Google is trying to improve the quality of its search results by directing review teams to flag content that might come across as upsetting or offensive.With the change, content with racial slurs could now get flagged under a new category called “upsetting-offensive.” So could content that promotes hate or violence against a specific group of people based on gender, race or other criteria.While flagging something doesn’t directly affect the search results themselves, it’s used to tweak the company’s software so that better content ranks higher. This approach might, for instance, push down content that is inaccurate or has other questionable attributes, thereby giving prominence to trustworthy sources.The review teams — comprised of contractors known as “quality raters” — already comb through websites and other content to flag questionable items such as pornography. Google added “upsetting-offensive” in its latest guidelines for quality raters. Google declined to comment on the changes, which were reported in the blog Search Engine Land and elsewhere.The guidelines , which run 160 pages, are an interesting look into how Google ranks the quality of its search results. For instance, it gives examples of “high-quality” pages, such as the home page of a newspaper that has “won seven Pulitzer Prize awards,” and “low-quality” pages, such as an article that includes “many?grammar and?punctuation errors.”The guidelines cite an example of “Holocaust history” as a search query. A resulting website listing “Top 10 reasons why the holocaust didn’t happen” would get flagged.The new “upsetting-offensive” flag instructs quality raters to “flag to all web results that contain upsetting or offensive content from the perspective of users in your locale, even if the result satisfies the user intent.” So even if the results are what the person searched for, such as white supremacist websites, they could still get flagged. But it doesn’t mean the results won’t show up at all when someone searches for them.

Source: Google hopes to improve search quality with ‘offensive’ flag – ABC News

Sometimes you eat the bear, and sometimes the bear eats you. Then there’s Rachel Maddow, who stuck her head in the bear’s mouth while talking trash. Chomp!It wouldn’t be fair to call her Tuesday night show the TV flop seen ’round the world. It was worse than that. Much worse.It was a gut-punch embarrassment to Maddow, to MSNBC, to NBC and to all the lefties who bought her afternoon tweet that “We’ve got Trump tax returns.” Were she selling stocks, she’d be busted for running a pump-and-dump scam.Yet for hours, between her boast and the actual show, Maddow launched a million fantasies. The anti-Trumpers had to be salivating, imagining that the big scoop would finally reveal the president as a tax cheat and liar, a filthy parasite on hardworking taxpayers.This could be it, the Holy Grail, the silver bullet that finished him. The nation would rise up in disgust, Republicans would jump ship, Trump would be impeached, Vice President Mike Pence would take over, Dems would promptly eviscerate him and presto, the Clinton presidency would be restored!And all because Maddow got the goods. She would be celebrated as the woman who broke the illegitimate president and saved America from the deplorables and irredeemables.–– ADVERTISEMENT ––Because of her, Black Lives Matter would be important again. Transgendered men could pee in little girls’ bathrooms. Never again would terrorism be linked to Islam and saying “America First” would be a hate crime.Chomp!The outrage at Maddow on the ­unhinged left, and the mockery of her among sensible people, is that her sin went far beyond delivering a dud. She assembled an audience only to deliver a great gift to Trump.Her scoop, courtesy of journalist David Cay Johnston, was two pages from Trump’s 2005 federal return. It showed income of $153 million, and a tax payment of $38 million.That works out to a rate of about 25 percent, higher than the rate paid in recent years by MSNBC parent Comcast, tax hiker Barack Obama, socialist Bernie Sanders and Warren Buffett, among others.SEE ALSO NBC fuming over Maddow’s Trump tax scoopMaddow made Trump a good guy. One can only imagine her anguish that the truth was able to emerge.Her hoax is the kind that validates Trump’s claims of fake news. The hostility to him is blinding otherwise intelligent people to facts, and they recklessly rush through red lights.Imagine what was going on with Maddow’s producers and staff. Did anyone dare say to her that we have a problem, that the tax return you’re boasting of actually shows Trump to be a billionaire who pays his fair share?That’s not what anybody wanted. They came to bury Trump, not to praise him. And so they tried, and failed.Heaven forbid that, faced with the facts it had, MSNBC would do the story the facts told. Not a chance. Trump must be savaged, truth be damned.Beyond the obvious reputational damage, the episode is serious for another reason, too. Leaking someone’s tax returns is a crime, one Maddow celebrated because the victim is Trump.But the rule of law can’t survive if enough people holding prominent positions believe the end justifies the means. It opens the door to endless conflict, and closes any hope of uniting our polarized nation.

