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Here’s an email I recently received from the URL-shortening service bit.ly, a popular Twitter-related service that I use to automatically shorten URLs for LGF-related tweets. The nice thing about bit.ly (and j.mp, it’s the same service) is that it doesn’t just shorten URLs; if you register an account, it also tracks some interesting statistics for any URLs you shorten. And they make these statistics available to outside developers through the bit.ly API; this is how our Retweet buttons are able to show the number of clicks on each shortened link.

But apparently, LGF has been hammering their API servers too hard.

Hi,

I’m writing in regards to your bit.ly API usage. You are making an unusually large number of shorten requests to our API (often over 50,000/hour), and it looks like you are doing this on page load (for the Twitter button on pages such as http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/35599).

Normally it is best not to make /shorten requests on a page load, but instead to make a /shorten request to bit.ly when a user clicks a share button. You can find an example of that at code.google.com. We are increasing our application of rate limits to manage abusive API users, and we encourage you to make the above fix as soon as possible to ensure that your site continues to function normally. I’d be glad to discuss this further and/or answer any questions you have, and thanks for using bit.ly!

The problem was related to the John Resig Retweet button, which I wrote about in this Tech Note. When the LGF home page loaded, the Retweet button Javascript code called the bit.ly API’s “shorten” function to find out the shortened URL, followed by the “stats” function to get the number of clicks, for each post, every time the page was loaded. As you can imagine, with 80,000 to 120,000 pageviews a day, that’s a lot of API calls. No wonder they noticed it.

I’ve vastly reduced the number of API calls now with the latest code refactoring of the Retweet button. I stopped using John Resig’s Javascript code (no hard feelings, it’s great for most sites but not LGF), and wrote my own jQuery routines that use Ajax to call a server-side script when the page loads, passing it the necessary data on every Retweet button in the page in JSON format. The Ajax server calls the API’s “stats” function, then sends back (again in JSON) the number of clicks and some other data. The jQuery code then displays those numbers in the Retweet buttons.

The key to reducing our API calls is that the shorten function is only called once, not when the page loads but when a new entry is posted to the LGF blog. The shortened URL is used to automatically tweet about the new post on Twitter, then it’s saved along with the new entry data, to be reused endlessly as needed without ever calling the API again.

Previously, the Resig code would call the API’s “shorten” routine and the “stats” routine for every post. Now the PHP Ajax server uses the saved bit.ly (or j.mp) URL to call the API’s “stats” routine only, which should cut our API usage in half. And retrieving statistics should be a much less costly operation for the server than shortening a URL. Hopefully, this will bring us back within the bit.ly API usage limits.

And since this is probably Venusian to most LGF readers, consider it an open thread from here on out…

The South Carolina Republican Party apparently feels that they aren’t conservative enough yet, so they’ll be uniting with tea party groups. That ought to do it.

The South Carolina Republican Party announced Monday that it’s uniting with tea party groups in the state to share resources, coordinate messaging and push the GOP in a more conservative direction.

The points of contact between the state party establishment and the grass-roots will be the Greenville County Republican Party — one of the most conservative wings of the state party — and the Upstate Coalition of Conservative Organizations, an umbrella structure of state tea party groups.

The agreement, as announced by South Carolina Republicans, is designed to serve four goals: increase precinct involvement, improve communication between the state party and grass-roots groups, create liaisons between the state party and the various tea party organizations and to work “closely to make the Republican Party more conservative.”

Now there’s a winning formula.

Pamela Geller’s appearance last night on the Joy Behar show with Ron Reagan and Stephanie Miller perfectly demonstrates why Geller has become known on the Internet as the “shrieking harpy.”

Geller actually seems to think she came off well on this show, in which she tells Ron Reagan what his own father would have thought about Sarah Palin, and rants continuously like a howler monkey on crack throughout the whole segment. Notice that it ends as Joy Behar tells Geller, “You have not shut up.”

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This obnoxious performance was a big hit on the wingnut blogs, of course.

