Kevin Drum our attention to the Washington Post’s scoop this morning that lends further credence to the claim that Bush administration officials deliberately leaked the identity of former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson’s wife — an undercover CIA officer. From the Post:
At CIA Director George J. Tenet’s request, the Justice Department is looking into an allegation that administration officials leaked the name of an undercover CIA officer to a journalist, government sources said yesterday.
The operative’s identity was published in July after her husband, former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, publicly challenged President Bush’s claim that Iraq had tried to buy “yellowcake” uranium ore from Africa for possible use in nuclear weapons. Bush later backed away from the claim.
The intentional disclosure of a covert operative’s identity is a violation of federal law.
The officer’s name was disclosed on July 14 in a syndicated column by Robert D. Novak, who said his sources were two senior administration officials.
Yesterday, a senior administration official said that before Novak’s column ran, two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson’s wife. Wilson had just revealed that the CIA had sent him to Niger last year to look into the uranium claim and that he had found no evidence to back up the charge. Wilson’s account touched off a political fracas over Bush’s use of intelligence as he made the case for attacking Iraq.
Atrios is all over the story (natch) and Hesiod is asking where the top conservative bloggers are on the issue (using the Ecosystem as his source, which is nice: but damn, Hesiod, it’s The Truth Laid Bear — it’s not like you haven’t had a good year plus to get that right or anything…) Even the Bad Dude himself is joining the fun.
The facts are still coming out on this case, so I’ll reserve making any sweeping judgments until the full story (or at least, more of it) is known. But there’s no great moral conundrum here: if the facts of the Post story are true, then the administration sources clearly acted unethically, immorally, and illegally. And if their actions can be proven in a court of law, they should go to jail. We’ve got plenty of legal processes to deal with this sort of thing — and it appears that, thus far, those processes are functioning properly (the lead of the Post story is that the Justice Department is investigating the issue, after all).
As for broader conclusions on what this says about the Bush administration — I’ll wait on that. Obviously it isn’t good, but leaping to conclusions like impeachment (Hesiod) is a bit premature in my view. If, however, it can be shown that Bush himself authorized (or even knew of) the leak — then yes, impeaching a president for willfully violating the law is just fine by me. Ditto on a smaller scale for kicking out Karl Rove, if he proves to be responsible (which, to be clear, there is absolutely no evidence of at this time, although the speculation is not an unreasonable one).
But before celebrating the prospect of impeachment all too much, Hesiod should of course consider that it would leave him with President Cheney…
Update:Josh Marshall has some speculative, but excellent, thoughts on the matter…
Category: Main
Slate’s Weisberg: Rounding as an Editorial Art Form
Slate’s Jacob Weisberg was on the Slate/NPR radio program Day to Day this morning, discussing President Bush’s appearance at the U.N. One particular statement caught me by surprise:
(transcript is, as usual, my own from repeated listening of the RealAudio, the relevant section begins at about 4 minutes in):
Weisberg: We’re taking casualties in Iraq every day; over the last few days, U.S. soldiers have been killed at the rate of two a day. I think there’s a general acknowledgement that the occupation is not going well — perhaps it could be going worse, but it’s not going well and there’s no end in sight.
(italics mine).
There’s only one problem with Weisberg’s flat statement on the casualty rate in Iraq: it just isn’t true.
The most easily accessible source I have found for data on casualties is the impressive website at lunaville.org simply titled Iraqi Coalition Casualty Count. As the site explains in their methodology page, the Department of Defense itself doesn’t make it terribly easy to find day-by-day data on casualties, although they do provide the raw data in the form of press releases and (extremely) high level summaries (PDF). Lunaville appears to be stepping up to the plate to try to provide the information in a searchable database.
That said, back to Weisberg’s statement. We’ll assume that when he stated that “we’re taking casualties in Iraq every day” he included wounded personnel as well as those killed — and by that definition he is almost certainly correct. But when he says “over the last few days, U.S. soldiers have been killed at the rate of two a day”, the facts don’t seem to support him.