Source: Rachel Maddow’s Trump ‘bombshell’ completely backfired | New York Post

An unassembled explosive device was found in an abandoned suitcase inside the Port Authority Bus Terminal, police sources said Thursday.Port Authority cops called the NYPD bomb squad after finding the luggage around 8 p.m. on the first floor near Deli Plus.They looked inside the case and found “a fuse assembly and black gunpowder, the items were not assembled and non-operational,” an NYPD spokesman said.A man named Arsenio Mason, 39, was arrested by Port Authority cops when he returned to the terminal and asked about the suitcase.Mason appears to match the description of a man seen on surveillance planting the suitcase, police sources said.

Source: Bomb parts found at Port Authority Bus Terminal | New York Post

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) — The National Weather Service has cancelled its blizzard warning for New York City as snow and sleet continues to fall across the Tri-State area.A winter weather advisory is now in effect for the city, Hudson and northern Nassau counties until 8 p.m. Tuesday. The storm was expected to dump a foot or more of snow on the New York City area with wind gusts of up to 55 mph.CHECK: Latest | Forecast & Alerts | Radar | School Closings | Transit | Traffic | Severe Weather Guide | Send Photos | Photos | Videos“The storm actually has shifted, it shifted west,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo told “CBS This Morning.” “There’s less snowfall in New York City, there’s less snowfall on Long Island. There’s actually more in the Hudson Valley and the western part of the state.”

Source: NYC Blizzard Warning Cancelled As Snow, Sleet Continues « CBS New York

Snoop Dogg recently jumped on a rework of BADBADNOTGOOD and Kaytranada’s IV single “Lavender.” Snoop stars alongside a cast of clowns (including one played by Michael Rapaport) in the track’s new video, directed by Jesse Wellens and James DeFina. Watch it below. Of the clip, in which a Donald Trump parody reigns supreme—at one point announcing the deportation of all dogs—Snoop told Billboard, “Nobody’s dealing with the real issue with this f–king clown as president, and the shit that we dealing with out here, so I wanted to take time out to push pause on a party record and make one of these records for the time being.” In a climactic scene, Snoop pulls a gun on the Trump clown in a parking lot; later, a chain-bound Trump tries in vain to join Snoop and his accomplice in smoking a blunt. Read Snoop’s elaboration on the song and video concept below, via Billboard.The ban that this motherf–ker tried to put up; him winning the presidency; police being able to kill motherf–kers and get away with it; people being in jail for weed for 20, 30 years and motherf–kers that’s not black on the streets making money off of it — but if you got color or ethnicity connected to your name, you’ve been wrongfully accused or locked up for it, and then you watching people not of color position themselves to get millions and billions off of it. It’s a lot of clown sh-t going on that we could just sit and talk on the phone all day about, but it’s a few issues that we really wanted to lock into [for the video] like police, the president and just life in general.Read our “Icebreaker” interview with BADBADNOTGOOD on the Pitch. 

Source: Snoop Dogg Pulls Gun on “Fucking Clown” Trump in New “Lavender” Video: Watch | Pitchfork

As most people know, demonic cults were a myth propagated in the 1990s with the hysteria of ritual abuse spreading throughout the US and Europe. They never existed, but it has become trendy for some people to emulate the imagined practices of Satanists. And now students at Clemson University have announced plans (via a poster) to perform a “live bloodletting and lamb sacrifice” and a burning of Bibles to commemorate the building of a new campus chapel. A poster on campus attributed to a student organization.

It goes on to state that a live lamb will be provided for sacrifice by “[their] friends” at the Clemson Collegiate Farm Bureau. A Bible-torching ceremony is listed as part of the proceedings, with a cash prize for the student who burns the most Bibles. Finally, attendees are invited partake in a pentagram completion event, where they will “help summon Baphomet to celebrate the new Clemson Chapel.”

