samhexum

An Indiana murder suspect escaped from a prison transport van that made a pit stop at a McDonald’s on Monday, authorities said. Leon Taylor, 22, was being extradited from Texas to the Hoosier State when he fled from the van operated by a private contractor at the fast-food joint in Gary, Indiana at about 2:10 p.m., according to the Lake County Sheriff’s Department. Taylor, who is wanted for a murder in East Chicago, Indiana, was wearing a belly chain with handcuffs, along with a leg brace when he slipped from the van in the McDonald’s drive-thru, the sheriff’s department said. He also had on a grey hoodie over a black hoodie, black Puma tennis shoes and black jeans. The driver of the van tried to catch Taylor after he fled, according to surveillance footage obtained by authorities. As of late Tuesday, Taylor was still on the lam, authorities said.

If you hear from him or feel like sending him a note, tell him I said hello. He's not in a good situation covid-wise, so I hope he's okay.

Girl admits to Santa she’s naughty, still demands AirPods and live panda She put herself on the naughty list. A 9-year-old girl from Essex, UK is going viral after admitting she’s been bad in a letter to Santa, before demanding a mind-boggling list of 12 Christmas gifts, including electronics and exotic animals. “Y’all, look at this letter my little 9y/r sister wrote to Santa,” the girl’s older brother tweeted along with a photo of his sis’s outrageous note. “Dear beloved Father Christmas, I hope you’ve had a wonderful year and you’ve been well,” reads the brazen letter. “My year has been quite the opposite. I’ve tried hard to be good but miserably failed.” The unnamed girl continued, “I’ll be honest I do deserve coal, but please I’d love to have a present. Actually more than one. Here’s a list – tick the boxes if you have done them.” She then proceeded to rattle off a list of ludicrous Christmas requests including Apple AirPods, a Nintendo switch, a Playstation 4 and 5 and a new laptop. If that wasn’t ridiculous enough, the entitled tyke demanded a snake and “a panda and penguin,” which she specified needed to be “not dead.” The demands weren’t limited to mere possessions. The little hellion also asked for a trip to France with a whopping five tickets included. “Hopefully you succeed to fulfill all my requested items,” she wrote. Needless to say, her outlandish list had Twitter in stitches. “There’s no way Santa is going to miss that address,” tweeted one newfound fan. “I feel for the parents,” said another. Others lauded her masterful writing skills. “I don’t know what shocks me more; the fact that you have a 9y/o sister, her handwriting or her use of diction and syntax at that age,” remarked one impressed commenter. P.S. Does anyone know what happened to Avalon?

Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks reach five-year, $228M supermax extension Back-to-back NBA MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo has committed to the Milwaukee Bucks long-term. Antetokounmpo agreed to sign a five-year, $228 million supermax extension with the Bucks on Tuesday, he announced on Twitter, with the terms being confirmed by agent Alex Saratsis to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski. The deal includes an opt out after the fourth year. "This is my home, this is my city," Antetokounmpo posted on Twitter. "I'm blessed to be able to be a part of the Milwaukee Bucks for the next 5 years. Let's make these years count. The show goes on, let's get it." Had he passed on the offer, he would have been an unrestricted free agent next summer and the biggest name to hit the market since Kevin Durant in 2016. Antetokounmpo is coming off a career year where he became just the third player in league history to win MVP and Defensive Player of the Year in the same season, joining Michael Jordan and Hakeem Olajuwon. He also averaged career-highs in points (29.5) and rebounds (13.6) to go with 5.6 assists per game and a 31.9 player efficiency rating -- the highest in a season in NBA history, per ESPN Stats & Information data. Milwaukee has finished the regular season with the best record in the league each of the past two years, but failed to reach the NBA Finals either time. In 2019, the Bucks took a 2-0 lead over the Toronto Raptors in the conference finals before losing in six games. This past season, Milwaukee didn't get that far, falling to the Miami Heat in five games during the semifinals in the Orlando bubble. For all their regular-season success, the Bucks have reached the conference finals just once in Antetokounmpo's seven-year tenure and haven't reached the NBA Finals since 1974 with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who ultimately asked to be traded from Milwaukee after his sixth season as a three-time league MVP. "I think [Antetokounmpo] should look into his own heart and make a decision based on what's important to him and his professional life," Abdul-Jabbar, who led the Bucks to their lone title in 1971, said to ESPN during a October 2019 trip to Milwaukee. Antetokounmpo was a relative unknown when the Bucks made him the No. 15 overall pick in the 2013 NBA draft. Born in Greece to Nigerian parents, Antetokounmpo was playing in Greece's second division before joining Milwaukee. He averaged just 6.8 points per game as a rookie, starting 23 games, but by his third year, his scoring average was up to 16.9 and he earned Most Improved Player honors. The next year, he made the first of his four All-Star appearances. Milwaukee reached the playoffs three times in Antetokounmpo's first five seasons with the team, but was eliminated in the first round each time. In 2018-19, Antetokounmpo ascended to the league's MVP, becoming the first Bucks player since Abdul-Jabbar to win the award, while leading the team to its first playoff series win since 2001. Antetokounmpo has improved his scoring average every season he's been in the league, reaching 29.5 last season, when he became the first player since Wilt Chamberlain to average at least 29.0 points, 13.0 rebounds and 5.0 assists over the course of a season. However, his focus has remained that elusive championship. "It's simple. You've got to be better than what you were last year. If you did not win the whole thing, you've got to get better," Antetokounmpo said during his September virtual news conference after accepting his MVP trophy. "If you win the whole thing, you've got to get better and do it again." With teams around the NBA clearing cap space with the hope of pursuing Antetokounmpo next summer, Milwaukee entered a critical offseason hoping to convince its best player since Abdul-Jabbar to stay by putting together a solid supporting cast. "This is our Super Bowl," Bucks general manager Jon Horst said Nov. 16. "We work at this every single day of every year to have great processes and great decision-making filters and we got through them and there's confidence in that." Before the start of free agency, the Bucks agreed to a trade bringing in former All-Star Jrue Holiday as part of a four-team deal. A reported trade that would have brought Bogdan Bogdanovic to Milwaukee as part of a sign-and-trade deal fell apart before it could be completed, and the Bucks pivoted to bolstering their bench, adding D.J. Augustin, Bryn Forbes and Torrey Craig while re-signing guard Pat Connaughton. The Bucks also added rookie Jordan Nwora with the No. 45 pick in the draft. Antetokounmpo and All-Star guard Khris Middleton both reached out to the former Louisville forward on draft night with an introductory text message, he said, welcoming him to the team and telling him that the "goal is a championship here." Antetokounmpo, who turns 26 on Dec. 6, joined Abdul-Jabbar and LeBron James this season as the only players to win multiple NBA MVP awards by age 25. He's repeatedly expressed interest in staying in Milwaukee under the right circumstances. "I've been encouraged my whole career in Milwaukee," Antetokounmpo said after winning his second MVP. "I know that we've gotten better each year and I know that Milwaukee has great people that view every year the same I do every year, which is to play well, improve and win it all."

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Gee, and I had just gone on a spree and downloaded a bunch of classic stuff from them & other sites within the past month. Time to get in on a flash drive in case my computer dies..

I was recently reminded of the movie (Howard Stern's) Private Parts, which I really liked, despite really disliking Howard Stern. I had also really disliked Roseanne Barr's stand-up act when she was first getting well-known, but the reviews of her sitcom's pilot episode were so good I watched it anyway and loved it. Any time somebody told me they hated her (act), I'd tell them to watch the show, because it had a lot more depth and heart (at least for the first 6 seasons). A friend had to drag me to the first Ice Age movie and I wound up absolutely loving it, after having been quite disappointed by Shrek earlier that year, and not being in the mood for a 'kiddie' flick again. So what surprised you over the years?

Cleveland will be dropping the Indians name. No word on what they'll call themselves.

We need a 'jealous' emoji.

An entire region in California is out of ICU beds as COVID-19 surges A 12-county region in California is out of ICU-bed capacity as a second wave of COVID-19 ravages the state’s rural Central Valley. San Joaquin County, an agriculture hub where the majority of fruits and vegetables in the US are grown, has been hit particularly hard in recent weeks. ICU capacity at all seven hospitals in the county stood at 100 percent on Saturday, the highest rate anywhere in California, according to the state’s Department of Public Health. A team of 17 nurses is expected to arrive Monday at one local hospital that has built a second ICU area where it plans to take in coronavirus patients from San Joaquin County’s six other overflowing hospitals. Many of the patients are Latino farm workers. A doctor at Adventist Health Lodi Memorial hospital in Lodi, which is about 100 miles east of San Francisco, said that during the first COVID wave in the spring, 75 percent of patients were Latino. The hospital investigated the trend and found COVID warnings were not reaching many in the community, because of a lack of trust in the hospital staff and government. “We don’t have the same culture and the rigidity around following the guidance here than, for example, San Francisco [has]. We need to educate, educate, as much as we can so we can get some relief,” Dr. Patricia Iris said. An ideological divide also exists between Lodi’s English-speaking locals and the state’s liberal government leaders. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom implemented a 21-day stay-at-home order last week — prompting an outcry from San Joaquin businesses. Pat Patrick, president and CEO of the Lodi Chamber of Commerce, signed a letter urging Newsom to let businesses stay open. “There’s just no rhyme or reason to some of these things and certainly no data,” Patrick said. At least one restaurant, Denis’ Country Kitchen, has stayed open despite the mandate.

