FYI, I belong to GasBuddy and they activate this service for hurricane affected areas. Local members who normally post gas prices now post information on whether gas stations in the affected areas have power and whether they have fuel available. I know that this is just starting, but the live updates have been activated for Florida so I wanted to make sure it's available for anyone in the area that's in need of fuel during this weather crisis - and it's been helpful in the past. Stay safe out there!

Live updates on fuel availability and gas station outages in areas affected by Hurricane Dorian.

Our fuel-availability tracking systems are active, notifying users of gas stations with no fuel or power. The GasBuddy app is free to download to find gas stations with fuel and power.

https://www.gasbuddy.com/go/dorian-live-updates-fuel-availability-station-outages/

At the link:

https://www.gasbuddy.com/go/fuel-tracker-hurricane-dorian/

We have activated our fuel availability tracker online for those in Florida, and are prepared to activate in other affected areas ahead of Hurricane Dorian’s arrival to help motorists in affected areas find fuel starting immediately should stations run out.

When hurricane features are activated for an area, our free app can differentiate stations that have no gasoline, no diesel or no power so that motorists can try other stations. The crowdsourced tracker can be updated by motorists and displays the status for locations that have been reported to the GasBuddy app. Motorists are encouraged to report the status of any station they see to help others find gasoline or avoid stations with no fuel or power.

IF YOU NEED FUEL: When a motorist is near a station that has no gas, diesel or power, the GasBuddy app will automatically display NO GAS or NO DIESEL or NO POWER icons next to the station on the list screen, and the station will be highlighted in red on the map screen.

Leave it to Gov. Cuomo to come up with a wacky Rube Goldberg-like scheme, even for something as small-time as license plates.

Cuomo this week announced that the state is changing the style of its plates, and everyone with vehicles more than 10 years old will have to get one.

Oh, it’ll cost you an extra $25 — plus $20 more to keep the same plate numbers.

As E.J. McMahon notes in his column, Team Cuomo tried to present the change more as a fun contest than a new fee: New Yorkers get to vote on one of five possible designs, four that show the Statue of Liberty and one featuring the new Tappan Zee — er, Gov. Mario M. Cuomo — Bridge.

Critics speculate that the selections are rigged, because they’ll divide the pro-Statue of Liberty vote, leaving the plate with the monument to Cuomo’s dad likely to win.

“This indeed seems kind of rigged,” polling expert Nate Silver tweeted. “A bunch of near-identical Statue of Liberty designs will split the SoL vote.”

Read more: https://nypost.com/2019/08/23/cuomos-bizarre-plan-to-force-new-yorkers-to-get-new-license-plates/



Gov. Andrew Cuomo at the opening of the first span of the Mario M. Cuomo Bridge back in 2017. Darren McGee- Office of Governor

Stephen Colbert discusses The Late Show's treatment of Trump and losing his Dad with Anderson Cooper

Monologue: Get On My Lawn



Bill recaps the top stories of the week, including Trump's interest in buying Greenland and the passing of David Koch.




Rep. Katie Porter



Congresswoman Katie Porter (D-CA) joins Bill to discuss her "shaming" of JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and her advocacy for consumer protection.




25 Things You Don't Know About Stephen Miller



Bill Maher shares a few fun "facts" about White House senior policy advisor Stephen Miller.




New Rule: Trump, Save Earth



In his editorial New Rule, Bill encourages President Trump to become an eco-warrior and take up the fight against climate change.




Overtime: Katie Porter, Heidi Heitkamp, Michael Smerconish, Eric Klinenberg, Kevin Williamson



Bill Maher and his guests answer viewer questions after the show.

Last week we received positive news on the border wall's imminent construction in an Arizona wildlife refuge. The Trump administration delayed construction of the wall through about 60 miles of federal wildlife preserves.

The win came shortly after the Center for Biological Diversity asked a federal judge to stop construction in 68 miles of the Arizona border via a filed injunction saying the government unlawfully ignored dozens of laws in place to protect wildlife habitat. The delay is set to last until October, leaving many environmentalists concerned this is only a temporary win. On Thursday EcoWatch teamed up with Center for Biological Diversity Borderlands Campaigner Laiken Jordahl via EcoWatch Live on Facebook to find out what we should expect to happen in the coming weeks and to gain clarity on the energy on the ground of our borderlands.

