A 2007 re-dub from Nick Park's "Creature Comforts" series, featuring George W. Bush as a house fly. Also appearing are Britney Spears, Tony Blair, Richard Clarke, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Gerhard Schroeder, and Condoleeza Rice.

Open thread below....

Watch this video and tell me what Joan Walsh did to elicit an over the top, bizarro-world reaction from the right-wing blogosphere. Are they so desperate for anything that they'll eat the scraps off a toilet bowl?

I met Mika and Joe at a book signing in LA and they were very friendly. Joe said that he appreciated the fact that CrooksandLiars has been very fair to him over the years, unlike a lot of other sites, but that being said ... why was Mika mocking Joan Walsh in such a childish fashion?

JOE SCARBOROUGH: ...I think it helps us all to say there are extreme voices on the left, there are extreme voices on the right, and it's our responsibility to call out people, I believe, on our side.

JOAN WALSH: Who would you have me call out? I mean who would you say on the left is comparable to Rush and...

SCARBOROUGH: Don't do it.

MIKA BREZEZINSKI: Mmm-mmm! No thanks, Joan. We're good. We're good.

SCARBOROUGH: Can we talk about the Chinese now?

MIKA: I think it's all very obvious.

WALSH: Is it obvious? Who on the left is comparable to Rush and Glenn on the right?

MIKA: Okay, Joan, if it's not obvious to you I'll talk to you off-set. I mean, my God! Alright so let's read from the Washington Post...

SCARBOROUGH: We'll talk off-set.

WALSH: Okay...

MIKA: Seriously, it's like BLIP... BLIP... BLIP... right in front of you and you're like [imitates willfully clueless Walsh] "I'm sorry, I don't see it!"

Joe plays the Republican game of false equivalency when he says that we need to call out the extremists on both sides. Joe isn't a dumb man. He knows that there's nothing on the left that even approaches the hate filled extremist nuts that have been polluting the tea party crowd alone. Couple that with FOX News, Limbaugh and the rest of his wannabe imitators and there's more hate than can be measured on the Richter scale being piped into our airwaves all day long. There isn't anyone on the left that acts like Rush or Beck and Mika and Morning Joe know it.

It appeared that Mika might be referencing Joan as some sort of left wing extremist in the mold of Beck, but that's pretty ridiculous since she's very grounded in her media appearances. Or were they referencing Keith Olbermann and just too chicken to say his name?

Well, if I had the chance to debate the likes of the sleaze known as Dick Armey, I wouldn't have the same composure she showed.

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Walsh: But this is serious business. The economy is a wreck, (Armey laughs) it's been wrecked by the Bush White House and by Republicans in Congress with a lot of help Democratic help, with (Armey makes more noises and sighs) --

Armey: Oh, give it a rest.

Walsh: President Obama -- Please stop saying 'give it a rest.' Do you have any anything else to say? -- President Obama has a mandate for change. (Armey laughs again) Your people have stood in his way. They are standing in his way in Capitol Hill right now and Rush Limbaugh is making ridiculous statements and Republicans are crawling to him and groveling. That's the state of our economy and our world right now Rep. Armey and it's sad.

Armey: I'm so glad that you could never be my wife because I surely wouldn't have to listen to that prattle from you every day.

Walsh: Well, wow that makes two of us sir, that was really an outstanding comment...

Armey: Look ma'am, you're talking like a paid political hack making your political points.

Poor lost wingnuts. They get their kicks out of a minute and a half know-nothing exchange.

You may have already heard that "Clerks" director Kevin Smith was thrown off a Southwest Airlines flight yesterday for being too fat - after he was buckled in.

So take the mistreatment of a geek cult hero, add his Twitter feed with over a million and half followers (ThatKevinSmith), and you have a well-deserved public relations nightmare. In a stunning display of the power of new media vs. old, Kevin (who's famous for his colorful language on Twitter) is not holding back on this one. He's got up a podcast, too:

Director Kevin Smith was ejected from a plane after being deemed "too fat to fly," he says on his Twitter account.

After delivering a speech in San Francisco, he boarded a Southwest Airlines flight to Burbank and was seated on the plane but then was thrown off the flight Saturday evening. The director of Clerks and other movies, who is also known for playing the movie character Silent Bob in many films, fired off a round of Twitter messages aimed at Southwest. Among them, "Fair warning folks: If you look like me, you may be ejected from Southwest Air." A spokesperson for Southwest Airlines wrote an apology on the company's Twitter account. The message, from an unnamed representative, says "Hey Kevin! I'm so sorry for your experience tonight! Hopefully we can make things right."

Have any of you ever had a similar experience?

I suppose we'll have to sit with hands clasped and eyes straight ahead, too. And heaven forbid you need to use the bathroom! (Better get out the adult Depends.)

Why, it'll be just like being back in Catholic school. Good thing so many of us are unemployed and can't afford to fly:

In the wake of the terrorism attempt Friday on a Northwest Airlines flight, federal officials on Saturday imposed a new layer of restrictions on travelers that could lengthen lines at airports and limit the ability of international passengers to move about an airplane.

Among other steps being imposed, passengers on international flights coming to the United States will apparently have to remain in their seats for the last hour of a flight without any personal items on their laps. Overseas passengers will be restricted to only one carry-on item aboard the plane, and domestic passengers will probably face longer security lines.

The restrictions will again change the routine of air travel, which has undergone an upheaval since the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington in September 2001 and three attempts at air terrorism since then.

Just a day after the attempt on Friday, travelers at airports around the world began experiencing heightened screening in security lines. On one flight, from Newark Airport, flight attendants kept cabin lights on for the entire trip instead of dimming them for takeoff and landing.

Of course the banks are up in arms about any legislation that would turn off the usury spigot they've milked for decades. Ann Logue at Popdose points out just one example:

...my credit card limit is $20,000. I could use the card to fly first class to Paris and go on a spree at Le Bon Marche yet pay no interest if I paid it off in full the first month it was due. But take $140 from an ATM and hold the balance for 20 days or so, and the total fees and interest work out to about $24, an annual interest rate of 208%.

Another crazy practice is late fees: I've received a credit card statement showing my payment as posted (they got my money in time to print it on my paper statement) but because they posted it one day after their "due date" they tried to charge me $29.00 in late fees. I called and complained (which works more often than you might think, do try it) and they reversed it, but how many $29.00 payments do you think got added to their balance sheets this year from people "afraid" to call a creditor?

Obama's bill does not go far enough, and doesn't start soon enough (one year for most of its provisions IF the Senate passes it) but it's a start.