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DEAR ABBY: My 34-year-old daughter lives with me to get ahead on her student loans. She has a good job, pays rent and has a serious boyfriend. My niece, her cousin, recently died by suicide, and naturally, we are all devastated, but my daughter took the news especially hard. I had to be out of town for three weeks, and during this time she has been spending time with my sister-in-law's family as they all navigate this tragedy. My niece left behind several pets -- dogs and a mama cat with kittens. My daughter called me, announced she had brought a kitten home and declared that this kitten has helped her in her grief process. I am livid that she didn't ask me first (she knew the answer would be a firm "no"). She's now claiming that I don't care about her grief. I feel emotionally blackmailed, and I'm dreading the confrontation when I get home. This kitten has taken this devastating tragedy to a new level. How should I handle this? -- FAMILY GRIEF DEAR FAMILY GRIEF: While I understand your feelings, handle it by being less hard-nosed about the fact that your daughter didn't follow protocol by asking permission before bringing home the kitten. Allow her to keep it, and during those times when she can't be home because she's working, etc., encourage her to leave the little furball with her boyfriend. Make plain that the creature is -- and will be -- her responsibility, meaning she will be responsible for feeding, vet bills, litter box, etc. And, most important of all, try not to fall in love with it because when your daughter leaves, Kitty will be going with her. Don't be such a pussy. Kick them both out, you heartless bitch. DEAR ABBY: I am a straight female. I have been divorced for 10-plus years and recently decided, after five years of trying to attract a new man through online dating, that I want to be single and celibate for the rest of my life. Literally days after I wrote the decision in my journal, guys are coming at me out of the woodwork, chatting me up, even giving unsolicited hugs. I'm bewildered. I subscribed to a dating site for a full-year membership and got not one single reply to any of my messages. Not one! I also tried a different dating site, where my friend met her spouse. It yielded crickets. No man ever messaged me to say, "Hey, I like your photo and want to know more about you." This reinforces my decision that I want nothing to do with men. -- LEAVE ME ALONE DEAR LEAVE ME ALONE: And your question is? If you are asking me to validate a decision you made out of frustration after a year of terrible luck, I can't in good conscience do that. We can't run from life because we are afraid of the pain of being open. That is the coward's choice. If men are showing an interest, allow them to get to know you and vice versa, instead of hiding. Be present and live your life in situations that include available people, which sometimes yields better results than the pressure of online dating. So become a nun, and then you will get none.

