Government, Meet Star Wars


Some weeks back, there was the news about how the US had considered blowing up the moon as a show of strength during the Cold War. This was around the time the Russians put the first man in space and the Americans felt they were woefully behind the Soviets. There followed the (inevitable) denials that it was never a serious idea, that the world (let alone the Americans) never had the firepower to blow up the moon, that even a massive nuclear explosion on the moon would have just been a blink-and-you-miss-it event in Moscow (and that’s assuming the sky was clear and someone was even looking)…

On a more recent note, there was a petition filed in the US that the government build a Death Star, you know, the Star Wars kind. Well, the US government had to respond because the petition had collected the minimum signatures needed! Titled “This Isn’t the Petition Response You’re Looking For”, the US rejected the petition (obviously) and went on to list the reasons:
-         Cost: $850 billion trillion.
-         Philosophy: “The Administration does not support blowing up planets”.
-         Fundamental flaw in the idea that can be “exploited by a one-man starship”.
Nobody who has seen the movie can argue with that last point!

Continuing, the White House went on to show its Sheldon Cooper side:
“We don’t have a Death Star, but we do have floating robot assistants on the Space Station, a President who knows his way around a light saber and advanced (marshmallow) cannon, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is supporting research on building Luke’s arm, floating droids, and quadruped walkers.”

And to close out, the response pointed out that the Death Star’s power to destroy a planet, or even a whole star system, was in any case insignificant next to the power of the Force!

And you thought governments can’t have a sense of humour!

Comments

  1. KumarJanuary 14, 2013 at 9:32 AM

    Governments can't be said to be devoid of humor. At any rate, down here, most of what our politicians say - well, we have to only laugh them away.

    At least that the Americans wanted the moon blown to pieces because they hated the Russians may be less laughable than what we find in India.

    Our politicians want our spaceship in Mars, while they found (actually what they thought was an ingenious way) to instantly lower the nation's poverty level. By declaring that poverty means earning below Rs 600 per year(or some such ridiculous number of this kind, because what the top brass reeled of is not worth remembering but undoubtedly worth ridiculing)our government proclaimed that innumerable poor people to be well-off. In the mean time, one ministry spent rupees 200 million (or some such astronomical number) on the officers' urinals and lavatories, serving some 20 bureaucrat-officers only. Others were told to use the riffraff toilet! Mind you, the bureaucrats gave their best to this urinal project by travelling abroad to study the urinals and lavatories of wealthy nations! Government actually hoped that people wouldn't believe it is true and could get away with such open robbery of tax payers' money. Since political robbery is at its peak around this time and many people have started putting up a good fight against government misdeeds, the politicians' ability to cheat us by hiding information is reducing. And yet, there is little sign of the politicians and bureaucrats letting go of their arrogance, atrocities and the desire to cheat and loot.

    So, since good governance will elude us for quite some time, we should be content with our spaceship in Mars for now! Fortunately, India hasn't the capacity to blow Mars to pieces, in order to have one-upmanship against the US.

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