite television show:
Season Four of The Wire

G is for favorite game:
Scrabble, closely followed by Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit

H is for hometown:
North Tarrytown, NY (the town has since been renamed to Sleepy Hollow in 1997)

I is for instruments played:
In order: Voice, Recorder, Clarinet, Alto Saxophone, Tenor Saxophone, Piano, Trombone

J is for favorite juice:
Orange Juice

K is for what you’d like to kick:
I loved to play kickball at recess in elementary school

L is for last restaurant you dined at:
Ruby Tuesday... I had the Ribs & Shrimp combo (ugh!)

M is for your favorite Muppet:
Kermit

N is for number of piercings you have:
Zero... I could never figure out which ear a straight guy would pierce. Nowadays, people have both ears, noses, lips, eyebrows, and tongue piercings. OUCH!

O is for overnight hospital stays:
Zero... I have only had to go to the hospital on three occasions (all minor injuries or out-patient surgery)

P is for people you were with today:
Two... the SugarPlum (because her summer camp is taking a break for the holiday) and plezWife (for obvious reasons)

Q is for what you do in quiet times:
Mainly goof off on this damn computer looking for stuff to add to my blog!

R is for regrets:
The only regrets I have are for the things I have not done!

S is for status:
Some would say that I'm a high falutin' peon

T is for time you woke up today:
5:45 AM... plezWife woke me up before she left for work to remind me to take the SugarPlum to her piano lesson this afternoon

U is for what you consider unique:
My name... how many people do you know named "plez"?

V is for favorite vegetable:
Tomato

W is for your worst habit:
Biting my fingernails... a habit that has haunted me since early childhood, the good thing is that I can no longer limber enough to reach my toenails!

X is for x-rays you have had:
Two... both while in college to examine injuries I sustained while playing basketball, one on my knee, the other on my ankle

Y is for yummy food you ate today:
A Carmel Machiatto and Blueberry Muffin from Starbucks this morning

Z is for zodiac sign:
Cancer... incidently, my high school mascot was a Crab.

(if you come across this meme and choose to do it, let me know)

AfroSphere in the AJC

In today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Afrosphere/AfroSpear is the subject of an article in the Political Insider section. The article touches on complaints that Black bloggers are excluded from representing states at the upcoming Democratic National Convention. It contains quotes from two Black bloggers and the Comments section has contributions from other Black bloggers (and a number of white ones, as well).

Read the entire AJC article on the lack of Black bloggers invited to the DNC here.

Read the article from the Afrosphere Action Coalition concerning a resolution to this issue here.


plez sez: i'm not that crazy about using the race card or calling anyone a racist (as many of the commenters have chosen to do in the AJC article). this appears to be more of an oversight and an insensitivity issue with respect to the wide collection of voters who have a vested interest in the democratic national convention in denver.

the presumptive democratic nominee is Barack Obama... a Black guy. the state of Georgia where more than half of the democratic voters are Black, has a couple of white bloggers going to denver for the democratic national convention. after scanning all invited bloggers, it doesn't appear that any of them are Black! the blogosphere is littered with political commentary about the democratic race by Black bloggers, yet none were worthy of credentials to the dnc?

plezWorld doesn't advocate the removal of credentials for existing bloggers, it would be senseless to punish those who benefitted from the jacked up system. there is an easy fix, open up additional credentials for minority bloggers (not just Black ones), ensure there is a representative assembly of bloggers present for the convention.

AfroSpear Milestone - May 2008

The AfroSpear

In April 2007, plezWorld wrote: "...the AfroSpear is the realization of a think tank of Black (African-American) progressives to discuss, muse, and ruminate issues that affect our communities. Inasmuch, we are not a monolithic entity, the AfroSpear will encourage lively debate, discourse, and an occasional disagreement as we hone a thought or platform on a particular issue. With the power of the current bloggers on the AfroSpear list, I'm encouraged that positive and actionable results will become self-evident."

