Person of the Day: China Missile

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In January China launched a missile that destroyed a target satellite. This is really bad because they can now do that a lot (even to U.S. communications systems). They have also now created about 1600 pieces of dangerous flying space garbage.

It turns out we knew about this in advance and said nothing, did nothing, needing to give ourselves future cover for a mythological Star Wars system. Said Joseph Cirincione of the Center for American Progress, “This was absolutely preventable. The Chinese have been proposing a treaty to ban weapons in space for years. We have refused in order to pursue this fantasy of space-based anti-missile weapons.”

Weak in the head = weak on defense. Free slogan.

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Managing an independent, nonprofit newsroom is staggeringly hard. There’s no cushion in our budget—no backup revenue, no corporate safety net. We can’t afford to fall short, and we can’t rely on corporations or deep-pocketed interests to fund the fierce, investigative journalism Mother Jones exists to do.

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