Lunaville shows the following counts for U.S. soldiers killed over the past week:
9/22/2003 1
9/21/2003 0
9/20/2003 3
9/19/2003 0
9/18/2003 4
9/17/2003 0
9/16/2003 0
Depending on how you interpret Weisberg’s “last few days”, you get a different number for the average deaths per day. But there is no mathematical way you can make that number come out to even approach 2. If you look at the past three days, you get an average of 1.33; four days gives you 1.0; five days gives the maximum at 1.6, with six days at 1.33 again and the last week’s average being 1.14.
How about the whole month of September? Lunaville shows 21 U.S. soldiers killed in the past 22 days; an average of 0.95 a day. The month of August? 35 U.S. deaths in 31 days — an average of 1.13 a day.
All of these calculations are, of course, completely dependent on the source data. I am assuming Lunaville‘s counts are accurate, as they appear to be quite serious about their task and I’ve seen no evidence to contradict them. But be your own judge; that’s what the hyperlink is for.
But if you do accept the source numbers, there’s no way to avoid concluding that Weisberg’s statement that “over the last few days, U.S. soldiers have been killed at the rate of two a day” is simply wrong. If the question of just how bad things are in Iraq right now wasn’t so critical, I might be inclined to let a statement like this slide. But this issue is critical, and if journalists are going to declare Iraq to be “not going well”, we at least should demand that they get the numbers right.
What’s that you say? Weisberg was simply speaking during a radio interview, and that taking an exact spoken quote and dissecting it like this is a tad unfair? Well, I’m sure Weisberg himself might agree. Or maybe not.
Finally, in taking potshots at Mr. Weisberg, I don’t want to commit the offense of simply reducing these dreadful losses to mere numbers. Yeah, it’s not two a day, but it is still too damned many. And so I encourage you to go here, or here to see the faces of the soldiers who will not be coming home. What was lost with them cannot be replaced for their families and loved ones; and I can only offer my thoughts and sympathies to those that they have left behind.
Objectivtity Is In the Eye of the Beholder
Slate’s Press Box columnist, Jack Shafer, took a break from beating up on Judith Miller to Matt Miller for a proposal in his new book, The Two Percent Solution. (No relation between the Miller’s, far as I know: what is it with Shafer and that name, anyway?)
Matt Miller, the able and patient host of KCRW’s Left Right and Center (he must be patient, he puts up with Bob Scheer every week), argues in his book for, among other things, newspapers to run a feature he calls ‘Still True Today’. (As I enjoy Miller’s work on KCRW, I must admit with embarassment that I haven’t read his book yet, hence I’m relying on Shafer’s quotations here). Shafer describes Miller’s idea as follows:
Setting aside the wisdom of Miller’s $200 billion proposal [the main thrust of his book; I leave this to another post – NZB], he believes newspapers should raise awareness of America’s unmet health, education, and income needs with a daily feature called “Still True Today.” Bannered across the bottom inch of Page One (just 2 percent of a standard broadsheet!), “Still True Today” would “institutionalize regular attention for things that are important even though there’s not ‘news’ in them,” Miller writes. One day the feature would explain, “42 million Americans are uninsured
Editor, Edit Thyself
The big names are making hash of the Sacramento Bee’s decision to submit their widely respected house blogger Daniel Weintraub to editing of his blog. Kaus fears “a smothering blanket of bureaucratic timidity”; Glenn notes that the incident combines “unthinking political correctness, corporate-mandated dullness, and complete cluelessness, all in one event” and Welch observes “You don’t need to employ an ombudsman to be gutless and wrong, but it certainly doesn’t hurt.”
The Bee’s decision, is of course dumb dumb dumb. It can make whatever rules it likes about the content that gets posted to its web pages, so it’s not an immoral or unethical decision. Just a dumb one.
I figure we’re going to be submitted to some mealy-mouthed backtracking over the next few days as the Bee editors realize just how badly they’ve stepped in it. Expect a limp reassurances to emmanate from their general direction real soon — I only hope that poor Weintraub isn’t forced to particpate; the whole scenario would bring shades of hostage-videos to mind. “I am being treated fairly and the editing is not inhumane…”
Update: Roger Simon is also deeply unimpressed.
