Charles Johnson is a travelled man

Having received a nasty comment from "a European", Lizard King Charles has decided to set the record straight by painting red all the countries he has been to on a little world map (http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=10414_My_Country_Map). An impressive show of red, though unfortunately it tells us little of where in those countries he was and what he did there. For all we know, Charles may have spent his time in Thailand checking out Bangkok brothels. But that is his problem.

Far more interesting is the fact that the well-travelled, culturally-circumspect readers of LGF have such nice things to say about people they have never met. Let's see, Europeans are:

"f@#$wad euros" (#3)

"EUnuchs" (#23)

"amazing creatures" and have "inbred media" (#25)

"Europaeons" and "EU wimp" (#27)

"Zeropeans" (#31)

"Euroweenies" (#37)

"Eurotards (mostly French)" (#68)

...the list goes on. Charming people.

"Internet chatroom users can be so aggressive that a sociologist studying them has labelled some online communities "electronic fight clubs".

"According to the new research, even the most laid-back people can erupt into furious rants when debating online, and it's all part of an effort to distinguish themselves from the next user. Some even take on multiple personalities in a bid to outsmart their online acquaintances, while others adopt menacing usernames." (from Education Guardian).

Two teenagers ordered into battle by unscrupulous politicians.

Anti-Semitism in America

Today we bring you some news that you sadly won't be reading on the Little Green Footballs weblog, namely that there were over 1,500 anti-Semitic attacks in America during 2003.

Why does LGF ignore such news? We wouldn't dare to speculate...

Charles Johnson: coming all over a corpse

Lizard king Charles Johnson is seemingly beyond himself with joy at the assassination of Sheikh Yassin (http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=10280_Getty_Photos_of_Yassin) - and wouldn't we all be if we had Johnson's jaded worldview.

More interesting than the ideological aspects of Johnson's character this reveals, though, is the fact that Johnson delights in pictures of a blown-up corpse, parading them round his website like a bloody hunting trophy. This is the attitude of a man in-love with death, at least when wreaked upon Palestinians in wheelchairs.

His followers display a similar taste for blood. However, in all their orgasmic joy over Yassin's death, not one of them seems to display any knowledge of who the man actually was, beyond describing him as the arch-terrorist and leader of a band of murderers. Herein lies the problem when dealing with LGFers and their consorts: their lust for blood is stronger than their desire to actually achieve resolutions to problems. They would rather blow someone up and have the attack come back to haunt them in a few years time, than to try and understand the roots of those attacks and prevent them from happening.

Well, LGFers, if you're tired of bloodshed, why not start your political education by finding out more about the man whose death you've just celebrate? http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,3604,1175833,00.html

And on the idiocy goes

If further proof were needed that David Kaspar is an ostrich when it comes to judging the German media landscape, this would be it. You see, the journal Kaspar loves to hate most is Der Spiegel, a left-of-centre weekly that runs articles about Iraq, world politics and America which Kaspar doesn't like. In fact, he dislikes Der Spiegel so much that he has elevated all of their contributors (with the possible exception of Hendryk M Broder) to the status of 'Bush Haters' - something that is obviously very bad in Kaspar's book. And what is more, Der Spiegel reflects, according to Kaspar, the sorry state of German media, who like nothing better than to bash America while ignoring international terrorism - even tacitly supporting it.

It must come as some surprise, then, that Der Spiegel, that bastion of jihad-supporting liberals, currently has as its topic of the week the connections that Al Qaeda has to Germany and the terrorist danger this poses. Of course, to highlight the fact that Der Spiegel does take terrorism seriously and does write about jihadis in Germany would undermine Kaspar's whole venture. So he sticks his head in the sand an ignores it.

LGF readers: Charming as ever

The news of wheelchair-bound Hamas leader Sheikh Yassin's death by missile causes much joy over the LGF today. One reader, calling himself 'Darn Tootin', expresses his considered opinion thus:

"Goodbye you sick muslim fuck. All of your bloodlusting minions are next. May they die in pain. Allah the pig fucker willing." (http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=10269#c0319)

And they dare to claim they want peace in the Middle East...

