Every query in the slow query log was sent from the Ultimate Tag Warrior WordPress plugin which I use on my other blog. Here are some of the queries:

SELECT count( p2t.post_id ) cnt
FROM wp_tags t
INNER JOIN wp_post2tag p2t ON t.tag_id = p2t.tag_id
INNER JOIN wp_posts p ON p2t.post_id = p.ID
WHERE post_date_gmt < '2007-03-08 21:49:06'
AND (
post_type = 'post'
)
GROUP BY t.tag
ORDER BY cnt DESC
LIMIT 1 ;

and

SELECT tag, t.tag_id, count( p2t.post_id ) AS count, (
(
count( p2t.post_id ) /3661
) *100
) AS weight, (
(
count( p2t.post_id ) /1825
) *100
) AS relativeweight
FROM wp_tags t
INNER JOIN wp_post2tag p2t ON t.tag_id = p2t.tag_id
INNER JOIN wp_posts p ON p2t.post_id = p.ID
WHERE post_date_gmt < '2007-03-09 02:27:39'
AND (
post_type = 'post'
)
GROUP BY t.tag
ORDER BY weight DESC
LIMIT 50 ;

That led me to take a look at what was going on with the wp_tags and wp_post2tag tables. I did EXPLAINs on the queries and saw that they were doing table scans instead of using the indexes. So I went to look at the table definitions and was surprised at what I saw. The only index on the wp_post2tag table was rel_id, the auto-incremented primary key. So the columns that were actually used to do joins with, tag_id and post_id, had no indices. My SQL is very rusty but I knew that wasn’t a good thing. I also took a look at the wp_tags table and saw that it only had an index on the tag_id column. I’ve seen some queries with “tag = ‘tag_name’ ” in the WHERE clause so I figured that it would be good to have an index on the tag column as well.

After consulting with my brother, whose SQL skills are much more up to date than my own I decided to add indexes to those tables. I created an index called ‘tags_tag_idx’ on the wp_tags.tag column. On the wp_post2tag column I created two indexes — the post2tag_tag_post_idx index is on tag_id then post_id and the post2tag_post_tag_idx index is on post_id then tag_id. I’m not sure if using concatenated indexes is better than just creating separate single column indexes for each column but I think it’s the way to go after discussing with my brother and looking at how the wp_post2cat and wp_linktocat tables are indexed. They both have concatenated indices.

I ran some queries on the tables before and after to see if things were sped up and indeed they were. Unfortunately when I ran the EXPLAIN on the queries in the slow query log I saw mixed results. The keys that I added were now showing up as “possible_keys” and the actual keys but the queries still ended up doing table scans. For the tags table the EXPLAIN shows the dreaded “Using temporary; Using filesort”.

So while I didn’t completely solve my slow query problem the new indexes do help for many of the simpler queries which access wp_post2tag and wp_tag. If you’re using Ultimate Tag Warrior and are concerned about your database load you may want to add some indexes to the tag tables.

• The Shawshank Redemption
• City of God (Cidade de Deus)
• Trading Places
• A Fish Called Wanda
• O Brother, Where Art Thou?
• Clear and Present Danger
• Friday
• Malcolm X
• The Matrix
• The Devil’s Advocate
• Rabbit-Proof Fence
• Memento
• Get Shorty
• Rush Hour
• Brown Sugar
• The Sixth Sense
• Austin Powers 1
• There’s Something About Mary
• Buena Vista Social Club
• The Fifth Element
• Desperado

Honorable Mention:

• Training Day
• The Usual Suspects
• Misery
• Pulp Fiction
• Amistad
• Analyze This
• As Good as It Gets
• Better Than Chocolate
• Black Hawk Down
• Blade
• Casino
• The Game
• GoodFellas
• Heat
• Set it Off
• Sling Blade
• The Thomas Crown Affair
• The Untouchables
• Donnie Brasco

This is a copy of the controversial opinion piece by Kenneth Eng in Asian Week magazine:

Here is a list of reasons why we should discriminate against blacks, starting from the most obvious down to the least obvious:

• Blacks hate us. Every Asian who has ever come across them knows that they take almost every opportunity to hurl racist remarks at us.

In my experience, I would say about 90 percent of blacks I have met, regardless of age or environment, poke fun at the very sight of an Asian. Furthermore, their activity in the media proves their hatred: Rush Hour, Exit Wounds, Hot 97, etc.

• Contrary to media depictions, I would argue that blacks are weak-willed. They are the only race that has been enslaved for 300 years. It’s unbelievable that it took them that long to fight back.

On the other hand, we slaughtered the Russians in the Japanese-Russo War.

• Blacks are easy to coerce. This is proven by the fact that so many of them, including Reverend Al Sharpton, tend to be Christians.

Yet, at the same time, they spend much of their time whining about how much they hate “the whites that oppressed them.”

Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t Christianity the religion that the whites forced upon them?

• Blacks don’t get it. I know it’s a blunt and crass comment, but it’s true. When I was in high school, I recall a class debate in which one half of the class was chosen to defend black slavery and the other half was chosen to defend liberation.

Disturbingly, blacks on the prior side viciously defended slavery as well as Christianity. They say if you don’t study history, you’re condemned to repeat it.

In high school, I only remember one black student ever attending any of my honors and AP courses. And that student was caught cheating.

It is rather troubling that they are treated as heroes, but then again, whites will do anything to defend them.

Here’s some follow up on the situation: Asian paper’s ‘I Hate Blacks’ column assailed

(In case anybody’s still reading this blog I just posted this on my main blog and thought I’d post it here too…)

I think the movie The Secret is about to hit its tipping point. On Thursday Oprah Winfrey’s show will be all about that movie — or more specifically the topic of the movie which is the law of attraction. That law basically states that “whatever you focus on you get more of.” I saw the movie back in August after seeing a mention on another trader’s blog. What was most interesting about it is that it was nothing new. The movie crystallized concepts that I’ve read and heard about over the years.

One thing that really stood out to me was that focusing on a negative doesn’t work. A good example of that is when you see a football team with a big lead go into the dreaded “prevent defense“. Instead of continuing to play to win they start playing not to lose. We all know what typically happens next — the team blows the game.

Anyway, there are tons of applications of the law of attraction in all facets of life. I highly recommend watching the movie and/or the Oprah show on Thursday. Here’s some stuff to give you a better idea of what to expect:

The promo from Larry King’s first show on “The Secret”:

I happened to catch that episode of Larry King live back in October while flipping through channels in a hotel room. (Something I never do at home thanks to TiVo.) The show got such a good response that Larry did a second Law of Attraction show:

It seems that about half of the movie is available on YouTube but you can stream the whole thing from the official website for about $5. I streamed it to my laptop and even over WiFi and the quality was excellent. I recommend going that route for the first viewing.

Steve Pavlina has a review of The Secret and a good post about the Law of Attraction. And here are 100 quotes from The Secret.

Anyway, I doubt that I’ll get a chance to post anything else on this blog before the holidays so happy holidays to everybody. See you on the other side of 2006, when I’ll hopefully have more to write on this site.

intro
gene harris - don’t call me nigger, whitey
talk (over ?? - be happy)
cymande - getting it back
blackbyrds - runaway
les demerle - moondial
reuben bell - superjock
notations - super people
marley marl feat. masta ace, craig g, kool g rap & big daddy kane - the symphony
capleton feat. method man - wings of the morning
bounty killa feat. jeru da damaja - suicide or murder
krs-one - rappaz r.n. dainja
masta ace - b-side
keith murray - herb is pumpin’
channel live - mad izm (remix)
nas - it ain’t hard to tell (remix)
cannonball adderly - walk tall (live)
sonny stitt - slick eddie
roy ayers - tarzan
crown heights affair - streakin’
brooklyn people - peace and love
dj shadow - lesson 4
l.l. cool j - mama said knock you out
jungle brothers - j. beez comin’ through
digital underground - the humpty dance
e.p.m.d. - so wat cha sayin’
eric b & rakim - the r
y.z. - sons of the father
x-clan - raise the flag
digital underground - arguin’ on the funk
talk (over lin que - let it fall instrumental)

If you haven’t heard the new reworking of ‘Gold Digger’ take a listen to the MP3 of ‘George Bush Doesn’t Like Black People’

Congratulations to all of the winners of the 2005 Black Weblog Awards. Here they are:

• Daily Views, Pop Culture, Rants and News — Blogger of the Year, Best Humor Blog, Best Writing in a Blog and Blog of the Year
• The Heiress Diaries — Best New Blog
• Crunk and Disorderly — Best Entertainment Blog
• Brown Glasses — Best Photoblog
• Rocka Online — Best Blog Design (too bad the author just stopped blogging!)
• Sex and the Second City — Best LGBT Blog
• Negrophile — Best Political/News Blog
• George Kelly won the ‘Black Blogger Achievement Award’. George runs Negrophile, AllAboutGeorge.com and Blackosphere

I guess I need to see what Daily Views, Pop Culture, Rants and News is all about since it won all those awards.

Thanks to the organizer(s) (whoever you are!) of the awards for spotlighting our little corner of the blogosphere.

Hopefully next year (or even this year!) we’ll get to see the other nominees. I found it difficult to vote in all of the categories since in many cases I couldn’t think of a blog for that category. It would also be nice to give those nominees some exposure and more traffic. Some permalinks on the awards site would be nice too!

(Originally posted on Negritude)

Negritu.de has the video of Kanye West going off on President Bush and his response to hurricane Katrina. It’s worth watching for the look on Mike Myers’ face alone.