We the people want a Death Star

The Obama administration just tried to pull an Obi-Wan Kenobi on the American people.

“This is not the petition response you’re looking for,” writes Paul Shawcross of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Shawcross, who heads the Science and Space branch of OMB, gave a digital wave of his hand to a petition that the government begin construction of a Death Star by 2016.

The petition, signed by more than 34,000 supporters, was rejected for three key reasons, according to Shawcross: The estimated cost would be in the neighborhood of $850 quadrillion dollars; the Obama administration is against blowing up planets; and the construction of a planet-obliterating weapon with a fundamental flaw — it “can be exploited by a one-man starship,” after all — isn’t something officials would want to “spend countless taxpayer dollars on.”