Just Think About All the Unemployed Death Star Workers

I, personally, am very happy and proud to be living in a nation where the presidential administration, even after making a bone-headed move like promising to respond to any ridiculous petition that gathers 25,000 signatures (which is nothing in the age of social media), employs someone who writes a response like this.

Paul Shawcross, chief of the Science and Space Branch at the White House Office of Management and Budget and the writer of the response, is a nerd, and my hero. Or he made great use of Wikipedia when he was writing the denial of the petition.

Republicans might complain that Obama missed an opportunity to add a Death Star to the military budget, and Democrats might complain that the White House passed up a great public works project that could have put to work thousands of people during the construction (not to mention afterward – someone was going to get the franchise for the Burger King in the Death Star food court).

But I have to agree with Shawcross that in these budgetary tough times, we have to put the Death Star on the back burner. Besides, we'll be too busy building a real-life starship Enterprise.

Video of Virgin Galactic's "Captive Carry" Flight of the Enterprise

Here's some high-quality video from Virgin Galactic from yesterday's captive carry flight of the VSS Enterprise over the Mojave.