Live from a white spot in a purple nation on a blue planet...

The class clown is out handing your money to corporations again:

In the 18th century the British offered a £20,000 prize to anyone who figured out how to calculate longitude. More recently, Netflix offered a million dollars for improving movie recommendations on its Web site. Now Senator John McCain is suggesting a new national prize: He said here Monday that if elected president he would offer $300 million to anyone who could build a better car battery.

Way to be, NY Times.  Note that longitude and Netflix were fixed by private individuals, not a decrepit, lying senator handing out tax dollars to car companies.

Anyway the story gets even funnier:

“Whether it takes a meeting with automakers during my first month in office, or my signature on an act of Congress,” he said, “we will meet the goal of a swift conversion of American vehicles away from oil.”

Whether we want un-gas cars or not.  In a McCain administration, there will be no domestic drilling, it seems.  Everything can run on ethanol and batteries I guess.  Yet, he still keep pretending that he'll cut off corn subsidies, which is just not his style, as much as he window-dressed on the subject for a decade:

“As taxpayers, we foot the bill for the enormous subsidies paid to corn producers,” he said. “And as consumers, we pay extra at the pump because of government barriers to cheaper products from abroad.”

Mr. McCain, who spoke against corn-based ethanol when he ran for president in 2000, said this time around that he became a supporter of it when oil grew too expensive, but he has said he still opposes subsidies for ethanol.

Oops.  Credibility check.  In fact, he worked Iowa for years before this primary season, but his message has really changed of late.  Check out this quote from a 2006 CNN Money story:

"Ethanol is a product that would not exist if Congress didn't create an artificial market for it. No one would be willing to buy it," McCain said in November 2003. "Yet thanks to agricultural subsidies and ethanol producer subsidies, it is now a very big business - tens of billions of dollars that have enriched a handful of corporate interests - primarily one big corporation, ADM. Ethanol does nothing to reduce fuel consumption, nothing to increase our energy independence, nothing to improve air quality."

Flip. Flop. Flim. Flam.  McCain.  You can't teach this SOB anything new.  He'll always be the same backstabbing, corrupt, evil loser that he's always been. He'll do anything to get elected. America, please vote for anyone but John McCain.