† When Healthcare Is Rationed, Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others: Despite CDC recommendations on prioritizing people within high risk groups when supplies of swine flu vaccine are in short supply that anyone can read for themselves online, The Associated Press insists that the otherwise healthy Obama girls were not given preferential treatment, even as parents with chronically ill or special needs children nationwide were unable to get their kids vaccinated. Nonetheless, you should be glad that President Barack Hussein Obama’s kids got vaccinated instead of yours, argues University of Illinois-Chicago infectious-disease specialist Dr. Mark Dworkin: "If his children get sick with a high fever, that's very distracting for any parent, and we all want his attention focused on all the issues before him. Also, if Malia and Sasha were to get the flu, their father could catch it from them. That's a guy I don't want to see out sick.”

Yeah, coming down with swine flu could interfere with Obama’s fund-raising and campaigning gigs – or worse, his golf-playing. Meanwhile, 19 more children died from swine flu last week - the largest single-week increase in mortality since the pandemic started in April, according to health officials.

† Iraq Was Supposed To Become Like The USA - But The Reverse Has Happened: Part II: Noor Faleh Almaleki, 20, whose father Faleh Hassan Almaleki, 48, allegedly ran her down with his jeep because he believed she had become too Westernized, died from her injuries, reports The Arizona Republic:

Social experts say honor killings are an accepted practice in Iraqi tribal society, where family members feel they must kill a woman who shames them by not adhering to traditional Muslim or Iraqi values.

Family members said Almaleki was outraged after his daughter married a man in Iraq but returned to the Valley to live with a boyfriend and his mother in Surprise. …

Police said Almaleki fled the country after the attack, driving to Mexico and later taking a plane to London. He was detained by British authorities and extradited to Atlanta last week.

Speaking before a Maricopa County judge over the weekend, county prosecutor Stephanie Low said Almaleki has admitted purposefully running down his daughter. …

Low said additional family members are suspected of assisting Almaleki in his escape.

“We can't be naive and ignore that there's a cultural aspect to this and there may be people who would support him, including his family, but also others who share his beliefs,” she said.

The Almalekis moved to Peoria from Iraq in the mid-1990s.

† Is Armenian Genocide Denial Good For The Jews?: The Christian Science Monitor reports that Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had a tête-à-tête in Tehran, after which Erdogan parroted Iran's claims that its nuclear energy program is "peaceful and humanitarian" - an assessment that other NATO nations do not share:

As an increasingly powerful nation at the strategic crossroads of Europe and Asia, democratic and Muslim Turkey sees itself as a peacemaker in the region. …

But worries abound that Turkey is now shifting too far away from Europe and to Muslim despots specifically. After the disputed Iranian election in June, Erdogan and the Turkish president were among the first foreign leaders to call with congratulations for Mr. Ahmadinejad. …

Islamic intensity is growing in Turkey, along with an alarming increase in anti-Semitism. Israel's bombardment of Gaza nearly a year ago fanned these flames, and Erdogan has blown on them.

Israel no longer trusts Turkey as an honest broker, says Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Indeed, with Israel's concern having shifted to Iran, and with Erdogan's untempered remarks about Israel, why should he?

Editorial Note: The CSM article refers to “a century-old dispute” between Armenia and Turkey. Is “dispute” the new euphemism for “genocide?”

† For The Good Of The Children?: More than three decades after a federal court order desegregating the Boston Public Schools system forced the city to bus black students to white neighborhoods and whites to black areas, today just nine percent of the student body is white and the hot-button issue is proximity vs. quality in school assignments, reports The Washington Times,:

Boston schools … let parents pick schools, but only within three enormous and controversial geographical zones. Buses carting only one student often crisscross the city - contributing to next year's nearly $80 million transportation budget at a time when the district faces a projected $100 million budget shortfall. …

Proposals to replace the 20-year-old school-assignment zones with five smaller ones fizzled twice this decade, most recently in June. For the Boston Public Schools system - which has 72 percent of its students eligible for subsidized free and reduced-price meals - the challenge is deflating a bloated transportation budget without impeding access to the city's best schools.

Superintendent Carol Johnson shelved her five-zone plan in June after it was revealed that the majority of the district's underperforming schools were concentrated in the two zones populated by the city's poorest residents.

Parents in those two zones were irate after learning they wouldn't have equal access to bilingual and special education.

† Updates To Previous Posts (seventh item, “Clunkers” Is Another Edsel): Edmunds.com is the latest news and information source to draw the ire of the Obama White House for telling an inconvenient truth, reports The New York Times’ “Opinionator” blog:

This all started with a report on the federal Car Allowance Rebate System at Edmunds.com, the automotive Web site owner. “Cash for Clunkers cost taxpayers $24,000 per vehicle sold,” the study found. “Nearly 690,000 vehicles were sold during the Cash for Clunkers program … but Edmunds.com analysts calculated that only 125,000 of the sales were incremental. The rest of the sales would have happened anyway, regardless of the existence of the program.”

The Wall Street Journal’s Evan Newmark adds:

The White House would probably contend that it’s impossible to determine incremental sales - meaning each sale that only happened because of the government $3,500 to $4,500 subsidy. And that the sale of each and every car spurs economic activity well beyond the program’s $3 billion.

But isn’t it possible that the Edmunds.com analysis is actually understating the true costs to the taxpayer? What about the interest costs on the borrowed $3 billion? What about the cost of propping up GMAC so that it could underwrite cash-for-clunker loans?

Nick Loris of the Heritage Foundation sums up the takeaway points:

1) If you subsidize something enough, people will buy it. But that money has to come from somewhere – either from borrowing it or raising taxes. … Edmunds claims cash for clunkers affected the timing of sales more than the volume of sales.

2) We’re talking about breakdowns in a small scale government program here. Think of the loopholes in a much more complex, convoluted like a cap and trade program.

† Updates To Previous Posts (sixth item, Police Chief Crashes Car In Alleged Drunk Driving Incident): A DUI destroyed the life of former Alexandria police chief David Baker, but he has put his shame aside to prevent others from making the same mistake, reports The Washington Post:

Baker, who resigned from his position, has begun a campaign to help others learn from his arrest. Now, instead of leading his officers in high-profile cases, he is delivering that message to those same officers at roll call, and even to inmates at the Alexandria jail.

He tells his story for what he hopes will be a wider audience on a YouTube video titled "Even a Police Chief," released last week by Checkpoint Strikeforce, a local anti-drunken-driving group. He also plans to speak to a high school class and to cadets at another police agency. …

Baker spoke frankly about the embarrassment and regret, the anguish of pleading guilty to a crime he knew he'd committed and the degradation of being in a prison jumpsuit, locked up for five days in the Arlington jail.

He also said he is often humiliated when he is going about his daily routine and someone recognizes him as the chief who got arrested, which happened recently at a local Verizon store.

"You feel a little sleazy, I suppose," Baker said. "And you believe others feel the same way.

Baker's outreach is voluntary; he was not ordered by the court to complete community service. He said he is speaking publicly because "it's the right thing to do." …

"The easier thing to do is to hide and not show your face," Baker said. "If you lack the courage to face your issues, you'll forever be defined by the event."