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Right, what pilot could possibly go crazy and do stupid stuff?
Well, apart from ones on Jet Blue....
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-jetblue-pilotbre85e19b-20120615,0,7994226.story
But, anyway...

This isn't always an option. For example, this school in Chicago bans packed lunches because kids could bring something healthy. Who's to say more principals won't latch on to this line of thinking? http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/education/ct-met-school-lunch-restrictions-041120110410,0,4567867.story

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1987-05-29/news/8702090594_1_customs-agents-computer-equipment

FWIW: They took out the computer, filled the crate with cement, and let them pay shipping on it as part of the sting. See also this phrase on the CVAX die:
http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/creatures/pages/russians.html

-- Terry

I wonder if this is related to one of the wealthiest people in Korea. (And that therefore we are possibly supporting this cause of mis-education by eating sushi.

There are in fact a number of cases of "dirty cops" in jail and also collecting their pension.

If so, you should have no problem providing specific examples of at least a few of them.

My personal favorite.

You are off base with this. The budget estimate of 1 trillion is for the entire life cycle with fuel, weapons, maintenance, and crew for the next half century. The F22 is a fifth generation fighter and not comparable at all with the Mig-29 or the Su-27. Those are 4th generation aircraft comparable to the F-18 super-hornet. The competitor for the F-22 and F-35 is Russia's Sukhoi PAK FA which is not even in production yet. Not only does it look like its American counterpart; the cost of development & production is similar. Plus they are further behind and still in the design phase with only 4 produced. Cost can only go up from there.

There is no shortage of planes to use for combat, there is an entire stock yard of planes kept by the military. There are 4000+ planes kept in Sonora Desert where they can just drain the fuel and oil and have the planes sit there forever either for future use or parts. Factor with the 4000+ planes currently in use plus production capacity and we have plenty.

You are also forgetting that now cruise missiles and drones preform the majority of attacks that were once only done by planes in the past (ie WWII). America has no shortage of missiles. One Tomahawk missile is around $600K and the US has thousands of them. This is just 1 type of missile among the dozens the US has.

The people that "make it" in the industry (and while I know this is true in music, it's probably true in film and other arts as well) aren't necessarily very good at their given craft anyway. Most of the time, it's just a matter of being in the right place at the right time. Conversely, I've met some of the most ridiculously talented musicians busking for spare change

I totally agree. Consider, this guy, who won a MacArthur "Genius" grant, is the undisputed leading modern scholar and performer of ragtime music, and yet still cannot afford his own grand piano.

Success was never really about talent, was it?

A white gang and a black gang killing each other isn't a hate crime, but a white man killing blacks for being blacks or a black man killing whites for being white is.

Really? What Earth do you live on?

"A black Chicago-area teenager has been charged with a hate crime for allegedly beating a 19-year-old white youth during a robbery because he was angry about the killing of Trayvon Martin, the Chicago Tribune reports."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42134880/ns/world_news-asia_pacific/t/tokyo-flights-trigger-radiation-detectors/
The system worked as sold the the US gov.
Nothing was done ;)
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-03-17/business/ct-biz-0318-airport-radiation--20110317_1_radiation-detectors-american-airlines-cargo

So when the FBI uses stings to catch international arms traffickers, organized crime figures, corrupt public officials, and embezzlers, are they "morons" too, or just would-be terrorists? Your post is nonsense.

The examples you cite are generally not entrapment because the persons they catch were already doing these things before they met the FBI agents. The difference between the terrorism stings and a traditional sting can be illustrated thus:

Traditional sting: send out agents to places where drugs are sold and arrest those who mistake them for drug dealers and try to buy.

New-style sting: send agents into the community to make friends and introduce them to weed. When they convince someone to try it, they will take him to a "drug dealer" who is really a cop.

The parallel is not perfect, but I think it is close enough to show that these stings are different and the concerns some have are not nonsense.

Not to mention you'll at most catch absolute morons who at their best would simply win a Darwin Award because the kind of bozos these "stings" catch are frankly the same gullible dipshits that fall for 419 scams and other stupidity.

So when the FBI uses stings to catch international arms traffickers, organized crime figures, corrupt public officials, and embezzlers, are they "morons" too, or just would-be terrorists? Your post is nonsense.

Anyone with a brain is immune to this nonsense.

