According to the Union of Concerned Scientists recent newsletter, the antibiotic resistant strain of Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) that has been an increasing problem in hospitals around the world is now infecting apparently healthy schoolkids outside of hospitals. This is a major development. Up until now anti-biotic resistance was only occasionally a problem outside of hospitals (so-called community-acquired" cases). This may be changing. According to the Centers for Disease Control, MRSA was responsible for almost 19,000 US deaths in 2005.

Another part of this development is also important. Evidence from Europe indicate that the community-acquired cases of MRSA are often associated with livestock operations. This is yet further evidence that the idiotic practice of pouring massive amounts of antibiotics into the feed of healthy animals is contributing to the public health risk of antibiotic resistant bacteria that treatens our children and people with a compromised immune system.

The New Yotk Times released a new poll of the state today with some mixed and worrying messages for the state's governing class.

Forty-nine percent of respondents approved of his job performance, and only 16 percent disapproved. Still, Mr. Paterson is largely unknown to New Yorkers, and more than a third of those polled did not express an opinion. And nearly 60 percent of those polled said the state was on the wrong track, expressing a view less bleak than Americans have shown in nationwide polls concerning the country’s direction, but still indicating widespread pessimism.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton's approval rating among New Yorkers of color has crashed from just under 90% (in 2006) to 55%. Barack Obama leads John McCain by landslide margins among all New Yorkers, 51% to 32%.

The state legislature, never popular as a body, has tanked in the public's mind: 29% approve, 47% disapprove, and 23% don't know enough about it to even have the luxury of an opinion. Of course, because legislators draw their own districts for the Assembly, there's not much to be done about that, other than by electing a Democratic Senate. Unfortunately, New Yorkers also reject control of both houses of the legislature by one party, 60% opposed, 34% in favor.

In looking for information about the New York Congressional delegation's awkward non-endorsement endorsement of Barack Obama (many haven't uttered the "E" word yet because they're waiting for Clinton to say it first), I stumbled upon a liveblog written by about this sort of "Hillary Watch" non-event. Now that we are down to the wire on her "endorsement" to Barack Obama, the newspaper seems to have been getting reports flying in on what the New York political establishment did and did not do regarding Ms. Clinton's insistence in painting herself as a sore loser.

I caught myself reading the whole darn thing and was struck speechless by this :

Obama met with Clinton last night to discuss party unity and such things. What caught my eye on the CNN report was this bit of news :

Some of Clinton's closest supporters — the nearly two dozen House Democrats from her home state of New York — switched their endorsements to Obama Thursday.

[...]

"We're Democrats. Dammit to hell we fight. When it's over, we come together and go out there to win," said Rangel, the dean of the New York delegation.

The New Yorkers, said Rep. Gregory Meeks, have a duty "to lead this transition" to full party support of Obama.

After waging one of the most violent Presidential primary campaigns in the history of the Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton is not only NOT ready concede --even though Obama is 10 delegates away from the "magic" 2,118.

Since it'll be a day in hell before she and her faithful husban let go their choke-hold on the Democratic Party, the Clintonistas are now using every media outlet they can find to spin the Hillary as the "best" option for the vice-presidency.

The lastest skidmark on print comes right from our little city paper, The New York Observer (and apologies to Azi, whom I love and respect) :

Today is the last day of an interminable primary season. When the sun sets tonight, Democrats will have their nominee, and in a stunning turnaround from six months ago, that nominee will not be Hillary Clinton. So what happened?

In no particular order, this.

If Hillary Clinton hadn't voted for the Iraq War and the subsequent Kyl-Lieberman resolution against Iran, she'd probably be the nominee today.

If Hillary Clinton had fought the Bush administration with the same zeal and fervor she devoted to a contest where she had a personal stake, she would definitely be the nominee today. Her ferocious campaign against Democrats, however, made clear that her all-but silence for the last seven years was not a matter of temperament, but one of calculation. When the country needed a champion - a fighter, as the campaign literature has it - she was quietly nursing her own resources for her own turn in the spotlight. Choices matter.