Pamela Geller is a full-on, raving Birther. She tried to claim Barack Obama is the love child of Malcolm X, and she wasn’t kidding. She regularly uses terms like “libtard,” calls President Obama “Hussein,” and often compares him to Adolf Hitler. She promotes the neo-Nazi British National Party, and praises other fascist groups like the English Defense League and the Vlaams Belang. She doesn’t just criticize radical Islam; she’s a flat out, bigoted Muslim-hater who believes that every single Muslim is a terrorist by nature. And she has the personality of a treacherous rattlesnake.

If Joy Behar was trying to make the right wing blogosphere (and fans of Sarah Palin) look terrible, she couldn’t have picked a better person.

Testifying at his war crimes trial in the Hague last week, former Liberian President Charles Taylor said (paraphrasing), “Pat Robertson was my man in Washington.”

The revelations came in the midst of a U.N.-backed trial of Taylor at The Hague on 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity during Sierra Leone’s 1990s civil war. Taylor is accused of directing a Sierra Leone rebel group, the United Revolutionary Front (RUF), in a campaign aimed at securing access to the country’s diamond mines. The rebel movement stands accused of committing mass atrocities in the late 1990s in the West African country, including the mutilation of thousands of civilians.

The international prosecutors contend that Taylor offered concessions to Western individuals in exchange for lobbying work aimed at enhancing his image in the United States. The prosecution maintains that Taylor also spent $2.6 million on lobbying firms and public relations outfits in the hopes of influencing the policies of former President Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

Under cross-examination, Taylor said that Robertson had volunteered to make Liberia’s case before U.S. administration officials, and had spoken directly to President Bush about Taylor. He also confirmed that Robertson’s company, Freedom Gold Limited, signed an agreement to exploit gold in southeastern Liberia, but that it never generated any profit.

“Mr. Taylor, indeed at one point you said that you can count on Pat Robertson to get Washington on your side,” he was asked by the lead prosecution counsel, Col. Brenda Hollis, a former U.S. Air Force officer. Taylor replied: “I don’t recall the exact words, but something to that effect.”

A spokesman for Robertson, Chris Roslan, confirmed that Robertson was awarded a gold exploration concession by the Liberian government during the 1990s. But he said that there was “no quid pro quo” to provide the government with anything in return. Roslan said the company, Freedom Gold, is no longer in operation and has never found any gold.

Insanely great mandolin shredding by Chris Thile and Mike Marshall, playing “Fisher’s Hornpipe” from the album Into the Cauldron. (And here’s the iTunes Store link.)

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On “The View” today, Meghan McCain called out Tom Tancredo for his shocking dog whistle racism speech at the Tea Party Convention in Nashville.

McCain: Congressman Tancredo went on TV and he was the first opening speaker and he said, ‘People who could not even spell the word vote or say it in English put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House whose name is Barack Hussein Obama.’ And then he went on to say that people at the convention should have to pass literacy tests in order to be able to vote in this country, which is the same thing that happened in the 50’s to prevent African Americans from voting. It’s innate racism and I think it’s why young people are turned off by this movement. And I’m sorry, but revolutions start with young people, not with 65-year-old people talking about literacy tests and people who can’t say the word ‘vote’ in English.

The news is just coming out that Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) has died at the age of 77, of complications following gall bladder surgery. Our sympathies to his family.

During the 2008 Presidential election one of my main concerns about Barack Obama was that he would take a soft line toward the Hamas terrorist gang. And there were reasons to be concerned; to name just a couple, Obama was closely acquainted with several well-known Palestinian advocates in the US, and the leader of his church, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, published a newsletter that can only be described as virulently anti-Israel.

So far, though, I’ve been pleasantly surprised that the President has shown no sign of weakening America’s support for Israel, and no sign of weakening the US refusal to negotiate with Hamas until they recognize Israel’s right to exist.

And a reliable indicator that our policies haven’t hopenchanged: head terrorist Khaled Meshaal is in Russia, whining about it. Hamas leader says U.S. blocking Palestinian unity.