David's Medienkritik and 'Democracy'

You gotta laugh at the idiocy of some of LGF's most ardent readers. Take David Kaspar's 'Medienkritik' weblog. In its latest posting, Kaspar describes Iraq as "the newly arisen Democracy in the Near East". Someone should tell David that it takes free and fair elections before a country can call itself a democracy. Oh, and the official term for the region is the Middle East, though I expect that depends on just how far east you are yourself...

Charles Johnson ignores Bush - bin Laden connection

How sweet: Mr J has found another reason for Americans not to vote for John Kerry. Apparently Kerry is married to this woman, Teresa Heinz, right? And she sits on the board of some funds, right? And the funds give money to charitable organisations and civil rights groups, right? And one of these groups is called the Tides group, right, and they once said that they were proud to support this other group that calls itself the Council on Amerian-Islamic Relations. And THEY once said that it wasn't proven that Osama bin Laden carried out all those terroist attacks that are attributed to him. So there you have it: Johnny supports bin Laden. Simple!

... or maybe not. For while Charles gets hung up on a rather tenuous link between the Democratic contender for US president and a fugitive Saudi terrorist (http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=10213_Teresa_Heinz_and_CAIR), he completely ignores some far more obvious links between the Bush family and bin Laden, and the links between the CIA and Al Qaeda. Why? Well, maybe they don't fit into his world view...

Charles Johnson no bright spark when it comes to politics

Has anyone noticed that Mr J doesn't really understand basic political terminology, much less complex political concepts? In one of his latest postings he describes the recently-elected Spanish PM-to-be as "communist", when in actual fact every foole knowe that Jose Luis Rodriquez Zapatero is a member of the Socialist Party (http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=10180_Spanish_Statecraft). It's probably all the same to Big CJ.

Charles Johnson: no sympathy with victims of terror

On Sunday, three days after 200 people were killed and hundreds more injured in a massive bomb attack at three train stations in Madrid, LGF webmaster Charles F Johnson proclaimed the following: "If Spain votes for appeasement following the horrific train bombings, my sympathy for the country will come to an abrupt halt" (http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=10153_Spanish_Protesters_Blame_Aznar_for_Bombings). By this one can assume that Johnson meant: if they vote for a socialist government, and if that government decides to pull its troops out of Iraq, then they will lose his sympathy.

Well, Spain voted in the socialist PSOE party and their leader, Jose Zapatero, has indeed announced that he will seek to end Spain's presence in Iraq. Hence, we can assume that Charles now no longer has any sympathy with the victims of the attack. Not that I expect it matters much to someone who has just lost their loved one whether or not some rabid Californian racist "has sympathy" for them. But it says a lot about Johnson's understanding of democracy (over 75% of the voting population cast its ballot) and about the way in which his allegiance falls only to those who experience tragedy and swear to take bloody revenge - rather than seek real solutions to the problem. Remember that next time some innocent gets killed: Charles only likes you if you vow to kill in return.

David's Medienkritik: another sad example of the kind of thinking LGF inspires.

In a departure from our usual fodder of Charles Johnson, lizards and rabid racists, we're taking a look at another weblog today, David's Medienkritik. DM, as it shall henceforth be know, pretends to be a serious obvserver of the German media landscape, but its subtext is that it will pillory anything that appears (in the eyes of David Kaspar, it's owner) to be anti-American or liberal. Fair enough, each to his own, you might say, and we would agree. Except for the fact that this blog makes claims to objectivity and impartiality where clearly neither of those attributes fit. What is more, DM quite simply gets its facts wrong and can therefore not be regarded as a trustworthy source of information of commentary. To illustrate the point, let us take the latest posting:

Poll Stop / Umfrage-Stopp

"SPIEGEL ONLINE has deactivated the online poll on President Bush's job performance. The folks at SPIEGEL ONLINE have the nerve to display the "results", describing it as a consequence of a "vote war"."

Indeed they have the nerve to describe the outcome of a poll THEY featured as a 'result'. Does Kaspar expect them to run the poll indefinitely? As for it being a 'vote war', well, that is a fairly accurate description of a poll in which proponents and opponents of a certain opinion go at each other like wolves by relentlessly clicking the most extreme opinions either way in order to see their view come out top.