The Milestone

On yesterday, plezWorld added the 150th member to the AfroSpear Blog Roll (yeah, i'm the blog roll administrator). I joined this little group alittle over one year ago with about two dozen other Black bloggers from around the world. since that time, the membership has grown by leaps and bounds; and we may finally be suffering from growing pains. With power comes responsibility to use it wisely. The AfroSpear has become such a daunting force in the blogosphere that we have had to institute stringent rules for membership and a number of Black bloggers have been turned away. AfroSpear authors are being booked on television and radio shows, the bloggers have found their way into a number of articles of top newspapers around the country, and some members are finding celebrity and a great following for their blogs.

It is my hope that this very important milestone gives the collective AfroSpear membership a reason to pause and consciously deliberate on how we will continue to grow within this vast medium.

I remain optimistic about the future of the AfroSpear!

The AfroSpear BlogRoll

Seven Random Facts About plezWorld

Rafique, author of The Liberal War Journal has tagged me with the Seven Random Facts meme. Since plezWorld doesn't get tagged for memes very often, I'm compelled to comply.

The Rules:
I. Link to the person who tagged you.

II. Post the Rules Here.

III. Share Seven Random or Weird Facts About Yourself:
1. I started my first job when I was ten years old, delivering newspapers in Tarrytown, NY; the minimum age was 12 years old, but the delivery manager let me do it because my three older brothers also had paper routes in the small town.

2. I know a member of the Village People of "YMCA" fame, he was the choir director of the youth choir in the church that I attended in Elmsford, New York... his father was also the pastor of the church.

3. I used to take vocal training as a teenager and my only performance was a less-than-stellar rendition of the old Frank Sinatra standard "My Way."

4. Both of my parents were raised on farms in Depression Era and segregated North Carolina, they migrated up North in the late 1950's where I was born in New York; I was part of the reverse migration of the 1980's that brought me back Down South to Atlanta, Georgia.

5. I was a NASA Scholar when I went to college and I entertained the idea of entering the astronaut program, but I was too tall (I'm 6'4" and the maximum height requirement was under 6').

6. I met my wife 24 years ago at a party after the annual Georgia vs. Georgia Tech Football Game on the campus of the University of Georgia; the party was thrown by my frat brothers and she was hanging out with her snooty sorority sisters.

7. Many find it hard to believe that my wife and I share one checking account - the one I opened as a freshman at Georgia Tech - and we're still married after close to 18 years.

IV. Tag 7 random people, linking to them:
1. Lola Gets...
2. Boo Goo Doo Boom
3. Lori's Old School Mix
4. Cynical Bastard
5. living-loving-laughing
6. Stepfather of Soul
7. Terrence Says

(I actually put a random number generator to my Blog Roll and these are the seven blogs that emerged)

V. Leave a comment letting them know you've tagged them.

Shame Revisited - The Dunbar Village Rape

Several months ago, plezWorld joined Blogging for Justice to cast light on two horrific cases of sexual abuse directed at Black woman. It appears that the media cannot sate itself when telling the story of a blonde-haired blue-eyed victim, but seems to rarely illuminate cases that involve our Black women. We still get updates on that crazy Peterson dude whose wife went missing around Christmas, we still hear about the circus surrounding the disappearance of the high school girl who disappeared without a trace in Aruba (I think), but we hear precious little about poor Megan Williams in West Virginia or have heard even less about the Black mother and son who were sexually abused by crazed teenagers in West Palm Beach, Florida.

It was recently brought to my attention that the Dunbar Village incident (in Florida) did receive some media attention, but it was for all the wrong reasons. To recap the story from the August 22, 2007 Sun Times article:

The victim returned home from her job delivering phone books about 9 p.m. the night of the attack, according to her statement to police. While fixing her son something to eat, a young male with braids knocked on her door to tell her the tires on her truck were flat. Once outside, she said, she saw a male with a large gun and two others armed with guns. They wore black clothing over their faces, she said, and ordered her back into the apartment, where they demanded money.

After being told there was no money, the attackers tore off the woman's clothes and raped her until five others arrived, according to the documents. The new arrivals took turns having sex with her and then sodomized her. The mother was then ordered into a tub filled with vinegar and water where they used hydrogen peroxide, alcohol, nail polish remover and ammonia on her. At gunpoint, the assailants forced the mother and son to have sex.

Throughout the attack, the victims suffered beatings, including having a bowl and light bulbs smashed over their heads. The encounter was recorded on a cell phone camera, according to the mother.

