(Photo: Eye on Star Wars)

Remember that petition urging the White House to facilitate job creation by building a gigantic Death Star a la Star Wars? With a little help from 4chan, the petition reached the 25,000 signature threshold it needed to elicit a response from the White House.

Now, the administration has responded to the petition in a note called "This Isn't the Petition Response You're Looking For," and it's kind of awesome?

The Administration shares your desire for job creation and a strong national defense, but a Death Star isn't on the horizon. Here are a few reasons:

• 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 Administration does not support blowing up planets.

• Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?

All very sensible, we have to admit.

You can read the full response here.

Once more into the breach, eh?

The loosely organized Internet philosophizers of Anonymous have decided to take a brief break from hassling Steubenville, the Westboro Baptist Church and Hunter Moore for a bit of good, old-fashioned soapboxery. The Daily Dot reports that the group has just launched a petition on WhiteHouse.gov titled "Make, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS), a legal form of protesting."

In short, they want DDoS attacks considered free speech, and they want anyone arrested for DDoS attacks released immediately. A provocative idea!

The petition contends:

Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS), is not any form of hacking in any way. It is the equivalent of repeatedly hitting the refresh button on a webpage. It is, in that way, no different than any "occupy" protest. Instead of a group of people standing outside a building to occupy the area, they are having their computer occupy a website to slow (or deny) service of that particular website for a short time.

They make a pretty decent case, once you get past the fact that this sounds a little like a 17-year-old would-be master debater arguing through his bangs with his Republican grandma about weed. DDoS attacks are a pain in the ass, but nothing's stolen--just disrupted. Those inflatable rats the labor unions like to park outside New York businesses are pretty distracting, but there's nothing illegal about them.

Then again, it's not like Occupy didn't have its fair share of tangles with the law. And not to be pedantic, but the Supreme Court probably has more power to designate something free speech than the White House.

So far, the group is at 427 signatures, out of the 25,000 that would require the president to take a look and issue a response. Maybe there's some way to hack the petition platform?

On the agenda.  (Photo: Wikimedia)

Largely associated with Internet pranks and dubious ideas, the petition platform at WhiteHouse.gov has been put to more serious use in the wake of last week's tragic events in Newtown, Connecticut. By Friday afternoon, someone had posted a call for the president to "immediately address the issue of gun control" by introducing a bill to Congress.

The response was immediate: Mashable reports that within 48 hours, it was the most popular thing ever posted to the site.

As of right now, it has 144,289 signatures.

It's far from the only petition on the matter, however: Another calls for "strict" gun control laws (29,170). Another asks the president to "support law abiding gun owners in this time of tragedy" (10,791 signatures). One even calls for the arming of teachers (6,241).

Once a petition accumulates 25,000 signatures it's guaranteed to get serious consideration and some sort of response from the Obama administration. But one imagines this issue already skyrocketed to the top of the agenda, even without the extra push from online activists.

America's newest public works project. (Photo: Eye on Star Wars)

Let's start by saying you can make a petition for almost anything on WhiteHouse.gov, and we're pretty sure the President never even glances at them. But apparently, over 6,800 people have signed a petition asking President Obama to start building a Death Star, the space station/super weapon from Star Wars, by 2016. And who says the Internet savvy are politically lazy?

At first glance, the petition appears to be a joke, but its creator, John D. of Longmont, Colorado, has a pretty rational reason for making the request:

By focusing our defense resources into a space-superiority platform and weapon system such as a Death Star, the government can spur job creation in the fields of construction, engineering, space exploration, and more, and strengthen our national defense.

The economy could use as many new jobs as possible; why not put people to work creating a floating space weapon that can destroy earth with just one energy beam?

But for now, John D. will have to wait: the petition needs to hit 25,000 signatures before it's considered.