Ilyka Damen Wins; Blogger Alliance Retains Sponsorship
Congratulations to Ilyka Damen, who has won this week’s New Weblog Showcase with the post A Happy Epiphany.
In other news, the dread Blogger Alliance has retained the sponsorship of the Showcase for another week, turning out 21 of their 65 members (32.3 %) versus the Axis of Naughty‘s 5 of 24 members (20.8 %).
Full Showcase results are as follows:
Ilyka Damen: A Happy Epiphany
( 24 links)
DFMoore: Your Daily Dose of Pizzazz!: More on Moral Relativism
( 15 links)
Jim Lynch: Remembering 9/11
( 9 links)
Snooze Button Dreams: We Like Broccoli (or “Stupid Human Tricks”)
( 8 links)
MIXBAGOFMUSINGS: Tuesday, September 09, 2003
( 5 links)
argghhh!!: McDonald’s to Launch Adult Happy Meals
( 5 links)
darrenkaplan.net: Aftermath–The New World 9-12-01
( 4 links)
Sequitur/Non: Clark’s AntiWar Credentials
( 3 links)
Forgotten Fronts: Kill the Imam.
( 3 links)
Tom’s Nap Room: Beatles take a bite out of iTunes
( 3 links)
Terrible Swift Word: Pathetic
( 3 links)
Crazy Thinking: The WTO disaster and the security threat within
( 3 links)
Bawstin Sports Pundits: Red Sox Nation
( 2 links)
Twothings Sites and Places of Interest: Twothings Sites and Places of Interest
( 2 links)
Perspective on the BS of TV Pundits: Tinsel Town Deficits
( 1 links)
Gold and Silver Blog: Mahendra’s Hurricane Isabel Prophecy
( 1 links)
The Enemy: “The Enemy” Brief Outline
( 1 links)
Give me Cappuccino (extra foam, half-caff, nonfat) , or give me…
Sometimes, folks with wealth redistribution schemes abandon all pretense of there being any connection between those paying the tax and those receiving the benefits, which at least makes them honest thieves. Take, for example, the bright bulbs up in Seattle who have decided that with a taste for espresso should pay for other people’s childcare:
On Sept. 16, Seattle voters will face a ballot question asking them to add a dime-a-cup tax to their espresso drinks. This “luxury” tax, as Initiative 77 calls it, would pay for preschool and day care programs.
(You can also find NPR’s coverage in RealAudio here).
This is great stuff for conservatives, of course — it’s right neighborly of the well-meaning liberals trying to pass this measure to make it so easy for conservatives to bash not just this particular scheme, but the entire concept of wealth redistribution.
And think of the slogans! “You’ll tax my latte when you pry it from my cold (on account of the double-cups I insist on and screw the damned rainforest) dead hands!” and all that…
PS – Suggestion to the Seattle forces opposing the tax: perhaps folks need a little history reminder. Seattle Coffee Party, anyone?
Update: Shot down!
Blogger Alliance Triumphs
In a come-from-behind victory, the Alliance has won victory in the first weekly contest to sponsor the New Weblog Showcase by having the highest percentage of its members cast votes for Showcase participants.
Final results were as follows:
Blogger Alliance: 30 of 76 = 39.5 % participation
Axis of Naughty: 8 of 24 = 33.3 % participation
Congratulations to Frank and his minions!
As I have mentioned, the sponsorship contest will run from week to week: so the Axis of Naughty has a chance to reclaim their honor this week… stay tuned!
Virtue Pure Wins Victory Pure
Congratulations to Virtue Pure for winning this week’s New Weblog Showcase with the post On Roleplaying.
Full results are as follows:
Virtue Pure: On Roleplaying
( 31 links)
Pardon My English: Who Needs Citizenship?
( 26 links)
Snooze Button Dreams: Why oh why do I have to love women?
( 15 links)
brainstorming: Mayberry R.F.D.