Before leaving, the males looked for a lighter to set the two on fire but couldn't find one, she told police. They ordered the pair to stay in the tub and took off. About 30 minutes later one of the males returned to sexually assault the mother one last time. Before leaving, he scribbled a man's name and 6-CO, the name of a local gang, on a piece of paper and told the woman he hangs out on Sixth Street and that's where he could be found. He grabbed a Sony PlayStation 2 before fleeing the scene.

Police believe at up to ten teens/men were involved, but only four were ever charged.

Read the entire Sun Times article here.

The blog, The Point, has taken the initiative along with the blog, What About Our Daughters, in shedding light on this travesty. And this is where the story takes an ugly turn. The NAACP was contacted by the author of the blog, What About Our Daughters; an NAACP spokesperson responded that they would not be getting involved in the case because “it was outside their mission”! Al Sharpton's National Action Network never responded to any calls from the author of the blog... and then the other shoe dropped. Sharpton helped organize a town hall meeting for the Dunbar Village victim that was scheduled for February 10, 2008... and then he backed out ONE DAY before the event without explanation. On Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - only four weeks after the planned demonstration in support of the victim - Al Sharpton and the West Palm Beach NAACP held a press conference accusing the prosecutor of treating those arrested in this case unfairly. They demanded that the prosecutor offer bail to the youths arrested in this case and not try them as adults, because this was being done by the prosecutor in another gang rape case involving white perpetrators in a different Florida jurisdiction. The NAACP has apparently event sent attorneys to aid those arrested in their defense, this in spite of the heinous nature of the crime, air tight DNA evidence and confessions.

Nothing has been done by the NAACP or Al Sharpton's group to aid the victim and her son!

It makes one wonder what is going on in our society when so little value is placed on the lives of our Black women. If the victims had been white, there is no doubt that this story would've been at the top of Nancy Grace's show for weeks on end, the gang rape and violation of a Black woman gets nary a mention!

If you can find it in your heart to feel a shred of compassion for this family's misery, you are encouraged to make a $5, $10, $50, or $100 contribution to the victim fund to help the Dunbar Village victim and her son rebuild their shattered lives. Checks can be made payable to the Dunbar Village Victim Assistance Fund-St. Ann. You can drop your contribution off at any Wachovia Bank branch or mail them to: St. Ann Catholic Church, 310 N. Olive Ave., West Palm Beach, FL 33401. The church’s phone number is (561) 832-3757.

The NAACP and Al Sharpton must be brought to task for continuing the victimization of this victim while trying to aid and abet the worst elements of our society. We must let them know that they will no longer be welcome to speak on behalf of Black people if they cannot represent the best interests of Black people... and defending a group of degenerate thugs is not in the best interest of anyone!

Cancel your membership with the NAACP.

Contact your local NAACP Chapter and express your outrage at the behavior of the West Palm Beach Chapter.

Contact the National NAACP to express your outrage (Julian Bond–Chairman, NAACP National Headquarters, 4805 Mt. Hope Drive, Baltimore MD 21215 Phone: 410-580-5777)

Contact the West Palm Beach NAACP to express your outrage.

Contact Al Sharpton's Group to express your outrage (National Action Network, Rev. Al Sharpton, 106 W. 145th Street, Harlem, New York 10039 Phone: 212-690-3070 )

I thank Aaron over at A Political Season for bringing this issue to my attention.

[Hat Tip: The Point]
[Hat Tip: What About Our Daughters]
[Hat Tip: Black Women Vote!]
[Hat Tip: A Political Season]



plez sez: al sharpton is a blight on the Black community! he is that cancer that only destroys good cells. the sooner he is repudiated and discredited and muzzled... the better!

naacp is a mere shadow of its former self. the national association for the advancement of colored people is advancing the cause of thugs and masked goons... give me a break! the sooner that this group is disbanded... the better! i wish i could name ONE GOOD THING that the naacp has done in the past five years! the past ten years! i don't have a membership to cancel, i joined my college chapter when i was a freshman... i saw no need to renew it as a sophomore.

these groups (like al sharpton and the naacp) have a tendency to seek out the lowest and most base... and then call it justice. those four bastards should rot in jail for the misery they brought on this innocent family. the physical pain notwithstanding, consider for a moment the psychological scars that this mother and her son must carry for the remainder of their lives. when that pain is placed in the balance, it makes the actions of al sharpton and the naacp all the more egregious.

