Animal rights outfit PETA has finally pronounced on the matter of Barack Obama's shock fly-swat, following considerable press pressure (http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/lostinshowbiz/2009/jun/17/barack-obama-fly-swatting) for clarification if the savage act of executive violence merited comparison with the Armenian Genocide (http://www.armenian-genocide.org/).

Well, the result (http://blog.peta.org/archives/2009/06/obama_and_the_f.php) disappointingly lacks an international poster campaign featuring a naked Alicia Silverstone (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/31/perversions_of_nature/page2.html) sprawled under the slogan "Hands off my flies, Mr President". PETA's Alisa Mullins simply says of El Prez: "He isn't the Buddha, he's a human being, and human beings have a long way to go before they think before they act."

To help Obama attain spiritual enlightenment, Mullins adds that she's sending him a "handy-dandy bug catcher (https://www.petacatalog.org/prodinfo.asp?number=HP220)", the better to tackle "future insect incidents". ®

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