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LGF has won praise for its extensive coverage of foreign news stories, particularly those featuring examples of European Anti-Semitism or Islamist Terrorism . The site is also known for its mocking Spin on Palestinian political issues, featuring Photoshop ped treatments of Rachel Corrie as "Saint Pancake," Yasser Arafat as "Arafish" and jailed Palestinian militants as Elvis and Bob Dobbs . Notes Israel National News columnist Gil Ronen: "If anyone ever compiles a list of Internet sites that contribute to Israel ’s Public Relations effort, Johnson's site will probably come in first, far above the Israeli Foreign Ministry's site." In the ' Dan Rather . As of 2005 LGF was one of the top ten blog sites in the Blogosphere 's TTLB ecosystem, and was the 5,582nd most popular English language website according to Alexa 's traffic analysis . HISTORY AND NOTABLE EVENTS Charitable contributions Little Green Footballs supporters have helped raise thousands of dollars for such military Public Relations and charity organizations as Spirit of America and Pizza for the IDF . Ideological Influences Posts on LGF frequently cite the writing and views of Daniel Pipes , Victor Davis Hanson , Charles Krauthammer , Mark Steyn , Oriana Fallaci , and James Lileks . Idiotarianism and the "Fiskie" See Also: Idiotarian LGF webmaster Charles Johnson coined the Internet Neologism and Political Epithet " Idiotarian ," and runs an "Idiotarian of the Year Award" named for journalist Robert Fisk . Killian documents See Also: Killian documents LGF was one of four sources, along with the Power Line and AllahPundit blogs and the Free Republic discussion forum, who conducted the initial investigation of Dan Rather 's assertions on 60 Minutes that the Killian documents were genuine. Within hours of the segment, the authenticity of the documents was questioned by posters on Free Republic , a conservative Internet forum, and discussion quickly spread to various Weblogs in the Blogosphere . The following morning, several Blog s including Power Line and Little Green Footballs concluded that the memos were almost certainly forgeries, as they appeared to have been produced on a modern computer, not on any typewriter available in the early 1970s . At 11 am on September 9 , Charles Johnson at LGF produced an animated .gif file (at right) superimposing the photocopied memo on a copy he produced using the default settings of Microsoft Word . Others, including Typography experts Peter Tytell and Thomas Phinney, analyzed the memos, concluding they were indeed crude forgeries. (See Killian Documents Authenticity Issues ) Pajamas Media See Also: Pajamas Media In late 2005 , Johnson, along with blogger and author Roger L. Simon launched a news site called Pajamas Media (briefly called ''Open Source Media'') featuring mostly conservative bloggers and journalists (e.g., Michelle Malkin , Glenn Reynolds , Michael Barone , Tammy Bruce , John Podhoretz , Michael Ledeen ), with some liberal participants (e.g., David Corn , Marc Cooper ). CHANGES AND CONTROVERSIES Accusations of Bias Fans see Little Green Footballs as an Alternative Media outlet which provides a Counterweight to the alleged Anti-American , Anti-Semitic , Anti-Conservative Bias of Mainstream Media outlets such as Reuters - "al-Reuters" in LGF Slang . Observes one such regular: "...if the "mainstream" media were doing its job and reporting facts, instead of passing all information through a "Do-Not-Offend-Arabs-and-Muslims" filter, this entire site would likely not exist. It would have no reason to exist, as the public would be honestly informed, and already know everything Charles posts here." {Link without Title} Critics point to the Hyperbolic language, references to violence against liberals, and Dehumanizing Slurs employed by some commenters and charge the webmaster with encouraging Groupthink , Jingoism , and Islamophobia , but the pressure to conform to leftist standards of Political Correctness may be backfiring; as LGF community members "Ben" explains: "I will refrain from slurs such as "sand nigger" or "dune coon" or any of the others which have any semblance to African-American slurs. The use of "camel-jockey", "rug pilot", "sand flea", "raghead" or "towelhead", however, will be used in reference to members of the Arab world. I would heartily encourage all Americans to engage in these ethnic slurs, which at the very least convey an appropriate level of disgust at the acts of the members of these societies." {Link without Title} Site supporters note that Johnson ''himself'' has never used ethnic slurs on the site and has even implemented a comment-submission filter which replaces offensive terms with innocuous descriptors (SEE: LGF Filter Test ). Johnson also runs an altered version of the Serenity Prayer in the comments section urging the posters to think before posting. Defenders further argue that those who accuse the site's commenters of religious and ethnic bigotry make such accusations in an attempt to police or censor opinion by characterizing ''any'' criticism of Islam or Muslims as pathological and irrational "islamophobia": "Islamophobia is a destructive myth that needs to die. What's so ironic about this is that the Muhammedans themselves invented it to deflect the attention of the Western man-in-the-street from their real agenda of conquest. So yeah, Down with Islamophobia. Up with rounding them up and humanely deporting them..." {Link without Title} Netiquette and Redirects Johnson and the LGF regulars (the self-proclaimed " homepage. Slang and Posting Protocols The LGF comments board is heavily laced with in-group Slang - not least by the webmaster, who sometimes claims credit for coining the Political Epithet " Idiotarian ." Other terms popularized by the site include " Moonbat " and " Islamonazi ." LGF regulars are known as " Lizardoids ." Like other highly partisan political forums on the Internet (e.g., Democratic Underground ), LGF attracts dissonant commenters. LGF claims not to ban posters for dissenting opinions while critics say that dissenters are drowned out by supporters and even legitimate critiques have been banned outright. Per one LGF user's " Troll Detection Kit ": "Trolls' beliefs follow a standard outline, whose roots are in the , the Co-Founder of the International Solidarity Movement .) Registration As the volume of comments from argumentative Newbie s rose with the site's increasing profile, many regular users requested a simple registration system; Johnson obliged them in June 2004 . Registration was closed in 2004, and then reopened in early 2006. In order to register, one must give a verifiable email address. Mainstream media attention Since founder Charles Johnson's post-9/11 turn to the right, some "mainstream media" sources have accused LGF of promoting ethnic bias. This has led many LGF fans to conclude that the mainstream media is itself biased against LGF. A few examples used to back this claim: "This site is the focus of considerable controversy for its focus (and particularly the focus of the constituents in its comments section) on Islamic culture and dogma as the source of Islamic terror. As a popular, active, and well presented site, it is worth checking out, but some may find its content hateful or even racist."
There is not one word about the anti- Idiotarian blogosphere... The mainstream media’s shameful, arrogant bias {Link without Title} up there for all to see.
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