Like gross exageration,

Sorry, not with you. Please do explain.

@ Serendipity

pretzel, I feel that I want to ask why this star business exercises you so.

Why don’t you ask margie? She’s the one always referring to it! I was just curious as to what she meant on a particular thread.

And re. White.

you are implying that White’s slip up should not be taken seriously.

FFS. This is ridiculous. I neither implied nor meant such a thing.

And “…Michael White’s impromptu and flippant comment was irresponsible..”
yes, but given that he is a Guardian editor and the Guardian’s predilection for Israel-bashing is becoming better known, I strong disagree that White’s comment was “flippant.” It was at least insensitive, and your use of the world “flippant” (which perhaps indicates your interpretation only) is therefore totally misplaced because it seems that you are implying that White’s slip up should not be taken seriously.

White’s remark, during the interview about Silvio Berslusconi, was more of a Freudian slip I suspect, and evidenced a major disconnect between his brain and his mouth. If he was conscious of what he said, it puts the Guardian in an even worse light. It reflected the Guardian’s world view what Israel-hatred can be crowbarred even into even the most inappropriate places in interviews and regardless of the topic, if you work quickly enough to wrong foot idiotic and thick presenters.

I trust you count me among the victims rather than the perpetrators. Still not sure what precisely you were referring to when saying “A juvenile troll is playing Star Wars here“, but there you go.

All I’ve noticed is certain posts suddenly getting a flurry of 5-star or 1-star ratings – sometimes against the grain of the overall thread mood. There are also clear cases of people giving me 1 star where I’ve made a perfectly innocent and non-contentious remark – but I couldn’t care less.
So what exactly were you referring to/inferring on t’other thread? Were you coming to my defence when you referred to “when several have the same opinion and one is singled out”? Surely not.

Just to remind you that Jody McIntyre is male. Doesn’t make his blogging any more relevant, of course.

But (ahem) more importantly: said poster’s backlog shows a broad spectrum of distinctly normal and knowledegable comments (many directed in anger against the rich).
The exceptions are:
- “The Kingdom of Saudi is cosseted protected and propped up by Uncle Sam? Even to the point where US airplanes were used to dump saudi dissidents in the sea?” and
- “The cost of this revival [of Hebrew] was the death of Yiddish, the ancient tongue of the Ashkenazi people [sic].”

This comment, meanwhile, bears none of the hateful rhetoric seen in the post cited at top:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/25/israel-visas-ngo-palestine?showallcomments=true#CommentKey:fee0bb57-535e-47c3-9950-66787085548f

I failed to really make my point clear. I agree that e.g. Michael White’s impromptu and flippant comment was irresponsible – especially coming on an innocuous breakfast radio show that, I imagine, has a listenership not necessarily clued up (and potentially gullible) on I/P.

That said, the revisionist stuff spewed out by oldonmk2 is something else altogether and is most definitely not “permissible and approved by society.”

Counter-example: when e.g. Matt Seaton goes on a rant about the US, I would not link him to or suggest he is responsible for crazy conspiracy theories about e.g. the CIA inventing AIDS/committing 9/11.

p.s. So what comments on the other thread were you referring to re. Star Wars?

This is the reason for watch groups such as this one. It quite correctly takes exception to the inaccuracies that the Guardian supports.