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Little Green Footballs

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Little Green Footballs (often abbreviated as LGF) is a political weblog run by California web designer Charles Johnson. Much like neo-conservative icon Irving Kristol, Johnson was "a liberal until he got mugged" — in this case, by September 11.

Before September 11, Johnson's blog had been geared towards the discussion of bicycle racing, programming, web design, and the occasional humorous news item. After September 11, it became a very active warblog, focusing on the American War on Terror and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Fans and Critics

Little Green Footballs is known for its irreverent spin on hot-button issues, featuring Photoshopped treatments of Rachel Corrie as "Saint Pancake," Yassir Arafat as "Arafish" and jailed Palestinian miltants as Elvis. A vocal admirer of controversial pundits Daniel Pipes and Oriana Fallaci, Johnson is also responsible for coining the word "idiotarian."

Fans see the website as an alternative media outlet which provides a counterweight to the alleged anti-American, anti-Zionist, anti-Conservative bias of mainstream media outlets like Reuters (or "al-Reuters" in LGF slang). LGF also features extensive coverage of under-reported news stories, particularly those featuring examples of European anti-Semitism or Islamist terrorism.

Critics point to the hyperbolic language employed by some posters and charge the webmaster with encouraging groupthink, jingoism, and Islamophobic hate speech.

LGF regulars (the self-proclaimed "Lizardoids") counter negative evaluations of the website by appealing to the clash of civilizations metanarrative. In their view, the war between the Western world and global Islamism is so revolutionary in scope and significance that the neutral point of view can only be understood as a defeatist anachronism.

Changes and controversies

In October 2003, LGF was the victim of a denial-of-service attack carried out by the members of various jihadist internet forums. This attack, although directed against another pro-Israel website (Internet Haganah), also affected Little Green Footballs, as it shares the same web hosting provider.

More recently, Johnson's "Lizardoids" have engaged in a number of high-profile flame wars, pitting Little Green Footballs against perceived leftist websites such as Metafilter, Matthew Yglesias, Kathryn Cramer, Daily Kos and Indymedia. A stampede of visitors ensued, prompting Johnson to implement a script which redirects traffic from rival sites to the Israel Defense Forces homepage instead.

Like other highly partisan internet forums (e.g., Free Republic, Democratic Underground), LGF attracts users who rail against the perceived mindset of its virtual community. These users are branded as "trolls" (or "Morlocks" in LGF slang) and banned by Johnson if they are deemed to have become disruptive. As the volume of comments from "morlocks" rose with the site's increasing profile, many regular users requested a simple registration system; Johnson obliged them in June 2004.

LGF was one of four blogs (including Free Republic, Power Line, and AllahPundit) responsible for the initial stages of the Killian memos investigation.

LGF also helped break the short-lived Pocketgate scandal less than a month later.

See also

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