MOSCOW, Feb 8 (Reuters) - Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal on Monday accused the United States of undermining Palestinian unity efforts and said he saw no chance for peace in the Middle East under Israel’s current leadership.

Shunned in the West because his Islamist group refuses to recognise Israel — a position he said stands — Meshaal used a hospitable Russia as a platform to blame Washington and Israel’s hardline government for a lack of progress.

His remarks underscored barriers on the road to Palestinian reconciliation and to renewing Middle East peace talks.

Hamas wants a reconciliation deal with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ rival Fatah movement “as fast as possible”, Meshaal told a news conference after meeting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who invited him to Moscow.

“Unfortunately, there are a whole series of hurdles to a swift reconciliation, first of all external influence and concerted pressure from the United States,” he said, which he said was using “various means” to scuttle the efforts.

Meshaal did not elaborate, but said portions of an Egyptian-drafted reconciliation deal had been changed without consultation with Hamas and that the group would not sign it unless they were restored.

Orly Taitz, queen bee of the Birther movement at the Nashville Tea Party Convention, uncorks some classic paranoid fantasies in this video clip; Obama has 39 Social Security numbers, according to Taitz, one of them issued to a man born over 100 years ago.

“So what,” you might say. “Any random nutjob could show up at this event and say anything they want. This has nothing to do with the real tea party movement.”

Except that when Joseph Farah of World Net Daily gives a keynote speech calling for theocracy in America and raving about Obama’s birth certificate, and receives a standing ovation for it, that excuse seems just a tad … weak.

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If truth is beauty, how come no one has their hair done in the library?

— Lily Tomlin

Environmentalist Peter Sinclair is beginning a new series of videos titled “Renewable Energy Solution of the Month,” and the first episode deals with some interesting possibilities for electric cars you may not have previously considered.

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Here’s an interesting article at MacWorld on the Apple A4 microprocessor, the CPU for the iPad and the first Apple-branded system-on-a-chip: Apple inside: the significance of the iPad’s A4 chip.

With the A4, Apple still maintains its long-standing relationship with ARM while delivering on performance, with a design that no competitor can use in its own products. More to the point, the A4 puts a very critical part of Apple’s iPad under its very own control. And that move is unprecedented.

Going back to the earliest days of the Mac, Apple chose Motorola’s 68k series of chips to power its Macs because they offered better performance than Intel’s equivalent technology. In the early ’90s, the company migrated its Macs to the PowerPC architecture when Motorola couldn’t deliver a 68k processor as fast and as energy efficient as Intel’s Pentium series. Then, when the major vendors behind the PowerPC couldn’t keep pace with Intel’s Pentium IV and AMD’s Athlon series, Apple switched its Macs once more—this time to Intel’s own Core series.

Today, Macs remain beholden to Intel’s specifications. If Intel can’t keep pace, Apple will have to find yet another vendor for CPUs. But now, with the iPad’s A4, Apple has demonstrated a new option: It has the ability to take existing designs and repurpose them to give its own products better performance than the competition.

As the Super Bowl draws to its inevitable end (who didn’t like the dramatic hamster ad? or the weird giant toys driving an Acura or whatever it was?), here’s an open thread…

UPDATE at 2/7/10 7:04:49 pm:

Breaking news: a major factor in New Orleans’ win tonight — Bobby Jindal held an exorcism in the locker room right before the game.

A live version from Japan in 1995 of “Here To Stay,” from the Pat Matheny Group’s 1994 masterpiece, We Live Here. (The iTunes Store has this essential jazz album too.)

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Embattled climate scientist Phil Jones talks to the Times Online: The leak was bad. Then came the death threats - Times Online.

At the worst possible time, in the days immediately before the Copenhagen climate summit in December, it enabled sceptics across the globe to claim that climate science was fatally flawed and its practitioners a shifty gang who twisted the facts to suit their agenda and shut out anyone who disagreed with them.