( 14 links)
http://www.jerrymccusker.com/blog/: If Americans Ran the Afterlife
( 14 links)
QandO: Post-war Iraq is (gasp) difficult
( 12 links)
argghhh!!: Mudville Gazette: 911 Remembered: Rick Rescorla was a soldier
( 8 links)
Eye on the Left: The Exlusionary World of Money
( 7 links)
OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE LAW: MORE ON SCO v. IBM
( 5 links)
Inspiranote: The Garden You Give
( 4 links)
Like a Packet of Woodbines: Cat’s eyes
( 4 links)
Blogfonte: George Galloway
( 3 links)
Write Lightning: The Emperor’s (Kids’) New Clothes
( 1 links)
Call for Alliance Updates
I will be working today on the code to tally votes cast by Alliance and Axis of Naughty members to see who wins the Blog Showcase sponsorship contest.
If either alliance’s membership list has changed, now is the time to let me know. It will be a great help if you have additions to: a) Ensure they are added to the Ecosystem yourself if they are not already in the Ecosystem (you don’t need me to do this), and b) Provide me a simple list of the exact URLs of the new blogs as they appear in the Ecosystem. That will ensure I can get them added quickly today.
Update: Wow. That wasn’t so hard. The new code is implemented and appears to be working: check it out on the Alliance Statistics page. Alliances: I’d appreciate your help in double-checking the stats today; if you see any inaccuracies or issues I’ll do what I can to resolve them before the final count tomorrow morning.
Update Again: For the record, the Axis of Naughty is strongly in the lead at the moment — remember that the winning alliance will be determined by the percentage of their membership which participates, not the absolute number. The Axis currently has 29 % participation, while the Blogger Alliance languishes at 16%.
Welcome Newcomers!
Welcome, visitors! Combined with the Instalanche Glenn unleashed yesterday, TTLB is getting a mighty blast of traffic, and I suspect many of you may be newcomers to my little part of the Blogosphere.
So, a quick guide:
– The post you are probably looking for is here: Inside the Mind of NPR. Or just scroll down.
– In addition to being a blogger myself, I also host a few weblog tools of my own devising. The TTLB Blogosphere Ecosystem is a list of weblogs ranked (and categorized) by their popularity with other weblogs, as measured by how many incoming links they receive. A new addition is another listing which shows weblogs ranked by their average number of daily visitors (traffic). Finally, the New Weblog Showcase is a weekly contest which provides a forum for those new to blogging to showcase their best work — see here for a FAQ and more details.
– If you feel like truly indulging this simple bear, browse through my self-selected greatest hits, which you’ll find under Classic Bear Truth on the left navigation bar. Personal favorites at the moment are When 300 Baud Was the Bomb (a reminiscence on the good old days of BBS’s published at Salon.com) ; The War of the Memes (my take on the war on terror); and July 28, 2014 (a more creative piece I did last summer trying to look forward by looking backward. Or vice-versa).
I hope you’ll find my work worth returning for, and if you have comments or feedback, please feel free to drop me a line. Enjoy your stay!
-N.Z. Bear
Inside the mind of NPR
I like NPR. I don’t agree with their slant of coverage much of the time, particularly regarding the war. But I listen, simply because there just ain’t any alternative if you want continuous radio news coverage. But even I was taken somewhat aback by an interview I heard yesterday.
In a bout of self-examination (or is it congratulation?) NPR’s Terry Gross interviewed NPR’s Anne Garrels on Fresh Air yesterday. Garrels was NPR’s correspondent in Iraq during the early phase of the war, and has just written a book on the experience.
The interview is available in RealAudio format — the segment in question begins at about 28 minutes 30 seconds in. (The transcript below is my own transcription from listening to the audio (repeatedly)).
Gross asked a simple question, Garrels answer to which speaks volumes:
Terry Gross: Could you describe what you consider to be the emotional high point and low point for you during the war — as a reporter and as a human being being there?