Anyone with a brain and a passing familiarity with the news knows your post is nonsense. Three weeks ago a notorious Russian arms dealer was convicted in US Federal court. Guess how they got him? If stings are good enough to take down experienced international arms traffickers, and organized crime figures, public officials, embezzlers, and others, they are good enough to take down potential terrorists. If you don't think so, please tell us why? And please, please tell us that you really believe that everyone taken down in a sting is no brighter than a hick good 'ole boy complaining about the "gubermint" and that it never works on anyone more sophisticated, and what your "reasoning" is?

Russian arms dealer sentenced to 25 years in prison

Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer* caught in an undercover sting by U.S. agents posing as Colombian guerrillas seeking weapons, was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Thursday by a U.S. judge in New York. . . .

Two DEA informants who posed as FARC leaders testified for the prosecution at Bout's trial. A former Bout business associate, Andrew Smulian, also testified for the government after pleading guilty to participating in the FARC deal.

  According to prosecutors, in a meeting at a Bangkok hotel with the supposed FARC representatives, Bout agreed to sell the 100 advanced man-portable surface-to-air missiles or the approximately 5,000 AK-47 assault rifles that were discussed.

  Bout was charged only in connection with the suspected arms deal, but U.S. authorities have said he has been involved in trafficking arms since the 1990s to dictators and conflict zones in Africa, South America and the Middle East.

Said to be the inspiration for one of the chief bad guys in Act of Valor

Have no fear: the State department just declared the war on terror over, so I'm sure that TSA regulations will be relaxed immediately and the troublesome parts of the USA Patriot act will be repealed.

Less than an order of magnitude is comparable I suppose. And the average car now costs $30k
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/yourmoney/sc-cons-0419-money-consumer-watch-20120420,0,4360931.story

Can't see why it would rank so high in stress when those are the factors. If I want to "get away" i can retreat to the cockpit and close the door: that removes "Working in the Public Eye" and "Meeting the Public" quite easily (depending on how those are defined), not that people stress me out. "Outlook/Growth Potential"- don't get me started on the age 60/65 retirement issue: it's been five years of stagnation on top of a bad economy and 9/11. "Environmental Conditions"- I do walkarounds in the winter, but I get to control the temp in my workspace to warm back up. Oh yeah, polar crossings are prohibited during solar events, but I do get the equivalent of a couple extra X-rays per year in cruise. If "Own Life at Risk, Life of Another at Risk" are considered important, maybe they could add a few dollars to my pay to sooth my nerves... a surgeon is paid 3-5 times what I make but he only holds one person's life in his hands at a time, I've got hundreds."Hazards Encountered"- that's fairly open ended. Maybe you should ask Clayton F. Osbon's copilot about that. "Physical Demands (stoop, climb, etc.)"- I'm not 20 pounds overweight from physical exertion, but lethargy is its own physical demand. "Deadlines"- I'll move when I'm damn well ready to, and not a moment sooner. At least safety is still both under the pilots control and his responsibility.

What stresses me out isn't even considered: 1) being paid half what I used to and working twice as much, and 2) not having had a pay raise for 9 years and 3) having managements tell employees "We're very committed to getting a deal with the pilots too. But it has to be fair; fair to them and fair to us." while they continue feed at the trough. Still love my work, just eager for some rewards to return to the profession.

In more related news, Tennessee just attacked science to make it harder to teach evolution and climatology because theocrats can't handle the truth.

In the USA we've PROVEN that most republicans are mentally handicapped five year olds, the problem is every time we try to fix the problems they've caused, we're subjected to republican temper tantrums.

Case in point: the latest anti-science law crap passed by the republican retard squads in Tennessee (6 million people, 6 last names!) and Louisiana (most corrupt state in the USA!).

I don't see why we couldn't have both. How convenient would it be to have a single line text box to dump commands into in the task tray?

I'm thinking something like Lotus HAL could work really well for beginners and advanced users alike.

It's still not a big seller by any margin. So what? The Chevrolet Volt sold 2,289 units in March of 2012. Meanwhile, the Chevrolet Silverado 1500 sold 32,555 in March of 2012. Congratulations Volt line, you managed to sell 7.031% of the total volume of Silverados in one month. Last year combined, Chevrolet Volt vehicles didn't even meet up to one MONTH of sales of the Chevrolet Silverado. U.S. Chevrolet dealers sold a total of 7,671 Volts last year

March 2012 Top 15 Pickup Truck Sales

2011 Chevrolet Volt Misses The Mark

selling 2,289 units in March

Before everyone starts celebrating, keep in mind that some of the more popular gas car models out there average 40,000-60,000 units a month in sales. And the Prius hybrid sold about 30,000 units last month.

