The not-so-rediculous "overhead projector" earmark

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Every time McCain brings up Obama's earmarks for an overhead projector being wasteful, my husband and I laugh. We've been to the amazing Adler Planitarium in Chicago that was budgeted for, and we can tell you straight from the horses mouth (the man running the gigantic star machine that projects the entire sky above you), that their machine is at the end of it's life. In fact, they can't even get replacement parts for it anymore. We can't get over how McCain tried to portray the machine as your run-of-the-mill classroom transparency projector - ha!

Please read the following from an article on Wired Magazine to hear the real story:

During the Wednesday night debate, McCain once again brought up the issue of the $3 million "projector" that Obama asked appropriators for in 2007 as an example of an egregious earmark request. The "projector," it turns out, is Chicago's Adler Planetarium Sky Theater Projector, which is a complex piece of equipment used for public education purposes, and it was in severe need of an upgrade.

Obama never managed to land the money for the planetarium. But that's beside the point.

Numerous scientists, most notably the late Stephen Jay Gould, have said that it was public outings with the family to science museums as children that inspired them to go into the field.

After McCain made the same comment during the previous debate, the Adler Planetarium's chief Paul Knappenberger himself noted that the theater presents "an inspiring opportunity to get students interested in science, interested in math."