"This is an important win, but it's so temporary and it's important to stress that," said Jordahl. "Bulldozers are already arriving on site in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument on the San Pedro River in Arizona."

A temporary win means there is still a plan for bulldozers to tear through wildlife refuges in October. The department of homeland security will replace waist-high vehicle barriers currently in place with a "30 foot impenetrable wall, complete with night lighting and cameras on top," said Jordahl. "It will have a profound impact on wildlife connectivity in ways that these vehicle barriers do not."

Jordahl reiterated the importance of understanding the conservation aspects of vehicle barriers and how the border walls replacing them will have irreparable harm on wildlife — not only 93 endangered species at risk from the wall, but "virtually every single terrestrial animal [that will not be] able to cut across this impermeable barrier."


Read more, includes videos: https://www.ecowatch.com/border-wall-arizona-2639959635.html

The Daily Show takes a look at the shady business that rich people have been up to lately, including Robert Kraft’s prostitution charges and the college admissions bribery scandal.

Real Time with Bill Maher guests - Friday, August 23, 2019
Real Time with Bill Maher continues its 17th season Friday, August 23 (10:00-11:00 p.m. live ET/tape-delayed PT), with a replay at 11:30 p.m., exclusively on HBO.

Congresswoman Katie Porter (D-CA) is the top-of-show interview guest.

Reporter/columnist/author Kevin Williamson is the mid-show interview guest.

The roundtable guests are author/former Senator Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), author/professor Eric Klinenberg and author/SiriusXM and CNN host Michael Smerconish.

https://twitter.com/_SJPeace_/status/1164415593912655872

Once thought of as a mere party drug, a new study suggests that MDMA could help treat alcoholism

MDMA is known for its popularity in the rave and music festival scene, but doctors are testing whether or not the powerful empathy-inducing drug can treat alcohol addiction. As it stands, preliminary results of the first study of its kind show promising outcomes.

According to the Guardian, doctors in Bristol are testing whether a few doses of MDMA, colloquially known as Molly, partnered with psychotherapy could help people overcome an alcohol addiction more effectively than traditional treatments. Only one patient who has completed the trial for the study has relapsed, which is above average for alcoholism treatment. In England, an average of eight in 10 relapse within three years of traditional therapy.

“We’ve got one person who has completely relapsed, back to previous drinking levels, we have five people who are completely dry and we have four or five who have had one or two drinks but wouldn’t reach the diagnosis of alcohol use disorder,” Dr. Ben Sessa, addiction psychiatrist and senior research fellow at Imperial College London, who led the trial, told the Guardian. “With the very best that medical science can work with, 80% of people are drinking within three years post alcohol detox.”

Sessa said that could be in part due to MDMA’s ability to impair the fear response in a patient. This is helpful because it can allow a person to recall childhood trauma without being too scared of recalling it.

The next stage of the study will take the research further to prove MDMA coupled with psychotherapy can be a resource to treat alcoholism. Using a randomized control group, some patients will receive a placebo instead of MDMA.


Read more: https://www.salon.com/2019/08/21/curing-alcoholism-with-molly-mdma-study-shows-promise/

A news network that, instead of providing actual news, gives white, conservative viewers the news they want to hear

A little over 20 years ago, Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes concocted a profitable way to tap into the white supremacist ideology still bubbling below America’s surface.

They started a “news” network that, instead of providing actual news, gave white, conservative viewers the news they wanted to hear: that they, their families, and their values were under attack by minorities, gays, women, liberals, socialists, Muslims, atheists, the media, etc. — and therefore their biases were justified.

It’s been a lucrative strategy. However, just making a buck wasn’t enough for them. They also wanted to shape the fortunes of the country they were dividing. Here, too, they had tremendous success.

And that is what is getting lost amid the outcry over Donald Trump’s latest round of racist tweets: The US president is often just parroting what he sees on Fox News.* His racism and distorted view of reality are a direct reflection of what this conservative network decides to put on the air.

While regimes throughout history have used propaganda outlets to get the word out and spread their ideology, in the US it is now very much a two-way street. Fox News is both a tool and a puppeteer, manipulating events directly and indirectly. In many cases, the network drives the conservative agenda with its programming. Then, when Trump and his allies pick up on it, Fox News gives them a platform to broadcast that agenda with no fear of criticism or being fact-checked.


Much more: https://www.salon.com/2019/08/10/like-a-fox-how-a-tv-channel-is-tearing-america-apart_partner/