Anne Garrels: I think a curious high point was in the weeks afterwards when I realized that all the months of staying there had really been worth it because Iraqis had so accurately predicted what was going to happen; Iraqis knew themselves and made it very clear. So in a perverse kind of way I guess that was a high point. I was astonished at how ill-prepared the Bush administration was for the aftermath from the very beginning. And that continues to this day.
Think about this. Garrels witnessed the fall of one of the more evil regimes of the past century. Even for the most staunch opponent of the war, the end of Saddam’s power and the beginning of the Iraqi people’s freedom must be recognized as a huge achievement for human decency.
But what was Garrels emotional high point? That’s right: when she felt reassured that yes, things really are going badly for Iraq — and the U.S. When her view that America was screwing things up was confirmed.
It is human to want to validate one’s own actions; to feel some smug self-justification if events do indeed turn out badly when one has been predicting they would. But in Garrels situation, with all the things she must have seen and experienced, to declare that feeling to be the high point?
It is honorable of Garrels to admit this honestly. But that doesn’t make it any less pathetic.
A day to remember
I had meant to do a more significant post today, but other responsibilities intervened.
In brief, then: this is not the anniversary of a “tragedy”. It is the anniversary of an attack; planned and carried out by men who conciously and deliberately inflicted the death and suffering of that day on the citizens of our nation — and many others.
I believe that September 11th, 2001 represented one battle of a larger war — not the first, by any means, and as much as we might regret it, not the last. You may disagree with my use of the word “war”. But what you think, and what I think, doesn’t matter: because it is clear that the remnants of those who attacked us two years ago are quite clear-minded, and they have no doubt that it is war — them yourself.
We forget this at our peril.
I wish the best for all who lost loved ones two years ago on this painful day. And for all of us, I wish safety, and more to the point, victory: for we will never, ever find the former if we do not achieve the latter.
Blogger Alliance Rises to the Challenge
It looks like the Blog Alliance in the game for the competition to sponsor the New Weblog Showcase.
This is excellent news — and all the more reason for new bloggers to sign on for the Showcase this week.
To the Axis and Naughty and Blogger Alliance members, I am going to slightly change the approach for the contest, as follows:
– Previously I said that “Whichever alliance can succeed in delivering the highest participation (linking to entered Showcase posts and to the winner’s announcement Monday) from their membership — measured by percentage of your total membership — will win sponsorship of the Showcase.”
What I think will be easiest is if I simply count votes to Showcase posts. That way the winning alliance can be announced on Monday morning with the Showcase winner. I still would request and appreciate links to the winner on Monday, of course, but it won’t actually count towards determining the winning alliance.
– If I get the code written this weekend, I will probably implement the sponsorship-contest on a weekly basis. It is up to the alliances whether they would like to participate going forward, but I’ll put the logic in place so that for every week, whichever alliance has the greatest participation in the Showcase will win sponsorship for the following week.
If there are any serious objections, let me know, but I think this will work out well all around…
-NZB
Indian Gaming: Special Interest, or Just Like Every Other?
Calpundit up on a point made by Atrios on “Indian Gaming Interests”:
INDIAN GAMING….Atrios makes a good point today:
I’m really getting tired of the phrase “Indian Gaming Interests” being thrown around by the media as if it is some sort of insidious thing. They’re just another business interest, like the numerous “old white man business interests” that spend a lot of money financing campaigns.
As it happens, I’m not especially happy about Indian gaming, and I’m not especially happy about the lobbying they do. However, there are plenty of businesses that get unique concessions from the government
Blogwar Meets Blog Showcase
Next week’s should be an interesting one, as it looks like we will have some guest judges. I’ve just sent the following message to the leadership of the warring factions in the Great Blogwar:
To: The Blogger Alliance; The Axis of Naughty
From: N.Z. Bear of The Truth Laid Bear
Re: Proposal to Sponsor the New Weblog Showcase
Greetings, honored combatants, from the neutral zone of the Blogwar!
As I believe you know, one of the projects which I maintain at The Truth Laid Bear is the New Weblog Showcase.