Jones insists that is not the way it was, but concedes it was the way it may have looked. He now accepts that he did not treat the FoI requests as seriously as he should have done. “I regret that I did not deal with them in the right way,” he told The Sunday Times. “In a way, I misjudged the situation.”

But he pleads provocation. Last year in July alone the unit received 60 FoI requests from across the world. With a staff of only 13 to cope with them, the demands were accumulating faster than they could be dealt with. “According to the rules,” says Jones, “you have to do 18 hours’ work on each one before you’re allowed to turn it down.” It meant that the scientists would have had a lot of their time diverted from research.

A further irritation was that most of the data was available online, making the FoI requests, in Jones’s view, needless and a vexatious waste of his time. In the circumstances, he says, he thought it reasonable to refer the applicants to the website of the Historical Climatology Network in the US.

He also suspected that the CRU was the target of a co-ordinated attempt to interfere with its work — a suspicion that hardened into certainty when, over a matter of days, it received 40 similar FoI requests. Each applicant asked for data from five different countries, 200 in all, which would have been a daunting task even for someone with nothing else to do. It was clear to Jones that the attack originated from an old adversary, the sceptical website Climate Audit, run by Steve McIntyre, a former minerals prospector and arch climate sceptic.

“We were clearly being targeted,” says Jones. “Only 22% of the FoI enquiries were identifiably from within the UK, 39% were from abroad and 39% were untraceable.” What irked him was that the foreign applicants would all have had sources closer to hand in their own countries.

“I think they just wanted to waste our time,” he says. “They wanted to slow us down.”

It was pure irritation, he says, that provoked him and others to write the notorious emails apparently conspiring to destroy or withhold data. “It was just frustration. I thought the requests were just distractions. It was taking us away from our day jobs. It was written in anger.”

But he insists that no data were destroyed. “We have no data to delete. It comes to us from institutions around the world. We interpret data. We don’t create or collect it. It’s all available from other sources.”

If the leak itself was bad, the aftermath was the stuff of nightmares. Even now, weeks later, Jones seems rigid with shock. “There were death threats,” he says. “People said I should go and kill myself. They said they knew where I lived.” Two more death threats came last week after the deputy information commissioner delivered his verdict, making more work for Norfolk police, who are already investigating the theft of the emails.

Sarah Palin, who quit her elected office as Governor of Alaska in the middle of her term, now says she’s considering running for President in 2012.

“I would, I would if I believe that is the right thing to do for our country and the Palin family. Certainly I would do so,” she told “Fox News Sunday,” in an interview that was taped before she addressed a Tea Party convention the night before. “I think that it would be absurd to not consider what it is that I could potentially do to help our country … . I won’t close a door that perhaps could be open for me in the future.”

In her interview with Fox News, she quoted … get ready for it … Pat Buchanan.

In her first Sunday show appearance, the 2008 vice-presidential candidate predicted that, if the election were held today, President Barack Obama would actually lose the office he won just a year-and-a-half ago. But — citing a column written by Pat Buchanan — she left open the possibility that his fates could change, particularly (she seemed to wish) if a major attack were to be launched against Iran.

And she topped it off by defending Rush Limbaugh’s use of the word “retard,” (with the patented “It’s satire!” gambit), reversing the criticism issued by one of her aides just a few days ago.

“They are kooks, so I agree with Rush Limbaugh,” she said, when read a quote of Limbaugh calling liberal groups “retards.” “Rush Limbaugh was using satire … . I didn’t hear Rush Limbaugh calling a group of people whom he did not agree with ‘f-ing retards,’ and we did know that Rahm Emanuel, as has been reported, did say that. There is a big difference there.”

But remember — no teleprompter! [twinkle]

Among the other right wing talking points Sarah Palin hammered in her $100,000 Tea Party Convention speech: that Obama uses a teleprompter.

I know. The horror. Only a commie would use such an infernal device, right? Why, I’ll betcha that no politician ever used one before Obama was elected!