The 6th Degree: 6 Sites

plez sez: the fourth installment of the sixth degree of plezWorld is slightly different than the others. instead of drilling down six blog links from here, i am going to touch on six blogs on my BlogRoll that i have not visited lately who have posted something in the last day or two, enjoy:

1st Degree: Georgia Politics Unfiltered
2nd Degree: Wandering the Ether
3rd Degree: The Stepfather of Soul
4th Degree: Not the Nanny
5th Degree: Living-Loving-Laughing
6th Degree: Lori's Old School Mix



What is the sixth degree of plezWorld? Find the answer here.

Free Day? Never!

According to the rules and regulations of Blog365, today is supposed to be a Free Day: the one day of the year when Blog365 participants should NOT blog since this is a Leap Year. I'm still layed up recovering from a bout with the flu and my judgement is doubtless clouded by the fog of greenish mucous that I've been coughing out of my lungs every couple of minutes.

Since I my body has been wrecked with coughing fits and a sickly fever and muscle aches, I have quarantined myself to the big a** couch under a couple of blankets in the sitting room just off of the master bedroom. The television here is scheduled to spring to life every morning to C-SPAN's Washington Journal at seven o'clock. This morning's lead story was that one out of every 100 Americans are now in prison, for Black men, the number is more like one out of every nine in the 20 to 34 age group. The US locks up more of its citizens (by sheer number and percentage of total) than any other country - China comes in at a distant second. Of course, the open phone lines presented a vast swath of American opinion from liberal excuses to the predisposition of Blacks to criminal activity. I heard very little real analysis.

If you ask me - and I know you did - the high number of criminals in this country is tied directly to three things: (1) criminalization of drug use, (2) destruction of the family, and (3) lack of education. It each case, these three things are amplified and magnified in the Black community, thus the explosion of incarceration of Black men. Most Black men who are in jail are there for non-violent offenses (the remnants of the war on drugs), perpetrators of those crimes should fulfill an obligation to the state rather than being sent to a prison to learn a racket behind bars. I'd rather see them picking up trash along the highway, cleaning our waterways, filling potholes, or scrubbing graffiti. their crime is no worse than an alcohol offense, rather than locking them up with hardened criminals, put their idle hands to work for the betterment of our community.

The Black community has never recovered from the liberal Great Society social engineering experiment that ripped fathers from their families for the purpose of generating marginally higher checks from the state that began in the mid-1960's. A fatherless economy now flourishes in the Black community and no one wants to admit that the lack of a father figure living in the house with little boys and little girls is contributing to the destruction of the fabric of the community. Little boys do not see a man going to work every day and providing for his family, they are growing up seeing that as the work of the woman! Little girls see their mothers providing for the family without benefit of a father and they grow up thinking that this must be their role for their family. After several generations, you have Black families that do not see the need for a Black father in the household... Black men are relegated to being little more than sperm donors. To my way of thinking, if you are not working to provide for your family, there is little left for you to do other than engage in criminal activity. In some families, incarceration of the man is seen as a rite of passage!

Education. Education. Education. As a whole, there is not a great emphasis on quality education in the Black community. I see this as the greatest impediment to the advancement of Black people. It appears that there is a wholesale rejection of education as a way to increase one's station in life - in a society that rewards those who are educated and pisses on those who are not... there are very few options open to those who do not have a high school diploma. Low wage, factory work has been shipped overseas. Higher wage, high tech jobs require college degrees and many of these are being shipped overseas as well. You cannot get a job in this country without an adequate education, without an education, one has few options that does not include criminal behavior.

Read the entire Atlanta Journal-Constitution article on the prison population here.

plez sez: i don't have the energy to wrap this up... another double-shot of Nyquil has me fading fast! i took the picture above just before just before i faded off to sleep... sweet dreams are made of this...

The 6th Degree: Do Be Have

Lewis Empire blog describes itself as "strategies to help manage your finances, invest your money and retire young." plezWorld found an interesting meme tucked away in this blog post. Lewis has apparently developed something called the 62 Steps to Success based on Jack Canfield’s book, "The Success Principles." The basic premise is that in order to work towards something, you need to know what you’re going to learn (Be), experience (Do), and get to play with (Have).