It's about giving women a chance to do the same things that men are doing - like run a business, smoke a cigar, and play golf in a golf club

OK, so now that women can do all those things, what are feminists fighting for?

No, they can't. Women are still treated very unfairly in the workplace, as a historically patriarchal society has turned the business world into a good ol' boys club where men are paid more and more likely to get promoted than women. You seem to be confusing "is able to run a business, smoke a cigar, and play golf" with "is likely to have the privilege to do those things". There is still a ton of work left for femnists to do before they are considered to be even close to equal in our society.

you have no idea how large your advantage actually has been

Yeah, because men like me who grew up in working class families had so many advantages in life compared to women who grew up in suburbs and had private tutors to help them get into college -- where women now make up the majority. Feminists love suburban women, because they are best able to live the feminist ideal of self-empowerment. Symbols of success are what feminists really care about -- running successful businesses, smoking cigars, and playing golf. Feminists are not interested in women who work on railroads (like my mother did), because it conflicts with their own preconceived notion about what everyone wants.

Oh good, you realize that rich women have more privileges than you did, while completely avoiding the fact that there are an overwhelming number of women who are from the same working-class family background as you. The difference is that they don't even have male privilege to help pull themselves out of that situation. Pulled a couple from this list as examples of male privileges you have:

--My odds of being hired for a job, when competing against female applicants, are probably skewed in my favor. The more prestigious the job, the larger the odds are skewed.

--I am far less likely to face sexual harassment at work than my female co-workers are

--If I have children and a career, no one will think I’m selfish for not staying at home.

--If I’m careless with my financial affairs it won’t be attributed to my sex.

--In general, I am under much less pressure to be thin than my female counterparts are. If I am fat, I probably suffer fewer social and economic consequences for being fat than fat women do.

--If I have children but do not provide primary care for them, my masculinity will not be called into question.

--My elected representatives are mostly people of my own sex. The more prestigious and powerful the elected position, the more this is true.

--My ability to make important decisions and my capability in general will never be questioned depending on what time of the month it is.

And, my favorite on that list:
46. I have the privilege of being unaware of my male privilege.

Women ARE better at certain things than men are

OK, cool, women are better at some things. Men are also better at some things, but where are the people parading those results in the media? Nobody tries to "level the playing field" when it comes to things that women are better at, unlike people who want to make fire department physical exams less challenging so that women will have a better chance:

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-07-20/news/ct-met-chicago-firefighter-lawsuit-20110720_1_firefighters-exam-african-american-firefighter-candidates-female-firefighters

What point do you even think this is making? No

It's about giving women a chance to do the same things that men are doing - like run a business, smoke a cigar, and play golf in a golf club

OK, so now that women can do all those things, what are feminists fighting for?

you have no idea how large your advantage actually has been

Yeah, because men like me who grew up in working class families had so many advantages in life compared to women who grew up in suburbs and had private tutors to help them get into college -- where women now make up the majority. Feminists love suburban women, because they are best able to live the feminist ideal of self-empowerment. Symbols of success are what feminists really care about -- running successful businesses, smoking cigars, and playing golf. Feminists are not interested in women who work on railroads (like my mother did), because it conflicts with their own preconceived notion about what everyone wants.

Women ARE better at certain things than men are

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=BFD

OK, cool, women are better at some things. Men are also better at some things, but where are the people parading those results in the media? Nobody tries to "level the playing field" when it comes to things that women are better at, unlike people who want to make fire department physical exams less challenging so that women will have a better chance:

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-07-20/news/ct-met-chicago-firefighter-lawsuit-20110720_1_firefighters-exam-african-american-firefighter-candidates-female-firefighters

I will clarify the following remark:

On one hand your "open secret" is absolute baloney, i.e. nonsense.

It is directed at your proposition that NATO's intent would be to "backstab" Finland and the implied hostility toward Finland as opposed to defeating Soviet military units operating in Finland. Clearly NATO had no meaningful dispute with Finland during the Cold War, but would not ignore Soviet forces operating from conquered Finnish territory to attack NATO and allied countries. If the Finnish military lost control of a major facility or area to Soviet forces, there would be little chance they would get it back. The best they would be likely to manage would be sabotage operations which would be unlikely to seriously impede Soviet operations.