Palin can proudly say she’s teleprompter-free, though. Because she just writes her crib notes on the palm of her hand with a ball point pen.

But no teleprompter! [winkies]

Every witness has his own way of creeping up on the truth.

— Ross Macdonald

Here’s an interesting note on TeaBagCon, from a roundup of the first day’s craziness by Mary C. Curtis at Politics Daily:

A funny thing about the break-out session “How to Involve the Youth in the Conservative Movement” – not too many young people showed up. Mishelle Perkins, a 44-year-old mother of five children, worries about the paucity of young people at local meetings. The Rutherford County, Tennessee activist came Friday to get some tips. Jordan Marks, executive director of the conservative Young Americans for Freedom, suggested that activists use Facebook, volunteer to speak at high schools (“bastions of liberalism”) and simply do fun stuff that hooks high school and college-age kids. Marks described a bowling party he organized – “Knock Down the Pinheads of Communism.” A strike equaled Mao, a spare, Pol Pot.

Fun for the whole modern tea party family!

At the convention tables, attendees also had the opportunity to purchase mementos.

T-shirts are popular, with slogans like “Keep the Change, I’ll Keep My Freedom My Guns and My Money.” For $89.99, you can buy a sterling silver tea bag necklace/pendant, decorated with your choice of gemstone. (Buy one, and the second is $49.99, with a free cup thrown in.)

Here’s the feed from the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville, with ex-governor Sarah Palin scheduled to take center stage in about 15 minutes. Right now there’s a blindingly dull panel discussion on “The Future of Tea Parties.”

A great animated short film directed by Ben Hibon, for a Saturday afternoon sanity break.

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There are reports that the Tea Party Convention organizers are planning a press conference today to denounce Birtherism, after Joseph Farah’s speech last night.

It seems a little late to start worrying about it, the day after the keynote speaker unleashed a full-on paranoid Birther rant to a cheering audience and a standing ovation.

And it’s not as if anyone can claim they didn’t know what Farah was going to talk about — World Net Daily is wingnut kook central, with a permanent section of the front page devoted to the latest crackpot Birther fantasies.

But some people want us to think they didn’t see it coming; for example, Andrew Breitbart.

I [Dave Weigel] spotted Farah and asked him if his speech had been approved by Tea Party Nation.

“They asked me to speak,” said Farah. “They didn’t ask me, ‘What do you want to speak about?’ No, this operates like a free and open society, not like the kind of Marxist society you would apparently like to be a journalist for.”

I told Farah that his speech was getting negative attention already, and that Breitbart, who’d taken the stage after him, had criticized the “birther” parts of the speech. Farah shook his head and walked over to Breitbart in what seemed like an attempt to debunk my question.

“Andrew is my friend,” said Farah. “He has the right to disagree, and he has the right to say anything to a socialist newspaper that he wants. And if he wants to criticize his friend to you, and he’s dumb enough to do that…”

Breitbart raised his eyebrows. “I’m dumb to do what?”

“Criticize your friend to this socialist newspaper.”

“I was talking to her,” said Breitbart, pointing to Schilling. “I was talking to you. And I was saying that I disagreed on the birther stuff.”

[…]

“I should prove, what, a birth certificate that may or may not exist?” Farah had gotten irritated. “That’s ridiculous. You don’t even understand the fundamental tenets of what journalism is about, Andrew. It’s not about proving things. It’s about asking questions and seeking truth.”

Breitbart tensed up after that insult. “Right.”

“I know you’re not a journalist, so that’s fine. But don’t diminish people who’ve been doing this for 35 years.

“So you’re going to go on record saying that I’m not a journalist?”

“Are you? I’ve never heard you claim to be. Are you?”

“I’ll let it be answered by you.”

“Well, I knew Drudge didn’t consider himself a journalist, so I assumed that you were. … I don’t know, I’m not trying to insult you.”

“You did.”

Also see:
World Net Daily Publisher Calls for Theocracy

The first National Tea Party/Birther Convention in Nashville is on C-SPAN today. Here’s the page where you can watch over the web: C-SPAN Live Stream.