The meme seems pretty simple, come up with make your list of 10 things you want to do, 10 things you want to have, and 10 things you want to become. Well, it turned out to be a lot more difficult than I had expected. Here’s my list:

Do

Blog everyday in 2008

Skydive

Drive a car over 200 mph

Get invited to the White House by the President

Endow a scholarship in my name at my alma mater

Dunk a basketball, again

Teach a high school calculus class

Find and visit my ancestral home on the African continent

Sing the National Anthem before a football game

Walk my daughter down the aisle at her wedding

Be

An expert in my field (whatever that may be)

An elected official

50-year old retiree

A good husband and father

A role model for my community

The basis of a positive story on the nightly news

Reincarnated, so I can do it right the next time

My destiny

A trusted advisor

Happy

Have

$1,000,000 in my bank account

A red Cadillac Escalade

Life Membership Pin

A seat on the Space Shuttle

Respect of my family

No debt

Great grandson

My daughter's PhD hood

A beach house in the Caribbean

My health

I'm probably supposed to tag some other blogs to compel them to complete this meme, but I find that process so passe'... so if you've gotten this point in my post, consider yourself tagged! *smile*

[Hat Tip: Lewis Empire]


plez sez:

the third installment of the sixth degree of plezWorld:

1st Degree: Brown Sugar
2nd Degree: Whitney's Big Adventure
3rd Degree: Reggie, another kid with good* credit
4th Degree: Dual Income No Kids
5th Degree: CheddarBlog
6th Degree: Lewis Empire



What is the sixth degree of plezWorld? Find the answer here.

The 6th Degree: Olny srmat poelpe can raed tihs.

You think you're smart, huh?!?

More Brain Stuff... From Cambridge University.

Olny srmat poelpe can raed tihs.
I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset c! an be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs psas it on!!

Psas Ti ON!

The blogger writes: "Not just that you can figure it out, but you can read it at nearly full speed. If our minds are so amazing, how come we keep doing such stupid things?"

[Hat Tip: The Happy Carpenter]


plez sez:

a mere 6 days after the inaugural segment comes the second installment of the Sixth Degree:

1st Degree: Lori's Old School Mix
2nd Degree: NewBlackMan
3rd Degree: The Casey Lartigue Show!
4th Degree: Asymmetrical Information
5th Degree: TigerHawk
6th Degree: The Happy Carpenter



What is the sixth degree of plezWorld? Find the answer here.

Another Milestone in plezWorld

According to sitemeter, at or about 9:15 AM EST on Monday, January 7, 2008, a visitor from Harlan, Iowa caused plezWorld to pass a significant milestone: the 10,000thth visitor.

10,000

it's no surprise that this person was directed to plezWorld when he/she Googled for "seven girls with seven backpacks with seven cats with seven kittens"! the brainteaser series is still the most popular post on plezWorld.

plez sez: ten thousand is a big number. now i'm sure a couple of hundred of those hits were mine from when i'm on the road (i have sitemeter set up to ignore hits from my home computer), but this is still a significant accomplishment.

i'd like to thank everyone who has dropped by on purpose and probably the 5,000 who clicked on plezWorld by accident... i hope you enjoyed this tiny, yet significant thread which helps comprise the vast tapestry that is plez's world!

here's to 10,000 more!

The 6th Degree: High Tech College Classroom

[Hat Tip: left cheek]

plez sez: since i've signed on to blog everyday for 2008, i will have to get alittle more creative in finding blog fodder. occasionally - well, probably more often than that - i will wander aimlessly, let's say about 6 blog roll links away from plezWorld to find a blog. i will then post something that i've found at that sixth blog: "The 6th Degree".

if nothing else, this will provide me (and plezWorld readers) the opportunity to see content that we would not ordinarily read.

1st Degree: Mirror on America
2nd Degree: Nat Turner's Revenge
3rd Degree: field negro
4th Degree: U.S.S. Clueless
5th Degree: Iron E (Fe+E)
6th Degree: left cheek

Post-NaBloPoMo Blog Addiction Update

68%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

SFO Dating

plez sez: on November 1st, i kicked off National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) with a meter showing my Blog Addiction. at the time, i came in at 64%.

well, today marks the last day of NaBloPoMo and i thought that i would re-assess my standing... and you can see how much more fervent i am in my need to blog (a mere 4% increase)! *smile*

i hope you enjoyed it at much as i did.