"Fact is, the "results" were produced by massive use of technical manipulating by pro- as well as anti-Bush-programmers. We had no part in this. We had only called for participation, mainly among US internet users. That's not manipulation."

Fact is, DM started a thread on the website of Free Republic with the headline "Bush needs your help" explicitly calling for its (neo-conservative) readers to flock to Spiegel Online. Now if that doesn't indicate some sort of preference for which way people are to vote, I don't know. But it gets better: each day, Kaspar posted calls on his own website urging people to 'help Bush'. These were echoed on other sites, including Little Green Footballs, where the Ueber-Lizard rallied his minions with the battlecry: "Help Drive the German Left Crazy" (http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=10047_Help_Drive_the_German_Left_Crazy). Charlie-boy then goes on to detail how LGFers who don't speak German can still make an 'informed choice': by selecting "1" and clicking on "abstimmen".

"At the end, the anti-Bush votes came in continuously at a rate of 200 or more per minute. Almost one million votes were "counted"."

In actual fact, the poll was stopped after votes reached 899,593 . That's a mere 100,407 votes short of a million, but who cares about minutae like that...? As elsewhere, David Kaspar displays little regard for facts or honest reporting. Or interesting reporting, but that's another matter...

Here is a translation of the SPIEGEL ONLINE article about 'freeping' (click here for original)

-------------------

You need to click "Abstimmen"

by Frank Patalong

Votes are a fine thing: they're the salt in the news recipe; they
give online media producers feedback on what their readers think of a topic;
such as the fact that 60 per cent of SPIEGEL ONLINE readers think George W.
Bush is a great president. Here's why.

Widow Vivian Freep from Midland (Texas) is "George Bush's biggest supporter".

Good for Bush, say Europeans. But Americans of conservative political inclination
get angry at that accusation, because it is an insult, no more and no less.


It means that Bush's success is based on the help of people who manipulate,
kick up a fuss, and fake elections.

"Freeping" is actually a slang term. It covers the late-night defacing
of election posters, organising loud counter-demonstrations, consciously disturbing
your political opponent's rallies, and - last but not least - forging Internet
polls.

This strange term was conceived at the end of the '90s and can be traced
back to the "Free Republic" website of the ultra-conservative activist
Jim Robinson.

"Freep", as fans quickly came to call the website, sees itself
as a "conservative news forum". Central to the site is a discussion
forum with, at times, pretty strong content.

The conservative click-guerillas

Free Republic began as a site for Clinton-haters but quickly evolved. The
"Freep-Movement" earned its first laurels when the site started
calling on users to "support" conservative candidates at various
elections.

In practice this meant disturbing Democratic events, tearing down or faking
posters, and actively supporting counter-candidates. At a time when Clinton
faced impeachment Freep groups organised "information events" in
various cities and placed ads in newspapers. The term "freeping"
came into being and meant: "outshouting your opponent".

Vote-Manipulation on SPIEGEL ONLINE

Little has changed since then. During the last week SPIEGEL ONLINE came to
the attention of the "freepers", in particular one of the polls
in the section on the US presidential election.

We asked our readers: "For three years George W Bush has been the most
powerful man in the United States - and the World. What do you think of his
term in office up to now?"

The result of this popular vote, which has already drawn over 38,000 votes,
could prove one of two things: either that Germans aren't as sceptical of
Bush as is often claimed; or it could demonstrate the power of the "freepers".

For since 5 March the latter have been calling on their supporters to "freep"
the poll on "Germany's left-left-wing SPIEGEL ONLINE". The extraordinary
thing is that the forum member who initiated this is no conservative American
at all: David Kaspar runs the weblog "Davids Medienkritik", a Forum
for "politically incorrect observations on reporting in the German media"

To Kaspar this means taking a strongly pro-Bush stance against the supposed
prejudice of the German media. Media expert Kaspar is also person who described
DER SPIEGEL as "left-left" - it's all a matter of perspective.

