8 ms·
This Isn't the Petition Response You're Looking For
- sethbannon 14y agoI can't tell you how happy it makes me to know our federal government has a sense of humor.
- Osiris 14y agoSometimes we forget that the government is really a conglomeration of (mostly) normal people and just an amorphous blob of ludocracy.
- dakimov 14y agoNot in all countries, in fact, in most countries governments consist of goblins. I think there is a correlation between the national wealth and the percentage of normal people in the government.
- xentronium 14y agoI can't tell you how jealous it makes the others, whose governments a sense of humor lack!
- scottkduncan 14y agoI think we're about to reach a point where internet humor and government and humor finally converge. Congress has basically been trolling the American people (minus anyone actually getting to laugh about it) for most of the last decade, and they're finally getting trolled back by the likes of internet-driven campaigns like Mint the Coin. I think this is a great development. As a DC resident, I can attest to everyone here taking themselves far too seriously.
- jff 14y agoThe Bill of Rights? Who cares, a White House intern made a Star Wars reference!
- baddox 14y agoA lack of a sense of humor was never very high of my list of concerning and horrifying features of the federal government.
- peter_l_downs 14y agoThe ending is the best part! > If you do pursue a career in a science, technology, engineering > or math-related field, the Force will be with us! Remember, the > Death Star's power to destroy a planet, or even a whole star system, > is insignificant next to the power of the Force.
- rvkennedy 14y agoWhoa there: Church and State!
- consultutah 14y agoThat is hilarious! Can we all vote on making Paul Shawcross the official responder to all WH petitions? Ok, maybe just the silly frivolous ones?
- xal 14y agoThis is inspired. I don't think it would have been possible to pen a better response here. Even the call to action was brilliant.
- vermontdevil 14y agoSeems they have not altered the deal to respond to petitions if it hits a threshold. Let's pray these responses are not altered in the future.
- georgemcbay 14y ago"The Administration does not support blowing up planets." I guess we're going to have to wait until the Republicans are back in the executive branch.
- anewguy99 14y agoUnless its Chuck Hagel or Rand Paul.
- mscarborough 14y agoSo many things to say, but really not the right forum. Sigh. I laughed at this, it's a fun and smart response targeted to a sub-community that barely broke the threshold to get that response. But let's be real. If your standard of 'blowing up the planet' is somewhat lesser than 'the Republicans'...it might make you feel better to say it but history shows both of them are plenty happy dropping bombs for no justifiable reason.
- pekk 14y agoI am afraid that history doesn't show that we wage wars "for no justifiable reason".
- jackpirate 14y agoHow about the Mexican-American war, where US soldiers crossed the Mexican border, Mexican troops chased them away, the US decided this was a Mexican invasion, the US declared war, then we took the entire South-Eastern United States from Mexico. All because WE invaded THEM first.
- btilly 14y agoAh, but it was the Manifest Destiny of the USA to conquer North America and Mexico happened to be in the way. How much more justification do you need? (Note, I grew up in Canada, which became a single country for mutual defense in case the USA wanted to repeat the incident on its northern border. Details are a bit more complicated than that, but that is the gist of it.)
- jtokoph 14y agoNow that they write a joke response to a joke petition, it would be nice to see a serious response to a serious petition.
- ISL 14y agoAgreed. In fact, it's the government's job to respond to a joke petition as a serious petition. Maybe we all want a Death Star?
- ghc 14y agoWhile there are jokes within the response, I do not believe this to be a "joke response". The points he makes are good, and the call to action regarding careers in math and science is a fantastic way to handle a response likely to be read by 14-16 year olds throughout the reaches of the internet. Paul Shawcross is still a long way from making amends for what he's done to help cripple our human space flight program, however.
- JamisonM 14y agoThe "Shawcross Option" might have been for the best for all we know. The shuttle was designed to be expensive, doing things that it never really needed to do. If NASA had ended the shuttle program sooner we might very well have a better space-exploration-only vehicle out on the tarmac right now instead of... what do we have now? Oh, right, nothing. I would add that the emphasis on non-human exploration seems to be about the best possible PR and science move for NASA, it has been cheap and generated positive buzz in the media as mission after mission has exceeded expectations.
- adastra 14y ago> Paul Shawcross is still a long way from making amends for what he's done to help cripple our human space flight program, however. And what is it you think he did, exactly? Just curious.
- mscarborough 14y agoThere's apparently at least 96 responses so far. https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/responses https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/responses Is 96 the real number? Since the search bar always says 'featured responses'. When you click the bottom bar to see more responses it does some delayed-JS-scroll action and shows all of 8 more results. Unless you're really trying to increase the drop-off rate on each click, why make it so crappy? How many sites set their pagination to 8 items, unless they want users to linger on what was just delivered? They don't seem to be very serious about the petition site. Good PR, and I guess I'm glad they have the option, but it's kind of a joke.