Each week, the Showcase is open for new bloggers (currently defined as those blogging for less than three months) to submit a sample post of their best work. Other bloggers then cast their votes simply by linking to the entered posts they deem most worthy — and each Monday morning, whichever weblog has received the most votes is declared the winner for the week. (More detailed information can be found here).
I would like to propose, therefore, an offer to each of your alliances. I would be willing to declare an alliance the “sponsor” of the Showcase — complete with a declaration as such and your logo prominently placed on the Showcase pages — in exchange for a pledge that your alliance members would actively participate in each week’s Showcase: reviewing the work of the new bloggers, and voting for those that they feel are most worthy.
I believe such an arrangement would have mutual benefits: the Showcase would gain greater visibility and new bloggers would have wider exposure in the Blogosphere. And the alliance sponsoring the contest would both gain a valuable opportunity to recruit new members from the Showcase contestants — and have a practical focus for the energies of its membership.
There is, however, one catch: it seems reasonable that only one alliance should have the sponsorship. Therefore:
– If one of your noble alliances is interested in this sponsorship, but not the other, then I will accept the sponsorship from the interested group effective immediately.
– If neither alliance finds this arrangement of interest, I shall leave you all to your own devices, and return sheepishly to my own.
– If BOTH alliances are interested in the arrangement, I propose to make the next week a challenge between the two alliances. Whichever alliance can succeed in delivering the highest participation (linking to entered Showcase posts and to the winner’s announcement Monday) from their membership — measured by percentage of your total membership — will win sponsorship of the Showcase.
I propose to make the initial sponsorship arrangement a temporary one — perhaps a month — after which we can re-evaluate the arrangement to ensure it remains mutually beneficial to all involved.
Please feel free to distribute this message to your respective memberships, or repost it on your weblogs. Regardless of your decisions, I wish you all the best, and await your replies.
-N.Z. Bear
The Truth Laid Bear
Kevin at Wizbang has already replied: “The Axis of Naughty is in.”
Will the Blogger Alliance take up the challenge? Stay tuned!
Tracking the Great Blogwar
I mostly find silliness to be a distraction from the real business of blogging — which I vaguely remember as having something to do with actually writing stuff other people want to read. (Or was it posting nekkid pictures of yourself or, even better, of more attractive people? I always forget).
But hey, I enjoy a challenge, and I was bored. So for those of you who want to keep track of the great blogwar, here’s a scorecard for you.
It feeds directly from Ecosystem scans, and yes, it will update daily. To summarize, the Alliance can rightfully claim to have already surpassed Glenn in total inbound links (not surprising, given the link sluttage known to be common among that group). But in the far more significant metric of average daily visits, Instapundit reigns over all, as the graph to the right shows.
Now, admittedly, I’ve only got statistics from those Alliance weblogs that use public SiteMeter counters — but about half of them do, and so it appears that Frank‘s minions have quite a bit of work to do before Glenn needs to truly start worrying.
I’ll remain neutral in this particular conflict for now, pending suitable incentives from one side or another — simply consider me your humble war correspondent, observing from the sidelines…
Compromise Kills
Does the concept of compromise by definition deliver bad results for certain intractable problems?
Gun rights vs. gun control leaps to mind. Let’s leave aside, for the moment, the legitimate arguments on the gun rights side of the fence about the salutary effect gun ownership has on putting power in the hands of citizens (as opposed to the government) and focus solely on run-of-the-mill crime.
rightfully points out the following regarding a recent Chicago workplace shooting that can serve as an illustrative example:
Curiously, Tapia was undeterred by the City of Chicago’s strict anti-gun ordinance. Bizarrely, despite a prior record for unlawful use of weapons, domestic battery, and aggravated assault which should have made him ineligible to own a gun legally in Illinois, Tapia seems to have chosen to disobey the law and obtained a gun anyway.
All six of the victims obeyed the gun laws of the City and State and were unarmed at the time of their murders.