The “new Clemson Chapel” likely refers to the Cadden Chapel, a building currently under construction on the Clemson University campus. It is named after Samuel J. Cadden, a student who passed away in an automobile accident in 2015. WIS-TV reports that the student kept a bucket list of life goals within his Bible, one of which was to have a building named after himself at the university.

Other Clemson students who passed away before they could graduate will also have their names engraved on the chapel.

The chapel is intended for students of all religious and spiritual denominations, as well as those without, to serve as a place for quiet meditation and prayer. It will cost approximately $6 million to build, half of which has already been funded by students.

Speaking to Campus Reform, the Director of College Relations, Kirby Player, denied the claim that the Farm Bureau would provide the satanic organization with any livestock whatsoever for ritual slaughter.

Given the lack of any location for the event or contact information, it’s unclear whether the ceremony detailed on the poster will take place. What’s likely is that whoever made it did so to troll the friends and family of Samuel J. Cadden, whom such an event would hurt the most.

Ian Miles Cheong is a journalist and outspoken media critic. You can reach him through social media at @stillgray on Twitter and on Facebook.

Source: Student Satanists Announce Lamb Sacrifice and Bible Burning at Clemson U | Heat Street

A 47-year-old financial company executive was killed Wednesday when he jumped from a luxury apartment building on the Upper West Side, authorities said.Kevin Bell jumped from a ninth-floor kitchen window at the famed Apthorp building on West End Avenue near West 79th Street around 7:20 a.m., a source told The Post.He landed on some scaffolding that was set up in front of the building and was pronounced dead at the scene, officials said.Bell left a note indicating that he had been depressed, the source said. He had a history of depression, the source added.He left behind a wife and two daughters, a worker at the building said. His family was at home when he jumped, according to the source.“The family is hysterical. He was under a lot of meds. He did not give a specific reason why he jumped, but he was depressed,” the source said.Bell, a graduate of Duke University, worked at Arrowgrass Capital Partners, where he was head of credit risk, according to his LinkedIn page.He previously worked at Saba Capital Management, Citadel Investment group, Citigroup and Deutsche Bank, according to his page.“We are deeply saddened that our friend and colleague Kevin Bell has passed away today. We extend our sympathies and condolences to his family,” Arrowgrass spokesman Nick Lord told The Post in a statement from the UK.A building worker said some residents saw the man’s body.“A couple of our residents reported hearing a thud,” the worker said. “The daughter of a tenant looked out the window and she told her mother there was a man lying down on the scaffolding.”The worker said the mother saw the body and notified building workers.“He was bleeding,” the worker said. “Some of the residents are pretty shaken up.”A man who works in a nearby doctor’s was stunned about the suicide.“Oh my God, another one?” he said in disbelief. “Somebody committed suicide a few months ago … on the other side of the building. I can’t believe it, it’s almost exactly the same thing, but just around the side.”Among the famed Apthorp building’s famed tenants were Al Pacino, Sydney Poitier and singer and Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Hudson.The building, which is modeled after the Palazzo Pitti in Florence, is listed on the National Register of Historic Placesand takes up an entire city block, from Broadway to West End Avenue between 78th and 79th streets.

Source: ‘Depressed’ Wall Street exec jumps to his death | New York Post

I have a message for Bruce. Stop representing a LIE. You cannot make a man happy or give him kids. You are a lie, and you’re father is the king of lies. HELLO ? Any Life left there ?

Caitlyn Jenner is taking a stand against Trump’s anti-LGBTQ views.Jenner, 67, shared a video on Twitter Thursday night expressing her anger about the president’s recent decision to lift federal protections for transgender student bathroom use.“I have a message for the trans kids of America, you’re winning,” she begins. “Very soon, we will win full freedom nation-wide and it’s going to be with bipartisan support.”“Now I have a message for the bullies: You’re sick,” she says.Jenner attended Trump’s inauguration and has been very vocal about her Republican views.She concludes the video by saying, “Finally, I have a message for President Trump, from, well, one Republican to another — this is a disaster, and you can still fix it. You made a promise to protect the LGBTQ community. Call me.”

