is the country being run by Paris Hilton? (a Molly Ivins I missed)

[nostamj]

Sometimes, I get the feeling the whole country is being run by Paris Hilton.

<snip>

Speaking of both radar and stupid government, for a truly pathological example of how ideological fixations and denying reality can cost us dearly, to the $200 billion for the disaster in Iraq add at least $150 billion to deploy the unproven and unworkable missile-defense system, nee Star Wars.

Since Star Wars was a pet scheme of Ronald Reagan's, Republicans insist on trying to carry out this nutty idea, the equivalent of hitting a bullet with a bullet. Ye olde military-defense complex also has a rather large stake in keeping this dog of a program going.

We have spent $90 billion on it since 1983, with much more to come. The thing is supposed to be deployed this year, but it will have no demonstrated capability and would be ineffective against a real attack by long-range missiles. Between 1999 and December 2000, the thing has been five for eight against targets with the information of the time and place of the launch and the missile's trajectory fed to the interceptor. In other, words, totally rigged tests.

The list of what's either wrong or doubtful about this system is nearly endless. The Union of Concerned Scientists points out we have no evidence it will ever be able to distinguish between warheads and weather balloons. The New Yorker notes that none of our enemies has ICBMs and we are trying "to protect a nation from terrorists with box cutters and suitcase bombs."

http://www.djournal.com/pages/story.asp?ID=69929&pub=1&div=Opinion

[flyingfysh]

1. the missile-defense system is achieving its goals

Of course, the goals are to send money to large defense contractors. Actually hitting anything is unimportant.

[Dudley_DUright]

2. Not me!

I posted it a while back ;-)

[Wilber_Stool]

3. Not to mention

that it's being deployed in a very popular air corridor. I hope it doesn't shoot down a commercial jet. The patriot system shot down a fighter and two helicopters before they got it settled down.