It is well known that NATO was willing to use nuclear weapons on its own territory to defeat Warsaw Pact forces if necessary, and any NATO nuclear munitions detonated inside of Finland would have been for the same purpose: to defeat Warsaw Pact (most likely Soviet) forces, not to "backstab" Finland. Thankfully that was an issue that never had to be faced. I notice you had nothing to say about Soviet nuclear weapons, or the prospect of indefinite occupation of Finland by the Soviets without NATO assistance in defeating them. (It's not 1939 any more.)

Food for thought:

Sweden Secretly Assisted Nato's Cold War Defense

Finnish-US military co-operation during cold war

The cited news publication (Chicago Tribune) covered this dubious claim in a series it ran within the last year. Predicably, the conclusion was contrary to your assertion of life saving miracles: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-11-06/news/ct-met-speed-camera-1106-20111106_1_speed-cameras-redspeed-illinois-pedestrian-death/

BTW, Chicago teachers, after being forced to forgo this year's 4% pay raise are trying to negotiate a 25% raise next year, with another 4.5% the following year - based, in large part, on the extension of the school day. Apparently the teachers that used to argue they were salaried professionals are now arguing they are hourly workers.

Would you stay in your current job if your workday got extended 25%, but your pay stayed the same? Especially if that is a "permanent" change in working hours, not a short-term increase in work due to a project / deadline? I think most people expect to be paid fairly for the amount of time they spend working. A "salaried" job that frequently requires 60-80 hour work weeks had better pay more than a "salaried" job that is 8-5 with a few extra hours of overtime a year.

Asking someone to work more hours for the same pay is tantamount to a pay cut. Forgoing a cost-of-living increase adds insult to injury.

There are many other dysfunctional and corrupt things about Chicago, but the teachers are not in the wrong to ask to be paid more for more work.

Chicago has how many public schools in it? And this is ONE private school you have a problem with? As noted, sending your children there is a choice - something the vast majority of parents lack for their children.

BTW, Chicago teachers, after being forced to forgo this year's 4% pay raise are trying to negotiate a 25% raise next year, with another 4.5% the following year - based, in large part, on the extension of the school day. Apparently the teachers that used to argue they were salaried professionals are now arguing they are hourly workers.

This is also Chicago, where TVs are falling and killing small children at alarming rates.

This is Chicago, the city that was recently ranked the most corrupt city in America.

This is Chicago, where nearly 40% of all students dropped out before graduation LAST YEAR.

This is Chicago where almost 31% of students either meet or exceed standards on the PSAE examinations.

Did parents know about these "fees" when they enrolled? Were the reasons for them explained to the parents when they enrolled their children?

There must have been some reason these parents choose to enroll their children in this school.

Chicago has how many public schools in it? And this is ONE private school you have a problem with? As noted, sending your children there is a choice - something the vast majority of parents lack for their children.

BTW, Chicago teachers, after being forced to forgo this year's 4% pay raise are trying to negotiate a 25% raise next year, with another 4.5% the following year - based, in large part, on the extension of the school day. Apparently the teachers that used to argue they were salaried professionals are now arguing they are hourly workers.

This is also Chicago, where TVs are falling and killing small children at alarming rates.

This is Chicago, the city that was recently ranked the most corrupt city in America.

This is Chicago, where nearly 40% of all students dropped out before graduation LAST YEAR.

This is Chicago where almost 31% of students either meet or exceed standards on the PSAE examinations.

Did parents know about these "fees" when they enrolled? Were the reasons for them explained to the parents when they enrolled their children?

There must have been some reason these parents choose to enroll their children in this school.

In the USA, sbusidies include the Price-Anderson act (which provides subsidized insurance) and the Cheney energy policy of 2005 (which provides per-kilowatt incentives and removes requirements for set-aside of decommissioning costs).

I'm pretty pro-nuclear but not setting aside decommissioning expenses is a Bad-Thing(Tm), it should have been required for wind turbines as well given that End of tax credit a blow for wind power industry Up to 37,000 jobs, many in Illinois, could be lost as projects are halted or abandoned and there are already some 14,000 abandoned wind turbines.

If the federal government now considers personal sailboats parked a mile offshore an untenable threat to national security (
e.g., http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-g8-nato-boats-harbor-20120217,0,3473423.story ) ...what do you think the chances are that they would permit people to have their own nuclear reactor?