- sonabinu 14y agoThis is one of the best things I've read all day ;)
- vojant 14y agoJust hilarious! May the Force be with you!
- 205guy 14y agoI think the Farce is strong in that one. Seriously though, all it takes is a bunch of Star Wars reference to garner a bunch of Likes? No wonder there are so many actors in politics.
- mbetter 14y agoEverything that isn't a Star Wars reference in that response is fantastic and actually a little inspiring.
- tunnuz 14y agoHilarious, this made my day :D
- spiritplumber 14y agoapplause
- Samuel_Michon 14y ago"The construction of the Death Star has been estimated to cost more than $850,000,000,000,000,000. We're working hard to reduce the deficit, not expand it." The White House blog doesn't link to the source article, so here it is: http://www.centives.net/S/2012/how-much-would-it-cost-to-build-the-death-star/ http://www.centives.net/S/2012/how-much-would-it-cost-to-bui...
- DanBC 14y agoEstimated cost of death star $850,000,000,000,000,000 Estimated current US debt $16,437,339,543,399 Cost of Death Star per US citizen $2,705,101,099 Estimated US debt per US citizen $52,311 (Figures from (http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/ http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/) I have no idea if they're realistic or not.)
- pseudorocker 14y agoI see a link. Maybe they just added it? Or maybe you're saying the linked article is not the O.G. source.
- CurtHagenlocher 14y agoAs an American taxpayer, I applaud this use of my tax dollars.
- danso 14y agoFor all the talk of the Obama administration being anti-religon, they're relying on ancient myth to argue against technological progress
- tomasien 14y agoThe Government is showing the early signs of "getting" the internet. This could get interesting.
- ck2 14y agoWait, is private industry really going to put a human on the moon this decade? Somehow that feels like vaporware.
- aurelianito 14y agoWow! I never expected a C3PO division of NASA! http://www.nasa.gov/offices/c3po/home/index.html http://www.nasa.gov/offices/c3po/home/index.html
- mtgx 14y agoI would've been more interested in a response for the more "realistic" petition for an interplanetary ship. https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/assign-nasa-do-feasibility-study-and-conceptual-design-gen1-uss-enterprise-interplanetary-spaceship/DB07k8jF?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/assign-nasa-do-fea...
- melignus 14y agoAdded this one to the app also XD http://projects.melignus.com/petition-heatmap http://projects.melignus.com/petition-heatmap
- asdf333 14y agowell played, obama administration. well played.
- melignus 14y agoI added the death star data to my toy project I've been working on. http://projects.melignus.com/petition-heatmap http://projects.melignus.com/petition-heatmap
- monochromatic 14y agoI deleted my reddit account in part because of the Obama-fellating. Can we keep the politics off HN?
- late2part 14y agoThis is the funniest part of the response by the Obama Administration: "We're working hard to reduce the deficit, not expand it."
- mynameishere 14y agoStopped reading at "Death Star". Kind of ashamed that I blew 20 seconds typing this. Also ashamed that probably 50K in tax dollars were blown in responding to it.
- T-hawk 14y agoI am proud if $0.00043 of my taxpayer dollars went to this. It gave me more value than I get from the vast majority of $0.00043 increments of my taxes. ($50k/$2.9 trillion government taxation revenue * my approximate tax paid yearly = $0.00043)
- eupharis 14y agoNow I am as critical as anyone of frivolous public spending, but how in god's name did you get to $50,000 for this? At worst, this took one Friday afternoon of this government employee's time. Just how well do you think this guy is paid? One afternoon of this guy's time at $50,000 would mean an annual salary of $26,100,000. (261 workdays per year * 2 * $50,000) In all likelihood, this was either done on this guy's own time or took like an hour.... Time well spent if you ask me :)
- mynameishere 14y agoMeeting after meeting after memo after memo. The government can blow through money for no reason faster than you can possibly imagine.
- cheeseandbacon 14y agoWhen this pop-culture reference is forgotten and some historian ready this... they'll think we were all a bunch of loons.
- chris_wot 14y agoWho says they woul be thinking incorrectly?
- jeremyw 14y agoAhhh, the Chief of the Science and Space Branch at OMB perpetuates achieving "the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs". Allow me to author a petition...
- ekianjo 14y ago"working hard to reduce the deficit". Haha, good one.
- maligree 14y agoThat was awfully a lot like hearing my parents say to me "you don't need the Brickbeard's Bounty LEGO set, you already have the Castaway's Raft, son".