Why do the XML, JSON and direct methods of accessing a user's profile return different, mostly stale data?

I'm building a Twitter app that requires to check user data somewhat frequently, but I'm facing trouble with a cache that's oddly on Twitter's side, not mine.

Try the following user:

users/show in XML: http://twitter.com/users/show.xml?scr...

users/show in JSON: http://twitter.com/users/show.json?sc...

normal page: http://twitter.com/technolocus

All these methods of accessing data should return the same values, right? Check the statuses_count for each of them.

XML: 12548

JSON: 12513

normal: 12498

The normal method (i.e. just visiting the profile non-programatically) serves up the most correct value of 12498. If I post or delete tweets to this account, it gets updated on the profile page instantly, but the XML and JSON methods still return cached data.

At this point, the values of the XML and JSON methods are 12 to 18 hours old respectively.

I first tried to access these methods from my website (hosted on Dreamhost). I thought it was Dreamhost caching the responses. Then I tried to access the API directly from my browser. I did a cURL from the command line from my machine after that. It wasn't dreamhost. I thought it was probably my ISP (I think they use NetApp or something like that). Then I asked a friend in another corner of India to try it. He's getting the exact same cached responses as I am.

So it isn't Dreamhost's cache; it isn't my ISP or my country's cache. There's only one conclusion - Twitter is caching responses.

How in the heavens do I get around this?!?

Forgot to mention this: The script on the server is in PHP and is using cURL to retrieve the XML and JSON data from Twitter, while the local tests have been just using the browser. Both have the exact same result!