The checkout line scanner moment

Here's the headline:

Bush: U.S. on Verge of Energy Breakthrough

Here's the basis for the claim:

During his visit to Johnson Controls' new hybrid battery laboratory, Bush checked out two Ford Escapes — one with a nickel-metal-hybrid battery, the kind that powers most hybrid-electric vehicles, and one with a lithium-ion battery, which Johnson Controls believes are the wave of the future. The lithium-ion battery was about half the size of the older-model battery. In 2004, Johnson Controls received a government contract to develop the lithium-ion batteries.

While Bush is highlighting his budget proposals to help wean America from foreign oil, the lab he visited is meeting a $28 million shortfall by cutting its staff by 32 people, including eight researchers.

"Our nation is on the threshold of new energy technology that I think will startle the American people," Bush said. "We're on the edge of some amazing breakthroughs — breakthroughs all aimed at enhancing our national security and our economic security and the quality of life of the folks who live here in the United States."

Later Monday, Bush visited the United Solar Ovonics Plant, which makes solar panels, in Auburn Hills, Mich., outside Detroit. "This technology right here is going to help us change the way we live in our homes," Bush told reporters.

Bush said he was impressed with the growing commercial uses of solar energy.

"Roof makers will one day be able to make a solar roof that protects you from the elements and at the same time, powers your house," Bush said. "The vision is this — that technology will become so efficient that you'll become a little power generator in your home, and if you don't use the energy you generate you'll be able to feed it back into the electricity grid."

The US is entirely set up for oil. Everything, not just what we use in our cars: plastics, computers, roadways, carpet, bottled water, and that jar of nacho cheese dip you just ate. Environmentalists have been saying for nigh on thirty years that we should have been developing alternative energy sources. The US has moved in the opposite direction over those thirty or so years. The potential independence of solar energy, another issue, is anathema to everything this president stands for, and goes against everything his buddies desire. What we need is a new political system.

This president looks at old technology and says we're on the verge of a "breakthrough."

UPDATE:

I kind of like the title of this post as a band name. Anyone want it?