Source: Caitlyn Jenner: Trump’s LGBTQ views are ‘a disaster’ | Page Six

Feb. 01, 2017 – 0:44 – House Minority Leader caught telling fellow Democrat to tell the crowd he’s Muslim

Source: Nancy Pelsoi caught on hot mic during Trump protest | Fox News Video

Comedian Tom Arnold is claiming Hillary Clinton begged him to release footage of President Trump using racial slurs just days before the November election.The 57-year-old alleged last year he had video of Trump repeatedly saying “n—–” and “every bad thing ever, every offensive, racist thing ever,” but is now saying Clinton called him just two days before Americans went to the polls to plead for its release, the Telegraph reported.“I had all the outtakes from Trump saying the N-word on ‘The Apprentice,’” said Arnold, who was just voted off Australia’s “I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here!”“[Clinton] called me two days before the election and said, ‘Please release that,’” Arnold claimed, alleging that the Democratic nominee said, “The weight of the free world is on your shoulders.”“I’d love to be a hero, but I can’t hurt these families,” he claimed to have responded.Arnold says he might still release the reel with “their permission,” thought it remains unclear if he was referring to the targets of Trump’s vitriol or “The Apprentice” producers.In an interview before going on the British sitcom, Arnold told a radio host he didn’t want to release the hate speech out of respect for those involved.“Well, now, these people — two editors and an associate producer — are scared to death. They’re scared of his people, they’re scared they’ll never work again,” he said on Dori Monson’s radio show.The American actor and comic, who starred alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1994 film classic “True Lies,” also said he didn’t think releasing the racist rant “would work.”“I don’t think people would care,” he said.Trump still managed to cinch the electoral vote despite national outrage surrounding the October release of the notorious “grab them by the p—-” video.

Source: Tom Arnold: Clinton begged me to release tape of Trump’s racist rant | New York Post

At a swanky party in a Beverly Hills, Calif., mansion last Saturday, I spot Bill Maher in a sea of beautiful young women and make my approach.“Are you a Leo?” I ask the host of HBO’s “Real Time,” while eyeing a lion pendant around his neck.“No, they make me wear this stupid thing because I’m a member,” he replies, stroking the back of his date, a pretty younger woman in a short black leather dress.Around us, a mostly female crowd of models, young professionals, actresses and assistants strut about in couture lingerie, much to the delight of older male guests in tuxedos. One 20-something blonde crawls on the carpeted floor wearing red lace and a face mask with a leather pig snout and ears. Other pretty young things wear metallic pasties and black badges that read “Eat me” or “Touch me” on their décolletage, while holding silver platters of bite-size brownies and parfaits. A man who calls himself the “Bunnyman” and wears a black leather mask and rabbit ears demonstrates various Japanese bondage techniques on an aroused woman sitting upright in a plush, gold-painted chair.We’re at Snctm, an exclusive monthly sex party held in Los Angeles and occasionally New York, where the rich, powerful and pleasure-seeking indulge their kinkiest fantasies.The parties are the brainchild of Damon Lawner, a divorced 45-year-old with two young kids. Lawner founded Snctm in February 2013 after spending years throwing high-end, but not erotic, events in Bali. He now hosts sex parties full-time. Tonight’s event is an intimate affair for 99 people and features two performances: a live threesome and a sexy fire-eating show.Modal TriggerElizabeth Lippman“I’m really lucky,” Lawner tells me, his blue eyes twinkling.Single men pay $1,850 per party, or $1,500 if they come with a female partner. For the erotic elite, there’s an annual Dominus membership for $75,000, which includes admission to all parties, a sterling-silver necklace with a lion pendant and access to private rooms at parties and Lawner’s network of sex experts. The high-level membership is currently limited to just 11 men and one woman, ranging from Grammy-winning musicians to successful businessmen, according to Lawner.“Some are married guys that just want to know how to give better [pleasure] … They don’t get this type of thing anywhere else,” Lawner says.Dominus members sign a “blood oath,” involving blood and a paper document, to join — but Lawner won’t go into details.“That’s all I can tell you,” he says. “It’s an initiation into the society.”Modal TriggerPost reporter Heather Hauswirth dressed up in Agent Provocateur to go inside the Snctm party.For $12,000, there’s a second-tier Aurum membership that includes discounted entry and access to Lawner’s hedonistic network.Women don’t pay to attend Snctm parties, but they must apply by submitting full-length photos via text or email to Lawner or his operations director, Nicolas de la Kethulle, who previously worked as a manager of the Beverly Hills Hotel Polo Lounge.Cellphones are prohibited and must be checked at the door. All parties have a masquerade theme, and while masks are required for entry, many take them off inside. Men wear tuxes, women wear sexy lingerie or cocktail dresses.As exclusive as the parties are, the vibe is friendly and there’s no Hollywood pretense. Attendees are open and eager to talk, flirt — and much more — with each other.“I feel like I’m home here,” a young pilot wearing an Aurum-member pin on his left lapel tells me as we hang out around a small lap pool with two huge unicorn floaties in the back yard. “Warmth just kind of comes over me when I walk in.”SEE ALSO 13These people pay $75K a year for wild monthly sex partiesI brush by a towering beauty in a black-lace catsuit.“Is that Agent Provocateur, too?” she says, eyeing the bondage-inspired, Swarovski-crystal-encrusted bra hidden beneath my sheer black cape. “I tried that one on. It looks amazing on you.”Provocateur is something of an unofficial partner for the erotic events. Last September, Snctm held a top-secret party in New York during Fashion Week. Attendees picked up brass keys with the soiree’s address engraved on them at the high-end lingerie company’s stores in Soho and on Madison Avenue.At another point in the evening, I compliment a busty blonde wearing black satin panties and no shoes.“Are those real?” I say, admiring her assets. “Are those yours?”Damon LawnerPatrickMcMullan.com“They’re from France,” she says.Later in the night, I watch her orally pleasure a young blond girl with fake eyelashes on a silver ottoman.When she comes up for air, I ask, “Do you come here a lot?”“I’ve been a few times. I’m a lesbian … so this is amazing for me,” she says before going on to tell me how men regularly ask her to have sex with their wives.Lawner is working to take Snctm beyond Beverly Hills. He plans to host a party on a yacht at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and do two events in New York in September for Fashion Week.He also says he’s