So taking this one incident as a case study, it seems that there were two ways it might have been prevented. First is the solution Spoons would favor: that more honest citizens have have legal access to and feel comfortable carrying their own firearms. Arguably, the first part of this (legal access) exists, although perhaps not to Spoons’ satisfaction, but most certainly the “comfort” factor is not there — our culture tolerates gun ownership, but only just barely, and under very limited circumstances (gun in a locked drawer at home is ok but raises eyebrows — gun carried with a concealed carry permit every day is guaranteed to get you labeled paranoid).
So: if one or more of the victims in this case carried their own firearm and were properly acquainted with its use, it is pretty easy to imagine that this episode would have turned out far differently, with far less loss of innocent life.
But these deaths could have been prevented with the complete opposite approach as well. I do believe it is possible to ban all firearms to a degree that would make it at least extremely difficult for criminals to obtain them. This would require gutting the 2nd Amendment, and basically shutting down handgun manufacturing in the U.S. and imports — yes, we’re serious, this is not tinkering — but it could be done, if the political consensus existed to do so. Would you ever achieve zero guns in the criminal world? No. But I’ll bet you could achieve it to the degree that a petty-level loser like Tapia couldn’t get one easily.
And again: those six people wouldn’t have died.
So it seems to me that, for this issue, we’ve engineered a compromise — guns are legally available, but under certain restrictions and not encouraged by society — which provides the worst of all possible worlds. Taking the “extreme” solution proposed by gun rights advocates — free and encouraged access to all — or by opponents — no guns for anyone, period — would both appear to provide a better solution than the one we have now.
Question for the peanut gallery: what other political issues in today’s arena do you see that fall into this categorization? Where else do you see the supposedly-beneficial idea of “compromise” actually producing results for society far worse than either side’s extreme would have?
Showcase: Game On!
OK folks, now that we’re back in business and Hosting Matters appears comfortable that the scripts aren’t causing any problems, it’s time to re-activate the Weblog Showcase.
We’ve been accumulating contestants for the past few weeks, so I’m going to take the simple way out: next Monday will be the end of this mega-contest, so anybody who has registered thus far is eligble, as well as anyone who meets the requirements and registers this week.
So get voting!
-NZB
A lean, mean, link-countin’ machine
So I spent much of today re-working the Ecosystem code so that it isn’t such a resource hog, and believe I have finally met with some success. There is a fresh run out there now, which I believe to be accurate.
To reduce the system load, I actually had to radically change the method I use for link-counting that sits at the heart of the Ecosystem — the goofball “host” concept that always confused everyone anyway. This was a bit of work, but was something I always wanted to get rid of, so good riddance to bad rubbish. It also has the benefit of streamlining the process for adding a weblog to the Ecosystem, which was a nice bonus.
However, this means that this wasn’t just a cosmetic tweak, but a rather substantial one. So: I would greatly appreciate feedback and assistance in validating the current results. If you see anything that doesn’t look right, please title=”N.Z. Bear”>drop me a line.
One casualty of the rework was the ‘Blogosphere Daily News’. To support that feature required a more inefficient method of scanning, and since nobody really seemed to care for it anyway, I’ve ditched it. Maybe someday I’ll bring it back in a different form; we’ll see.
I still do not know if Hosting Matters will grant me permission to resume daily execution of the scripts; I have just passed on that request to them with a report on the improved performance. Hopefully they will have no problem with the load now (and to be clear, I don’t blame them for being annoyed earlier: I really was pounding their box). Again: we shall see.
Anyway, thanks to everyone for their words of support while things have been in flux; they were much appreciated and certainly helped to motivate me to get things fixed.
More later…
Update: Hosting Matters has indicated they are OK with me trying the scripts, they’ll be keeping an eye on them. Should be no problem, then: I really did get the load way down…
No updates this week
The Ecosystem and all other TTLB functions will be down all week; Hosting Matters has notified me that the scripts are monopolizing resources to an unacceptable degree and they will not permit them to run. I’m still not clear if this is just the natural progression of load growing over time, or if something is still screwed up in the database.
But the bottom line is I’m out of business until I can figure something out, and that will be next weekend at the earliest.