NOTE: now let's see if i can win one of those kitschy prizes they've been offering up on the NaBloPoMo site!

Milestone in plezWorld

My trusty sitemeter tells me that at 9:26 PM EST on Tuesday, November 27, 2007 (earlier tonight), a visitor from Kingston, Jamaica (which is 1,216 miles away) caused plezWorld to pass a significant milestone: the 1,205th visitor during the month of November.

This is the most visitors this site has ever had in one month!

plez sez: i know there are sites out there that have 1,200 visitors per day, but the thought that more than 1,200 sets of eyeballs have read, at least in part, something that was written by my fingernail-bitten fingers is a bit of amazement to me.

it gives one a reason to pause and think about what i am actually writing. i'm not a great philosopher, my analytical skills are average, my prognostications are frequently off-base, i'm not much of a wordsmith, and i am nowhere near a revolutionary scribe in the blogosphere, but i do realize that i have an obligation to those 1,200 sets of eyeballs... and the 1,200 minds attached to those eyeballs! i have an obligation to keep it REAL and an obligation to tell the TRUTH... even when the truth hurts.

i have learned that more often than not, the truth hurts!

to those 1,200 eyeballs and the next 100 or so who'll zoom through the Internet into plezWorld over the next couple of days, i thank you for spending a small portion of your day in my world. i hope that you will enjoy, laugh, think, or maybe even shed a tear to something that i've written... as this is truly a small, yet significant, thread in the vast colorful and luxurious tapestry that is plez's world!

plezWorld is Suitable for Most Audiences

Maybe I'm wilting under the pressure of NaBloPoMo (I haven't missed a day, yet) or it could be that I'm just a glutton for punishment, but I have relented and submitted plezWorld to another one of these ranking engines (I found this at Whatever Lola Wants).

This time, the blog gets a movie rating: G, PG, PG-13, R, NA-17, etc. (Lola's blog is rated R)

MPLS Dating

So plezWorld is suitable for just about any reader who stumbles upon it!


First, it's the Junior High School ranking and now I'm rated PG. I could've sworn that I had more piss and vinegar in me than that! I guess I need to start straight up cussin'...

If you rate your blog, please post a comment here with its movie rating.

Come On People - Cosby & Poussaint - Overview

A few weeks ago, plezWorld was contacted by the promoters of the new book by Dr. Bill Cosby and Dr. Alvin Poussaint, "Come On People," which combines messages of personal responsibility with practical solutions, and retells the stories that have been included at community call-outs in cities across the country for the past three years. In exchange for a review copy of the book, plezWorld has agreed to write an honest review of the book.

I am not a professional book reviewer and my command of the English language is up for debate in some quarters, but I agree with the tag line for the book: "No matter your economic status, no matter your age, no matter your race, no matter your gender, and no matter your religion, we are all allies in changing our future for the better." I have taken on the task of writing a review for the book. My wife has also read the book, so there is an opportunity for a Guest Blog with her perspective on the book. In posts over the next two weeks, plezWorld will review a different chapter in the book:

1. What's Going On with Black Men?
2. It Takes a Community
3. We All Start Out as Children
4. Teach Your Children Well
5. The Media You Deserve
6. Healthy Hears and Minds
7. The High Price of Violence
8. From Poverty to Prosperity

Overview: This appears to be a self-help book on how America (specifically, Black America) must take a long hard look on what we've learned from our past and how to translate that legacy into solutions of success for our collective futures. These solutions translate well for ALL of America, but the book concentrates its focus on the Black community which needs this help the most.

If you'd like a preview, here are links to three downloadable PDF's of excerpts from "Come On People":
We All Start Out As Children (pages 77 - 88)
Teach Your Children Well (pages 124 - 132)
Healthy Hearts and Minds (page 168 - 174)

At www.BillCosby.com you can purchase copies of the book and you will find a forum called "The Cos," that is designed for community members to discuss issues beyond those addressed in the book, as well as a place for people to come together and offer solutions.