PETA as Norman Bates

PETA is beyond parody.  Obama sees a fly, is kind enough to issue it a warning, and then kills it after it ignores his warning.  So what else can PETA do but disgrace themselves by calling attention to the horrors of fly cruelty.

PETA is sending President Barack Obama a Katcha Bug Humane Bug Catcher, a device that allows users to trap a house fly and then release it outside.

"We support compassion even for the most curious, smallest and least sympathetic animals," PETA spokesman Bruce Friedrich said Wednesday. "We believe that people, where they can be compassionate, should be, for all animals."

And all I can think of is the scene at the end of Psycho, in which (spoiler alert!) Norman Bates believes that he can fool people into thinking that he didn't kill those people, because he's so harmless that he wouldn't even swat a fly that was buzzing him.

And yes, I'm fully aware that this was nothing more than yet another publicity stunt by PETA, which has decided that even embarrassing publicity is better than no publicity.  But all the same, this is ridiculous.  For as much as I'm against animal cruelty, there is nothing cruel about swatting flies.  These people have gone beyond their useful purpose and are now little more than a fundraising organization which hurts their cause more than they help it.  I'm sure there are more sane animal rights organizations out there, but until PETA stops sucking all the oxygen out of the room, these groups will remain sidelined.