Source: Inside LA’s most exclusive sex party | New York Post

CNN, which President Trump has accused of reporting “fake news,” is getting frozen out of appearances by members of the administration.“We’re sending surrogates to places where we think it makes sense to promote our agenda,” a White House official told Politico, adding the ban is not permanent.But a CNN reporter had a different take on the snub.“They’re trying to cull CNN from the herd,” the person told the website.White House spokesman Sean Spicer denied that CNN was being ignored, saying he’s called on the news network’s reporters at press briefings.But he said it’s at his discretion.“I’m not going to sit around and engage with people who have no desire to actually get something right,” he said during an event at George Washington University this week.Trump administration officials have been conspicuously absent on CNN since the middle of January while appearing on many other news shows.The president and CNN reporter Jim Acosta squabbled during a news conference last month about an unsubstantiated report on Trump’s relationship with Russia that the network and other media outlets reported on.Trump refused to acknowledge a question from Acosta, saying, “Not you. Your organization is terrible.”Acosta said he should get a question since his news outlet was being attacked by Trump.The president responded: “I’m not going to give you a question. You are fake news.”

Source: White House freezes out CNN | New York Post

A handful of leather straps, sex toys and other bondage equipment were scattered throughout the mostly empty studios of Kink.com on a recent Thursday. Peter Acworth, founder and CEO of the BDSM porn empire, walked through the dark basement corridors of the San Francisco Armory, recounting how his company used to make as many as 100 films a month. But in February, Kink actors will do their final shoot at the historic castle-like building that has become a world-famous destination for tourists and porn connoisseurs. As Acworth described Kink’s early days, staff upstairs prepared for a lavish party for Airbnb – the kind of corporate tech event that some fear could take over the Armory once porn is out the door.

“It’s heartbreaking,” said Lorelei Lee, a longtime Kink performer. “To lose this in a city that is losing resources for artists and queers and sex workers in such a huge way is sad.”

