McCain's Car Battery Prize
J. McCain has been having a good time going around and promising things to everybody. Most recently, on the tightly intertwined environment/energy issues, he thought he would slap down on the podium an especially big gift of his intellect. He proposes offering a prize of 300 million dollars to the person who comes up with a battery that can run cars as proficiently as those now using purely petroleum fuels or some hybrid mixture of batteries and petroleum fuels, but easier on the environment and at only half the cost.
This proposal prompts several doubts. The one that pops quickest to mind is that such a battery has surely been in the minds of many, ever since people discovered that they could build devices that were handier, quicker, and with more endurance than horses. And, given the wonders of the computer and space ages, a variety of such power devices for cars must have already been invented long ago, but the automotive and oil industries have been quick to to keep them under wraps, until such time as much greater profits can no longer be squeezed out of the Mother Earth's constantly violated body.
Meanwhile the news reports are careful not to mention where the 300 million will come from. Surely not from McCain's personal pockets. He said that that amount meant only one dollar coming from each American citizen. That must mean that, should he become President, he will order Congress to come up with the cash.
On that scale, the 300 mil would amount to only the tiniest drop in the bucket, compared to the trillions that are regularly thrown away, to outgun the rest of the world and to keep terrorists from wearing suspicious shoes over here. But it's not so small a sum that you wouldn't expect every tinkerer in the country to immediately set to work, if such a development isn't immediately forthcoming from the vaults of big industry.
We'd better hope, however, that they haven't seen a recent DVD movie called "Longitude." That film is a very well-done chronicle of the trials and tribulations that a British clockmaker named John Harrison had to endure during the 1700's, when the Queen offered a prize of $20,000 pounds to anyone who could devise a timepiece that sailors could use on the high seas to determine where they were, east and west. Apparently knowing where you are, going north and south, is easy, but east and west is something else entirely.
It wasn't long before Harrison, a country bumpkin woodworker to the bewigged, polished types in London town, became the first by far to come up with something usable. But, especially with a sum as tidy as 20,000 pounds involved, the astronomy and other scientific pros put so many obstacles in his way that he was lucky he lived so long, another 40 aggravating years, before he received anything worth thanking the Lord.
Would we expect things to go any easier today for any equally ingenious but otherwise ordinary voter? So to whom is J. McCain really talking when he floats such an idea?
This proposal prompts several doubts. The one that pops quickest to mind is that such a battery has surely been in the minds of many, ever since people discovered that they could build devices that were handier, quicker, and with more endurance than horses. And, given the wonders of the computer and space ages, a variety of such power devices for cars must have already been invented long ago, but the automotive and oil industries have been quick to to keep them under wraps, until such time as much greater profits can no longer be squeezed out of the Mother Earth's constantly violated body.
Meanwhile the news reports are careful not to mention where the 300 million will come from. Surely not from McCain's personal pockets. He said that that amount meant only one dollar coming from each American citizen. That must mean that, should he become President, he will order Congress to come up with the cash.
On that scale, the 300 mil would amount to only the tiniest drop in the bucket, compared to the trillions that are regularly thrown away, to outgun the rest of the world and to keep terrorists from wearing suspicious shoes over here. But it's not so small a sum that you wouldn't expect every tinkerer in the country to immediately set to work, if such a development isn't immediately forthcoming from the vaults of big industry.
We'd better hope, however, that they haven't seen a recent DVD movie called "Longitude." That film is a very well-done chronicle of the trials and tribulations that a British clockmaker named John Harrison had to endure during the 1700's, when the Queen offered a prize of $20,000 pounds to anyone who could devise a timepiece that sailors could use on the high seas to determine where they were, east and west. Apparently knowing where you are, going north and south, is easy, but east and west is something else entirely.
It wasn't long before Harrison, a country bumpkin woodworker to the bewigged, polished types in London town, became the first by far to come up with something usable. But, especially with a sum as tidy as 20,000 pounds involved, the astronomy and other scientific pros put so many obstacles in his way that he was lucky he lived so long, another 40 aggravating years, before he received anything worth thanking the Lord.
Would we expect things to go any easier today for any equally ingenious but otherwise ordinary voter? So to whom is J. McCain really talking when he floats such an idea?
posted by Carl (aka Sofarsogoo) | 7:30 AM
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