Odds n' Ends

-Gun-free Zones Kill People: How's that gun-free thing working out for you, guys? Maybe you should hire the guys who did the Iraq Lancet study to see how many people get killed by guns in gun-free zones vs. places where guns are permitted. Or just issue anti-gun people red shirts, so the nutcases know who is safe to attack.
-Little Green Men Department: We're getting better at finding other planetary systems. Note that this time astronomers lit the bat-signal to take advantage of a brief microlensing event--and amateur astronomers contributed significant data.
-Practicing for Rogue Asteroids Department: Aside from the trifling loss of a very expensive spy satellite (that never worked) it's a win-win. We deny the bad guys any chance of looking at our clever tech, and we get to practice shooting down stuff attacking our planet (could be Martians, nukes from Iran or North Korea, or large chunks of solar system construction debris in future, good to get a realistic target). I suggest getting all this data and making a video game with it. Gotta train our future asteroid/alien invasion fighters now!