Two months ago, legislation was due to be voted on that permitted robocalls to cell phones. Now the FCC imposes new laws, which are essentially the laws as they were intended when passed in 1991. The real question is, will anyone actually enforce them? I already got a call to lower my energy bill and an important call about my current credit card account this evening, both on my cell.

Do Not Call and reporting to the FCC? Hasn't done squat to slow down these phone number jacking, robocalling, dinner-interrupting, law dodging a-holes.

Here's a similar gem, made by Steve Case in 1997, in response to gripes from people unable to connect to swamped AOL servers after their switch to unlimited hours:

Just as you would be sensitive about using a public phone booth if others were waiting in line to use it . . . try to show some restraint at night during the next few months when we're in this transitional mode.

In other words, it's your fault for trying to use what you've paid for.

More hype to sell the same tripe.

Seems to be simply latching onto the current fad toy and trying to saddle it with the same things they have been attributing to computers since the 80's.
There is nothing new in the article, simply attributing the same (largely imaginary) "diseases" to a different activity. But by mentioning touch screens they grab the headlines. Nothing about a touch screen forces you into the same position, viewing distance, or hand movements, in fact a tablet is probably the remedy for such complaints more than the cause.

But they trot out the same stuff they were crying about with desktop computers: Repeated motion injuries, Posture, Eyestrain.

I'm surprised they left off testicular heating.

Really? Touch screens?
This looks like building a case for more insurance fraud if you ask me.

Just be sure your city does not have strange new permanent protest permit changes http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-emanuel-protest-permits-20120102,0,6937770.story
eg. private real estate applications, Department of Transportation applications, time limits (length of protest time and between what hours), new rules on amplified sound and music, parade marshal ect.

You imagine twinkies aren't going anywhere, but you forget/ignore the incredible number of brands that disappear every year. Foods go in and out of style all the time. Considering the restaurant industry has one of the highest failure rates of any market, it's really a terrible example.

And small businesses are vulnerable to all kinds of changes. How many SMBs have been put out of business because a walmart or homedepot opened in the neighborhood. How many have closed up because the neighborhood had too many foreclosures or the demographics of the neighborhood changed, and their customer base disappeared.

What type of business are you imagining where it is invulnerable to change? Because I really can't think of even a single one.

Just don't donate the suit with the $13,000 in it to Goodwill.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-11-25/business/chi-state-lawmakers-poised-to-act-on-tax-breaks-for-sears-cme-20111125_1_income-tax-tax-credit-cme-group

CME Group, parent of the Chicago Board of Trade and Chicago Mercantile Exchange, has threatened to leave the state in protest of a temporary increase to the state's corporate income tax rate. The proposal would tax income from just 27.54 percent of electronic transactions on local exchanges, costing the state an estimated $100 million a year.

Sears, for its part, would see a renewal of a special taxing district in Hoffman Estates. This would allow Sears to continue to get a break on local property taxes, although at a lower level. Under the deal, the retailer also would also receive a state incentive package to retain jobs here. That would to include tax credits worth $15 million a year for 10 years, another $150 million in potential tax breaks.

So we know that the Hungarian guy was trying to use what he perceived as his individual power to force Marriott to give him a job. Now we see two large Illinois companies use their real power to skip out on their corporate responsibility to support the state. They consume a lot of state resources, and they use their political influence to be parasites and free loaders. Since they got away with it this time, what's to stop them from deciding that they are going to pay no taxes in the coming years, like GE did last year?

All I see is the rich and powerful get away with de-facto extortion, and the individual getting nailed for trying to extort. One set of laws for the rich, another set for the poor.

It doesn't alway have to be the teachers themselves but also the bureaucracy that surrounds their unions and just general administration cruft. Take as an example the two union lobbyists in Illinois that recently got their teaching certificates, substituted for like a day and then were allowed to apply their years as working as lobbyists and get a pension as teachers. They'll be getting around $108,000 a year I believe based on their union salary of around $245,000 a year - which itself is disturbing. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-pensions-teacher-perk-20111023,0,6972290,full.story

It's incredibly easy to convert an old VW diesel to run on kitchen grease. The trickiest part is keeping the viscosity down so you can pump it to the engine, but there's plenty of kits out there with in tank heaters for colder regions.