To quote his original posting on Free Republic: "Bush Needs Your Help!"
And further: "As of 5 March, 2004, 1 pm (Berlin time), Bush's results
are rather miserable. Only 3.3 per cent for "1" and 1.47 per cent
for "2""

Thankfully the posting on Free Republic quickly generated a positive response:
within a few hours the "freepers" had turned the poll upside-down.
At 10pm "Berlin time" on 5 March David Kaspar noted: "As of
5 March, 2004, 10pm (Berlin time), Bush's results are EXCELLENT. 41.23 per
cent for "1" (= Bush did a great job as President). Many thanks!!
YOU GUYS ARE DOING JUST GREAT!! The Bush haters at SPIEGEL ONLINE will have
a heart attack tomorrow morning... Keep up the good work!!"

Vote Manipulation: it’s the masses that swing it

Two days later Kaspar announced the "official" result: "SPIEGEL
ONLINE With Large Pro-Bush User Base". A euphoric Kaspar adds an imaginary
interview with an imaginary SPIEGEL-ONLINE editor to his posting about "59
per cent 1's": apparently the poll made DER SPIEGEL recognise that it's
entire "ideology" was wrong.

What is more, the SPIEGEL ONLINE editorial team had employed media consultants
to determine what the "future course" should be.

Literally, the dreamt-up interview goes: "In terms of ideology, everything
is now up for grabs," said the source. "We might even endorse Bush's
re-election. Kerry's is a Knackwurst, anyway."

And so as to make sure that the pressure is maintained Kaspar repeats his
call to manipulate the poll every day: "You could light up our miserable
lives by participating in this little poll! As an aside, you'll hurt the feelings
of some German Bush-haters."

Within a few days this call to manipulate the vote had spread like wildfire,
carried by a strong and previously hardly recognised conservative blogging
scene. Thus "Little Green Footballs" appealed to its audience: "Help
drive the German left crazy".

"Freep this Poll!"

But the masses came through Free Republic. The site has long admitted that
it loves to "freep". A search for the term "freep" on
Free Republic demonstrates how much unpaid enthusiasm Free Republic is able
to generate: On the morning of the 8 March Free Republic published John Kerry's
campaign dates and called on freepers to go to the events and take "more
realistic" pictures of them.

It also releases calls to take action against other "Democrats",
but in particular its users are repeatedly asked to manipulate online polls:
"Freep this Poll!".

The target of one of these campaigns: polls about gay same-sex marriage (56
per cent against). Other polls include the question whether the George Bush's
9/11 campaign ads were tasteless or not, which produce a clear result: at
times 78 per cent thought not, on other polls it's 85 per cent. Even on CNN
it's still 72 per cent.

Normally large numbers of participants prevent polls from being manipulated.
Big websites protect their polls with cookies that make repeated vote-casting
difficult because the cookie has to be deleted between vote-casting. Apart
from this the reliability of a poll depends largely on the number of people
participating in it; a far from secure method of protecting polls, but if
thousands of users take part it at least becomes difficult to manipulate it.

Freepers: on their way into the mainstream?

But freepers have shown that they are capable of mobilising their own masses
in order to overcome the masses of "normal" web users at any time.
From SPIEGEL ONLINE to CNN and the "Times", from various TV stations
to MSN Australia, and of course on the sites of myriad smaller sites, nobody
can rely on an honest poll if the freepers are on the march.

Even the most trivial polls are manipulated. During the last week freepers
placed great emphasis in demonstrating their country's influence: a poll on
a South African website asked whether Haiti's ex-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide
had left the country of his own free will was manipulated in such a way that
from one moment to the next 68 per cent thought the USA had forced him out.

In a poll on the greenhouse effect 86.5 per cent claimed it either didn't
exist or that it was completely natural. On 2 March Free Republic called on
its users to "freep" a poll at New York state primary schools because
the majority of pupils showed "democratic" voting tendencies.

The only organisations that Free Republic doesn't dare freep anymore are
the large American newspapers: back in 1998 the "Los Angeles Times"
and the "Washington Post" took Free Republic to court for copyright
infringement. Not until June 2002 did "Freep" webmaster Jim Robinson
manage to secure an out-of-court settlement that resulted in the agreement
that he would not quote from the newspapers or from their associated publications
any more on his website.

