Resurrecting the electric car

In another wave of General Motor's blitzkrieg on the environmental side of the automotive business, a plug-in hybrid is apparently set for debut at the NAIAS. There's no word yet on which brand it will wear, nor what fuel type it will use. I'm with Autoblog on this one though: make it small and fuel efficient to the point of absurdity. Demonstrate it is cost effective for the consumer (lower cost per mile than comparable non-plug-in cars), give it acceptable performance (8 or 9 sec to 60 mph should do the trick) and make the vehicle fully operational even without access to an outlet (easier said than done). With those attributes, they won't be able to make them fast enough, and the rumored sequel "I Know who Killed the Electric Car" won't ever see the light of day.

Quote for the day

"Americans will always do the right thing, after they have exhausted all the alternatives."

-Winston Churchill

(via Sullivan)

Thinking about it, that's not so terrible an insult.

Active euthanasia for disabled newborn children

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in "Great" Britain has advised that active euthanasia for severely disabled newborns be considered, due to the pain and suffering they and their family may have to endure.

I'm in agreement with Simone Aspis, of the British Council of Disabled People: "completely wrong."

One thing I must applaud, however, is the clarity in the whole debate. As in this quote, from John Harris, a a professor of bioethics at Manchester University and member of Britain's Human Genetics Commission:

We can terminate for serious fetal abnormality up to term but cannot kill a newborn. What do people think has happened in the passage down the birth canal to make it OK to kill the fetus at one end of the birth canal but not at the other?

He's in favor of "active euthanasia" by the way. This could be the strongest support I've yet seen for my pro-life views. Even this guy, way on the other side of the debate, knows that partial birth abortion and killing newborns are essentially equivalent.