The Kink.com studio is the latest uniquely San Francisco institution to shutter in the rapidly gentrifying city, which in recent years has become exceedingly unaffordable and culturally homogeneous amid a huge technology boom. Combined with the financial turmoil in the porn industry, Kink’s business model has become unsustainable, leading Acworth to cease all production in the Armory.

Although Kink.com will maintain Armory offices and continue to provide content, some San Francisco performers are lamenting the closure of a porn studio that elevated the profile of fetish entertainment and BDSM and provided stable jobs and a safe workplace for LGBT people and sex workers.

Acworth, who is from the UK, launched the company in 1997 out of a grad school dorm room. In 2006, he purchased the 200,000 sq ft Armory, which is a 1914 reproduction of a medieval castle.

The national landmark became the headquarters for his growing network of BDSM and fetish subscriptions sites, including an interactive live page and a news site, and has housed public tours, shows, workshops and other porn events.
“There are so many of us that have come out of Kink and started out there,” said Arabelle Raphael, who began performing for the site in 2010. “A lot of models went through their own BDSM journeys through the company.”

Kink built its reputation as the rare porn company with a mission statement – to “demystify and celebrate alternative sexualities by providing the most ethical and authentic kinky adult entertainment”. Although it operated much like a mainstream porn business, Kink was rooted in a San Francisco scene that was distinct from the Los Angeles and Las Vegas industries – with more radical content and a more diverse workforce.

A lot of the Castro was built on the back of porn companies. But one by one, they upped and left
Peter Acworth, founder and CEO of Kink
Notably, Kink performers do interviews after the shoots to candidly discuss the experience, which has helped break down stigmas associated with BDSM and fetishes and has allowed the company to emphasize the importance of consent in kinky sex.

“Kink, with its shear reach, has done so much to educate people,” said Eric Paul Leue, Kink’s former director of sexual health and advocacy. “That’s a beautiful legacy.”

Still, the company has weathered controversies over the years. Some workers have complained of mistreatment, and Kink last year severed ties with porn star James Deen after multiple women accused him of sexual assault. The website has also repeatedly clashed with state regulators about its scenes without condoms, though Kink and its performers have long maintained that the shoots are safe and that they are facing political attacks from anti-porn groups.

But it was the proliferation of free online content that ultimately made it impossible for Kink to stay afloat in San Francisco, which once had a thriving porn industry centered in the historically gay Castro district.

“A lot of the Castro was built on the back of porn companies. But one by one, they upped and left,” said Acworth. “There’s so much content out there. The human body only has so many orifices and so many limbs you can tie in so many ways.”

In recent years, San Francisco has also lost numerous beloved LGBT bars and a famous strip club that was unionized and run as a worker-run cooperative. Some of the city’s queer events are now dominated by the tech industry, which has a reputation for being prudish, and government crackdowns on sex work have also eliminated jobs.

Lee said she recently left San Francisco because of these dramatic changes. “A lot of these models have lived in San Francisco specifically because they were seeking out the community that was in San Francisco, which is very queer and diverse in terms of body type.”

To some, Kink seemed like one of the few remaining gathering spaces for this crowd.

“It’s been slowly feeling like the death of San Francisco,” said Raphael. “This just feels like the end of an era.”
href=”https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/jan/25/porn-bdsm-kink-armory-closing-san-francisco”>’End of an era’: porn actors lament the loss of legendary San Francisco Armory | Culture | The Guardian

President Trump will be ordering the construction of his signature Mexican border wall on Wednesday, according to a report.White House officials told the New York Times that Trump is expected to sign the executive order — directing federal funds to be focused on creating the structure — during an appearance at the Department of Homeland Security.Building a wall on the border of Mexico was one of Trump’s biggest promises during his campaign. He ultimately believes that doing so would put a stop to the influx of illegal immigrants coming into the United States today.“Big day planned on NATIONAL SECURITY tomorrow. Among many other things, we will build the wall!” Trump tweeted on Tuesday night.While the wall won’t be completed for quite some time, officials told the Times that the President is also considering a policy that would temporarily stop refugees from coming from Syria, as well as other majority-Muslim nations that are deemed “terror prone.

Source: Trump set to order construction of Mexican border wall | New York Post