Mechanic on my two previous cars was running a Mercedes diesel on bio fuel. He had some setup outside his house, which processed cooking oil into fuel. Initially he had no trouble finding local restaurants who were happy to give away their used oil (rather than pay for disposal.) Not so available anymore, people are willing to pay for it now.

In other news, there's a flight recently by a jet powered by biofuel - mostly for promotional reasons as the jet requirement came in at about g/$17 as opposed to g/$3 for petrol jet fuel.

Look at the history of government funding solar power in America...any scandals come to mind?

You're the paranoiac, you tell me.

I'll do it for DNS-and-BIND; here's one - Solyndra.
Here's the next one - Fisker

I think you knew at least one answer when you made your post. If the US government supports a particular business, it should be on strict, well known criteria; not because some "civil servant" will personally benefit. Basically, Solyndra is a "cute and green" version of Halliburton and Steven and Allison Spinner, Steven Chu, (and others) are the Obama administration's version of Dick Cheney and Richard Perle. At least no one died from the Solyndra scandal (that we know of).

It makes more sense to simply exempt taxes on the amount of R&D that a company does for particular technologies and sales of a particular product.

They are also granted immunity to damages caused to items in their possession as part of a criminal case. A recent example was where agents were joyriding and wrecked a very expensive car in the process http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-ap-mi-fbi-wreckedferrar,0,7734789.story

Its not our government anymore, its theirs and we are going to have a hard time getting it back

Watch it with the Hitler references, or you, too, will have your song removed from the Monday Night Football opening credits chicagotribue.com

A few citations to get you started:
* Chicago Tribune
* Reason Magazine
* Boston Globe
Many of these also refer to a study by UC Davis which showed that drug dogs will alert without any drugs in the area if the handler believes there are drugs in the area.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/chi-grocers-start-bagging-selfserve-checkouts-20110926,0,1600176.story
http://consumerist.com/2011/09/report-fewer-supermarket-shoppers-using-self-checkout-machines.html

so maybe you will see some of this being tried out just to have it fail.

In fact, someone else in this thread posted a link to a site for FDA approved hearing aids that start at $300: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-03-09/health/sc-health-0309-hearing-aid-20110309_1_hearing-aid-hearing-loss-hearing-loss-association

Hearing aids cost so much for a single reason: it's the price that the market is willing to pay. That article mentions an interesting fact, only 22% of people that buy hearing aids have a health insurance policy that helps with the purchase in any way. In other words, over three-quarters of the people buying hearing aids are buying them entirely out of their own pocket. So what you've got is the market equilibrium price.

Note something else about the above linked article. Those low cost hearing aids (the $300 to $800 dollar ones) are only good for people with mild to moderately severe hearing loss. I'd be more than willing to wager $100 that the Voxom aid is only good for people with a mildly severe hearing loss, if that.

Here's my kind of guy. He sells a hearing aid for under $200.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-03-09/health/sc-health-0309-hearing-aid-20110309_1_hearing-aid-hearing-loss-hearing-loss-association

Now hear this
When it comes time to crank the volume on everyday banter, there are hearing aids that won't break the bank
March 09, 2011
By Barbara Mahany
Chicago Tribune

In 2007, when the iPhone came on the market, Cherukuri saw reports showing that the phone's components cost an average of $130 to $140. "I started thinking that if you can make a fantastic phone for under $200, I could make a hearing aid that's pretty good for about the same price," he said.

This article also recommends

http://www.hearingaidscentral.com/

which starts at $300.

For those thinking parent's story is just an anecdote and thus not evidence, here's a Chicago Tribune story on some real research into how common this practice is.

"The poor? Those guys with government housing, free health care, food stamps, welfare, WIC and government cheese?"

Yep, all 48.5 millions of them.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/chi-a-record-458-million-american-using-food-stamps-20110805,0,6178100.story

Assuming you guys are talking about McCain's 2008 Presidential campaign, that was indeed before the Santelli rant, which happened on 2/19/2009.

Of course even saying that I have to wonder why the federal government was going to buy a projector for a planetarium. Couldn't they get donations?

They did. The $900k from the federal govt. was just a fraction of the total renovation cost. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-adler-projector-13-mar13,0,257762.story

Here's how it works: Say you use your Citi-issued debit card to buy a pair of shoes at Nordstrom, and then Citi sells that information to a series of retailers. As a result, you receive a coupon from Macy's for a 20% discount on shoes at its store. The coupon is delivered by Citi, however, not from Macy's.