I can’t tell which of these three things is worse about John McCain:

1. He can’t tell (or is willing to mislead) when Federal money hasn’t been spent on a project
2. He can’t tell an overhead projector from a planetarium display projector
3. He thinks that the idea of spending taxpayer money on aiding scientific education is a bad thing

This is all down to his repeated denigration of a request for US$3M federal funding from the Adler Planetarium in Chicago (which has bipartisan support) with comments such as planetariums being “foolish”. As New Scientist says:

What may be most troubling to science educators is the fact that McCain clearly presumed that the wastefulness of spending money on a planetarium would be self-evident without any further explanation or context.

Given that the planetarium were after US$3M to replace a 40 year old projector (which they can no longer get spare parts for), and the cost of the Iraq war is over US$300M per day, it seems churlish to refuse their paltry request.

Update: Maybe McCain should see this XKCD.. 🙂