Damn it! I agree with John McCain on something. It is so hard to be an ideologue when the opposition makes sense occasionally.

The presumed Republican nominee is proposing a $300 million government prize to whoever can develop an automobile battery that far surpasses existing technology. The bounty would equate to $1 for every man, woman and child in the country, "a small price to pay for helping to break the back of our oil dependency," McCain said in remarks prepared for delivery Monday at Fresno State University in California.

McCain said such a device should deliver power at 30 percent of current costs and have "the size, capacity, cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars."

"In the quest for alternatives to oil, our government has thrown around enough money subsidizing special interests and excusing failure," said excerpts from McCain's prepared text. "From now on, we will encourage heroic efforts in engineering, and we will reward the greatest success."

This is actually the subject of an ongoing debate I am having with one of my kids about the importance of taking money away from subsidizing oil companies and putting toward developing the next alternative energy source.

I firmly belief that every dollar used for oil exploration or the building of new refineries is money that is being used for a soon to be obsolete energy source. The more money we spend on developing Hydrogen cars, or electric cars, or solar powered cars, or what ever else may be waiting around the corner, the faster we can cut our ties to the oil companies.

Just imagine how liberating it will feel to step away from gasoline and finally find a way to avoid the conflicts in the Middle east that our addiction to oil has created.

So on this issue I agree with John McCain that we need to start spending vast amounts of money on research for alternative energy sources. Beyond that, not so much.