UPDATE at 2/6/10 11:34:06 am:

Oh well, they’ve cut away now. The next broadcast will be at 6 pm Pacific, for the $100,000 speech of ex-governor Sarah Palin.

Here’s a report by Jeff Woods at the Nashville Scene on yet another lunatic speaker at the first National Tea Party Convention, homophobic theocrat Judge Roy Moore: At Tea Party, Gay-Bashing ‘Ten Commandments Judge’ Calls Obama Immoral.

Leave it to the “Ten Commandments judge” to inject gay bashing into the tea party convention. In his big speech this afternoon, Roy Moore castigated President Obama for the far-right’s usual litany of offenses and added this one for good measure: Obama had the audacity to issue a proclamation for “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month.” To Moore, that means the president “has elevated immorality to a new level.”

“Go forth armed in the holy cause of liberty,” he told the cheering tea partiers.

Here’s the money quote from the judge who became a conservative hero for his refusal, as the elected chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from the state courthouse:

“[Obama] has ignored our history and our heritage, arrogantly declaring to the world that we are no longer a Christian nation. He has elevated immorality to a new level, setting aside the entire month of June to celebrate gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender pride. He now threatens to change our law to allow homosexuality in our military … He’s apologized to the Arab world for our past, subjugated our national sovereignty by bowing down to the king of Saudi Arabia. He has pursued a socialist agenda by taking control of private companies and pushing a national health care plan with a public option. Backed by a willing Congress, he’s bought off our senators and representatives with our own money in an effort to mandate his agenda.”

Judge Moore, by the way, has actually advocated the death penalty for homosexuality.

It is the duty of the humor of any given nation in time of high crisis to attack the catastrophe that faces it in such a manner as to cause the people to laugh at it in such a way that they cannot die before they are killed.

— Lord Buckley, “H-Bomb”

Joseph Farah of World Net Daily gives us a preview of his speech to the First National Tea Party Convention: What I’ll say today at 1st Tea Party Convention.

Here’s a sneak peak at what I will be talking about in my keynote address to the first National Tea Party Convention in Nashville tonight. I wish you could all be there, but it’s a sellout. …

I have a dream.

My dream is that IF Barack Obama even seeks re-election as president in 2012, he won’t be able to go to any city, any town, any hamlet in America without seeing signs that ask, “Where’s the birth certificate?”

(Hat tip: Cato.)

UPDATE at 2/5/10 7:38:03 pm:

Dave Weigel is at the TeaBagCon, and just tweeted that Farah received a standing ovation for his Birther speech.

I’m privileged to announce that Andrew Breitbart has added me to his list of everyone in the world who must immediately bow before his might and retract, retract, retract: Retraction Requests: Charles Johnson, Big Journalism.

Breitbart seems to believe I should retract my statement that the 2006 event titled “Race and Conservatism” was a “white nationalist conference,” which I initially made based on the description from One People’s Project.

Let’s sum up what we know so far, not from OPP but from an article published at the American Renaissance hate site:

• Marcus Epstein, who has a long history of writing pieces for white nationalist websites and recently pleaded guilty in an assault on a black woman during which he screamed the ‘N’ word at her, was in charge of inviting speakers.
• The event was organized by VDARE, American Renaissance, and the Robert A. Taft Club, and was promoted on white nationalist websites, including the neo-Nazi Stormfront.
• Jared Taylor, arguably the lead speaker, has such a notorious reputation as a white nationalist and “academic” racist that the event was almost canceled, and other “establishment conservative” speakers who initially agreed to attend backed out when they discovered he was going to speak.

Do they need to be wearing SS uniforms before we call it a “white nationalist” event?

After learning more about the event, directly from the websites of the racist groups that organized it, it’s quite clear that the description by One People’s Project was correct.

I hope Retracto the Correction Alpaca is used to working at high altitudes, because he’ll need to hold his breath for a really long time waiting for a retraction from this Little Green Lizard.