$300,000,000 ISN'T MUCH BETWEEN FRIENDS

The cat that delivered the next day’s newspaper to the dude on television several years ago has just picked my house to make a new home. I could not believe it when I first noticed it a couple of weeks ago and is it great. The cat has really improved its tricks since being cancelled from that old series by CBS. The newspaper it now delivers is for the news 9 months from today but I know its going to work out great for me as soon as the time comes. I’m already looking at several new stocks to gather before my information becomes timely. Unlike the rest of you I know who will win the Super Bowl and the NCAA March Madness. I’m going to make a killing just because this cat likes my house better than any other in the world.

I’ve got to admit I generally go directly to the business and sports pages since the cat started delivering, but something caught my eye this morning that I could not resist. As I took the paper out of its plastic bag, something it never had on the T.V. series, a story on the front page caught my eye. In a simple two column story on the front page I noticed where President John McCain’s three hundred million dollar ($300,000,000.00) had been awarded for bringing a ‘Super Battery’ to market. The story told of how this battery could power an average midsized automobile for up to 100 miles or for three hours with only a thirty-minute charge from a 110 outlet. The story went further to say that in larger vehicles such as SUV’s and pick-ups the doubling of the battery pack could get at least another 50 miles or 1 hour of travel. This battery, the story went on, would lead to total independence from foreign oil within a year or two and was ready for mass production. President McCain was pictured plugging a new General Motors Impala into a wall socket on one of the porches of the White House while Mrs. McCain sat under the wheel wearing her Budweiser windbreaker and waving to the camera. Senator Lieberman stood beside President McCain holding one of those big golf tournament checks that showed $300,000,000.00 in the amount block and handwritten in on the line under the box. Everybody had a big smile on their face and I was really surprised to see former President Bush, his wife, his daddy and his mama standing near the front part of the car with several others I did not recognize.

After seeing this life-changing picture I had to read the story. President McCain was quoted as saying that he knew the right incentive would do the trick. That American ingenuity would prevail with the right stimulus. He went on to praise the winner of this world-class competition and praise the executives of the winning company for all their hard work and dedication to this project. The real surprise came when I figured out just who the payee of the giant check was. It was really blurred in the picture but in the article President McCain gave plenty of praise to the winner. It seems that the winning company was a joint venture firm put together by some old and very dear friends. Halliburton and Exxon had started a new company call ‘Get’em Again, Inc.’. They had actually only been working on this project since President McCain made the promise of the reward during the campaign in June of ’08. Damn, I thought, that was this week.

I just heard the old coot offer this bounty the day before yesterday and now nine months later the prize was being claimed. The article went on to say further subsidies and tax incentives would be necessary to bring the new company up to full production but that the President felt confident Congress was on board to help this new start-up get whatever it needed to change the way we got our energy in this county. President McCain made the point that we as Americans should not expect the new company to finance the production of this new battery, “after all” he said, “the three hundred million was just to invent the battery, not to make it and we need to stand tall for them in this hour of need”.

The CEO of the new company, former Vice President Dick Cheney, was not in the picture but was quoted in the article as saying that while the new battery would not make our energy any less expensive, he felt sure that we would no longer be dependent on the Middle East for our energy needs. Of course he expressed his surprise at how fast the battery had been developed but gave a tremendous amount of credit to policies of the former administration. Someone had been quoted in the article as saying, “only in America”.