Trump has been highlighting lots of really big numbers this week: New highs for the stock market. The 100-plus House members backing a lawsuit challenging his election loss. The nearly 75 million people who voted for him. All the while, he's looked past other staggering and more consequential figures: The record numbers of coronavirus deaths, hospitalizations and new cases among the citizens of the nation he leads. On Friday, Trump's team blasted out a text with this strong, high-minded presidential message: “We will not bend. We will not break. We will never give in. We will never give up.” But it was not a rallying cry to help shore up Americans sagging under the toll of a pandemic that on Wednesday alone killed more Americans than on D-Day or 9/11. It was part of a fundraising pitch tied to Senate races in Georgia and to Trump’s unsupported claims that Democrats are trying to “steal” the presidential election he lost. Of Trump's tweets over the past week, 82 percent have been focused on the election and just 7 percent on the virus — almost all of those related to forthcoming vaccines — according to Factba.se, a data analytics company. Nearly a third of the president’s tweets on the election were flagged by Twitter for misinformation. As he talks and tweets at length about the election he is futilely trying to subvert, the president is leaving Americans without a central figure to help them deal with their grief over loved-ones' deaths and the day-to-day danger of the pandemic that still rages. His strategy is to focus totally on the shiny object coming soon — the prospect of a vaccine. Friday night, the the Food and Drug Administration gave the final go-ahead to a vaccine from Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech, launching emergency vaccinations in a bid to end the pandemic. But Trump's three-minute internet address hailing the vaccine made no mention of the toll the virus has taken. Calvin Jillson, a presidential historian at Southern Methodist University, said Trump has proven himself unable or unwilling to muster the “normal and natural, falling-off-a-log simple presidential approach” that is called for in any moment of national grief or crisis. “He simply doesn’t seem to have the emotional depth, the emotional reserves to feel what’s happening in the country and to respond to it in the way that any other president -- even those who’ve been fairly emotionally crippled -- would do,” Jillson said. Trump did convene a summit this week to highlight his administration’s successful efforts to help hasten the development of coronavirus vaccines and prepare for their speedy distribution. And he spent part of Friday pressing federal authorities to authorize use of the first-up vaccine candidate from Pfizer. At his summit, the president put heavy emphasis on the faster-than-expected development of the vaccines, calling it “an incredible success,” “a monumental national achievement,” “really amazing” and “somewhat of a miracle.” He's also claimed credit, though Pfizer developed its vaccine outside the administration's “Operation Warp Speed.” In a passing nod to the pandemic's toll, Trump promised the coming vaccines would “quickly and dramatically reduce deaths and hospitalizations," adding that “we want to get back to normal.” But it will be months before most Americans have access to a vaccine. Asked what message he had for Americans suffering great hardship as the holidays approach and the virus only gets worse, Trump's answer had an almost clinical tone. “Yeah, well, CDC puts out their guidelines, and they're very important guidelines,” he said, “but I think this: I think that the vaccine was our goal.” To focus otherwise would undercut Trump's goal of minimizing the national pain of the virus' toll and his claims that the danger will soon vanish. Trump's successor, Joe Biden, on Friday answered that approach with a promise for greater presidential leadership. Of the virus, he said: “We can wish this away, but we need to face it.” Jeff Shesol, a presidential historian and former speechwriter for President Bill Clinton, said Trump's failure to express empathy was a “personal pathology manifesting itself as political strategy.” “It's not simply that he has decided not to express concern or sorrow, it's that he does not feel the sorrow,” Shesol said. Ari Fleischer, who served as White House press secretary to President George W. Bush, said Trump has approached the virus in a "very mechanical, focus-on-the-vaccine kind of way” when people are also hungering for an emotional connection. That's hurt Trump politically, but it's true to his persona, Fleischer added. “The president is a blunt force more than he’s an empathetic force,” Fleischer said. “To his credit, he doesn’t pretend. He is who he is. Most politicians would fake it." The White House did not respond to a request for comment for this story. It's not just Trump who is fazed by how best to acknowledge the toll of the virus. The issue led to an unusually personal argument on the air Thursday at Fox News Channel, the favorite network for many of Trump’s supporters. Marie Harf, a commentator on the midday show “Outnumbered,” noted that 43 minutes into the show the previous day’s record-setting number of COVID deaths hadn’t been mentioned. “We cannot lose sight of the tragedy that is unfolding every day in this country, in large part because people want to go about like normal and they don’t want to wear masks,” she said. The show’s host, Harris Faulkner, called Harf’s remark offensive. “Keep your judgment someplace where you know you can fact-check it, because you can’t see my heart.” Late-night TV hosts, too, took note of the scant acknowledgement of the unfolding tragedy. In a lengthy monologue Thursday night, NBC “Late Night” host Seth Meyers faulted Trump and Republicans for continuing to focus on trying to overturn the long-settled election “as thousands of Americans die every day from a pandemic they clearly don’t care about."

Boston medical conference linked to as many as 300K COVID-19 cases A team of scientists using genetic sequencing found that between 205,000 and 300,000 coronavirus cases across the US are linked to a “superspreader” medical conference in Boston in late February. The conference was previously thought to have been associated with about 20,000 cases in the Boston metro area, but the researchers say it actually spread much further after about 100 people caught the virus at the gathering, CBS News reported. Through Nov. 1, the genetic marker found in the strain of the virus linked to the conference was found in 51,000 cases around Boston. It also spread to other locations where conference attendees returned, including in Florida, where 29 percent of the conference-linked cases ended up; Indiana and North Carolina. The strain of virus was found as far away as Australia and Slovakia, according to the research, published in the journal Science. “We don’t think these strains had a propensity to spread more than any other,” said Jacob Lemieux, the study’s lead author. “We suspect that these types of events have been happening over and over again, and are major contributors to the propagation and spread of SARS-cov2 throughout the world. Biogen in a statement said the pandemic has had a “very direct and personal impact” on the company and hoped the study would “continue to drive a better understanding of the transmission of this virus and efforts to address it.”

Nah, $11.58

I went grocery shopping at 4AM (as most people do) and got 2 cans of Lysol, the first I’ve seen since the pandemic began. Of course my cashier (who was otherwise terrific) had her mask under her nose, but as long as I don’t get sick in the next week, WOO HOO!

So I go down to get the mail and find one of those things where you have to fold and perforate the sides to open it… from the NY State Dept of Taxation. OH FUCK! What now? I open it, and it’s an interest check for $3.96 because I filed my taxes ahead of the covid-extended deadline. Don’t understand, but I’ll take it. Then I went grocery shopping at 4AM (as most people do) and got 2 cans of Lysol, the first I’ve seen since the pandemic began. Of course my cashier (who was otherwise terrific) had her mask under her nose, but as long as I don’t get sick in the next week, WOO HOO!

NY DAILY NEWS: A Chanukah miracle: Upper West Side Zabar’s selling latkes like hot cakes