If Hillary Clinton had been as good a candidate in January and February as she was in May, she would have wrapped this thing up a long time ago. But she wasn't.

If Hillary Clinton had realized that the Democratic Party today is not the same tattered edifice she and Bill left behind in 2000, and adjusted her strategy accordingly, she would have won. As it was, she campaigned against MoveOn, against the netroots, against a fifty-state strategy, in favor of the same blinkered, the-White-House-is-all-that-matters approach that led us to disaster in the nineties.

Per the Daily News, Team Obama expects to be able to declare victory next week with a majority of available delegates.

Obama's aides said Monday the freshman senator is "now just 49 delegates away" from clinching the nomination and making history as the first African-American Democratic nominee for President.

"We're very close now," David Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist, told the Daily News. "When the primaries end, I think, we'll be where we need to be. ... We'll be at the number we need to claim the nomination."

What comes next? The Washington Post and New York Times chart out possible courses for Senator Clinton; per Gallup, 61% of Democrats are confident we will win the Presidential election; and Rasmussen today has the race at 47% McCain, 44% Obama.

Almost there.

Hillary Clinton:

My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California.

Okay, deep breaths.

Hillary Clinton is an extraordinary human being and, as the first viable female candidate for the Presidency, has already stepped into history. If she had run a campaign distinguished by the competency she can obviously lay claim to in other areas, she would have had the Democratic nomination locked up months ago. However, she did not, and got blindsided by the biggest political phenomenon to hit American politics since Ronald Reagan. Not very many people understood just what it was that Barack Obama was building even a few short months ago; I certainly did not.

Bloomberg News, citing CNN, reports that Team Clinton is supposedly talking to Team Obama about a joint ticket.

U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign is in formal talks with Senator Barack Obama's campaign about becoming his vice presidential running mate, CNN reported, without citing anyone specific.

The two Democratic campaigns are talking about ways for Clinton, from New York, to drop her bid for president that may include joining the Illinois senator's ticket, CNN reported. Talks are in a ``very preliminary'' stage and are described as ``difficult,'' the network said.

What's puzzling about this idea is this: support her, or not, but Hillary Clinton is a very shrewd and talented political savant. She has to know that the Vice Presidency has as much power and influence as the President sees fit to allocate to the office; certainly less than does, say, a Senate Majority Leader.

The biggest impediment to solving the problem of racism in the USA is the denial that comes from all sides of the divide. Only when this denial is confronted will we get anywhere closer to solving this seemingly intractable issue. Let’s take the latest Clinton campaign dust-up. Geraldine Ferraro- one of HRC’s big feminist supporters- made probably the most nonsensical statement of this campaign cycle so far, when she suggested that Barack Obama has gotten where he is (his success in this presidential race to date) because he is lucky to be black. This is the same woman, who in 1988 said that Jesse Jackson was only running in the presidential primary (and with some success too), because he too “was black”. Talk about double-speak/lol; or is it double-talk? This was not accidental or coincidental; this was deliberate on Ms. Ferraro’s part. This lady needs some sensitivity training; even at age 72 it can be useful.

When I said right here on the blogs, that “race” will be the “gorilla at the back of the room” in this presidential contest, I knew many felt that I was overreaching. Others felt that I was somehow exaggerating and being absurd somewhat. Go back to some of the comments made in the comment sections of some of my previous columns. I had to explain to many a person on the telephone, over e-mail inquiries, in various gatherings, and on the streets, that race is the unconscious factor in the lives of most Americans: no matter what color or genetic-nationality. I had to further explain some of the things that I have written about here -in many a column- that most Americans are in denial when it comes to racism; that there are many who walk around this country, unconscious to the fact that they have racist tendencies; seemingly oblivious to their programmed racist predispositions and /or built-in racial reflexes. This is where it starts: in the mirror that few care to look into. This is where it ends: in the introspection (and retrospection) that few care to indulge and/or confront.