If there is a rogue missile aimed at our country, we have 33 minutes to figure out what we're going to do. We are sitting with the only technology in the world that works and it's laser technology. We need 1,000 laser systems put in the sky and we need it right now. That is [of] paramount importance.
-John Raese, West Virginia Republican candidate for the US Senate
So much for fiscal sanity from the Republican Party. Raese's -- oh, let's be generous and call it a "plan" -- would cost the taxpayers $20 billion. At least, that's what he says it would cost; it's clearly a figure from the Republican Ministry of Made-Up Numbers. Who knows what it would really cost?
Would it work? Well, no. See, if it worked we'd be doing it now. Our last president was a big fan of crazy stuff like this, after all. But, according to even missile defense advocates, it "could take two decades to develop." What Raese calls "the only technology that works" doesn't actually work -- not in the real world, anyway. So we're talking about spending a made-up amount of money on nonexistent technology, to counter a threat that doesn't actually exist -- Iran doesn't actually have nukes and North Korea struggles to even get a missile off the pad. And why 1,000 of these orbital deathrays? There's another made-up number for you...[CLICK TO READ FULL POST]