The "Freep-Movement", which saw a dip in popularity after the impeachment
against Clinton failed, hasn't stopped though: at least since the catastrophe
of September 11 and the resulting radicalisation of political discourse in
the USA the "Freep" is stronger than ever. The movement is seeking
to make in-roads into the mainstream: since the Gulf War "Freeps"
have taken part in demonstrations for the good cause: for Bush and for war.
On 2 September 2003 Free Republic announced that for the first time "one
of our very own", John Armor, would run for the US Congress. Armor would
try to make his forum name come true: up until then he had been known only
as "Congressman BillyBob".

Spiegel Online reacts to LGF poll 'freeping'

After Charles Johnson mobilised his minions to vote for Bush (slogan: 'Sieg Bush!') in a Spiegel Online poll over the weekend (see below), SpOn retaliates with an expose article on the practice of 'freeping': rigging online polls by using message boards to urge people of a similar political opinion to vote in a certain way. Read the SpOn article here: http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/politik/0,1518,289615,00.html (in German).

Charles Johnson the Democrat

Charles Johnson, Mr Ueber-LGF, loves democracy; especially American-style democracy. That is why he supports a 'president' who won the last election through vote rigging. And Charlie-boy even likes rigging votes himself: by asking his mindless minions to vote en-mass in Internet polls the language of which they don't even understand (http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=10047_Help_Drive_the_German_Left_Crazy).

LGF only tells half the story - as usual

Another rant against the EU on Charles Johnson's weblog today (http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=10043_EU_UK_Gave_PA_$25_Million): In it he makes it appear as if the evil EU was secretly pumping vast sums of money into a Palestinian organisations whose sole purpose it is to take Israel to the International Tribunal in The Hague because of the Fence.

But Charles fails to mention the following:

"In answer to a parliamentary question in the House of Lords last week, Baroness Amos said: "The purpose of the project was to provide professional legal, technical, policy and communications advice to the PA in preparation for, and during, permanent status negotiations with Israel. Following the breakdown of formal negotiations, the NSU has broadened its role by seeking to encourage the resumption of permanent status negotiations by contributing to a variety of diplomatic peace initiatives."" (From Haaretz)

So, one question to Charles: would he like to see Palestinians negotiate with Israel without adequate resources, unpaid, understaffed, and without international expertise? I expect Charles's answer would be yes, because underlying his high-minded accusations of the EU funding "high-profile legal stunts" is the belief that Palestinians should not be negotiated with, they should be wiped off the face of the Earth.

Charles Johnson's child abuse

LGF supremo Charles Johnson is not known for pulling his punches. Repeatedly Johnson has used the image of Palestinian children - often dressed as 'martyrs' or fighters - on protest marches to denounce Palestinians for abusing their children (http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=9899. Whatever one's opinion of this practice may be, it is hard not to take into consideration that these are people under immense internal and external pressure, and that such pressure can lead some to do things which outsiders find difficult to comprehend. A parellel can be found in the observations that photographer Jan Grarup made when he visited the Israeli community in Hebron, a predominantly Palestinian town. Numbering only a few hundred they are under constant protection by the Israeli army. The Israeli settlers, under constant threat by Palestinian fighters, have also taken it upon themselves to launch repeated attacks against Palestinian civilians in Hebron. The most infamous of these is the killing of 29 Muslims in a mosque on 25 February 1994 by Baruch Golstein, who has since become a martyr figure for Israeli extremists.

Grarup's pictures (below and here) show the fear and loathing that Israelis have for their Palestinian neighbours.



Settler children look on as an Israeli soldier stands guard amid the rubble of a Palestinian home bulldozed by the IDF.




A settler girl in fancy dress makes her way past an IDF armoured personell carrier.






Jonathan, a 20-year old soldier, is proud to be carrying the same assault rifle that his idol Baruch Goldstein used when he killed 29 Arabs in a mosque. The words "Kill them all, may God choose his own" are inscribed on Jonathan's magazine. A little boy is playing next to him, pretending to be a fighter dressed in a uniform jacket and with a beard painted on his face.






Settler children taking part in an armed march of Israeli settlers protesting against the Palestinians. Some children are dressed as fighters while others brandish machine guns.