Usability guru Jakob Nielsen says money is becoming less of a factor in keeping people from using the Internet well. In his own words:
"I'm extremely optimistic about the economic divide, which is vanishing rapidly in industrialized countries. The usability divide will take longer to close, but at least we know how to handle it -- it's simply a matter of deciding to do so. I'm very pessimistic about the empowerment divide, however, which I expect will only grow more severe in the future."
(Looks like he's still got an image-free website. Love it.)

Watching the cool preview for Denzel Washington's new movie Deja Vu put me in the mood for a good ol' action thriller, preferably starring the man himself. A journey through the bowels of Netflix led me to these two interesting 1998 reviews of the old Denzel Washington/Annette Bening/Bruce Willis movie, The Siege, in which Arab terrorists blow up various parts of New York City, causing the military to declare martial law and suspend due process in the city. The reviews make interesting reads, especially the takes on the racial and political implications, given that these were pre-9/11 reviews of a pre-9/11 film.

It's a shame that a (Republican) Congressman has been soliciting sex from under-18 pages on Capitol Hill, but trust me, this is more important:
"Officials now agree that on July 10, 2001, Mr. Tenet and his counterterrorism deputy, J. Cofer Black, were so alarmed about an impending Al Qaeda attack that they demanded an emergency meeting at the White House with Ms. Rice and her National Security Council staff."
But the 9/11 Investigation Committee at first claimed not to have heard about this meeting:
"Another Democratic commissioner, former Watergate prosecutor Richard Ben-Veniste, said that the staff of the Sept. 11 commission was polled in recent days on the disclosures in Mr. Woodward’s book and agreed that the meeting 'was never mentioned to us.'"
Then admitted it had, but there's some confusion:
"But it turns out that the panel was, in fact, told about the meeting, according to the interview transcript and Democratic commission member Richard Ben-Veniste, who sat in on the interview with Tenet. The meeting was not identified by the July 10 date in the commission's best-selling report. Rice added to the confusion yesterday by strongly suggesting that the meeting may never have occurred at all, even though administration officials had conceded for several days that it had."
Unfortunately, the Foley story (and Republican Congressional leadership covering it up) is more cut-and-dry, and harder to argue against, than the story of how the Bush administration was warned of imminent attacks by Al Qaeda, and their inaction in the face of those warnings. We'll pro

According to Box Office Mojo, Fahrenheit 9/11 is the top-grossing documentary of all time ($119,194,771); followed by March of the Penguins, An Inconvenient Truth, Bowling for Columbine, and Madonna: Truth or Dare.
I'm surprised that The Weather Underground is at #95 and has only made a little over half a million dollars. For a guy who didn't live through the insanity of the sixties and early seventies (me), it seemed a very powerful and thought-provoking film...

In a year-old article in Reason Bidisha Banerjee ties Samuel R. Delaney's sprawling 1975 novel Dhalgren in to the chaos of New Orleans:
"This surreal work of science fiction seemed especially apt last week, as fires raged and stories of racism, rape, looting, and murder proliferated, and then–FEMA head Mike Brown continued to blame the victims who had not evacuated the city... thousands of the city's approximately 10,000 remaining residents remained adamant in their resolve to stay. Dhalgren suggests what the holdouts might find if they succeed."

You know your writing has infected minds when they hold academic symposiums to discuss you, and you're not even dead yet. Steven Shaviro's take on the March, 2006 Delaney conference and L. Timmel Duchamp's.

Susie Bright talks about the first time she was sexually assaulted, the connection (and lack thereof) to forced-sex fantasies, and a bit of (personal) history tying feminism to sex fantasies of various kinds:
"What really happens when you get your consciousness raised, is that you aren’t afraid of your fantasies. You see the difference between real-life anxieties and limitations versus your potential to go to any extreme in fantasy. That is empowering. Erotic dreams communicate powerful and personal messages. But to read them as if they were tea leaves amounts to some pretty tacky fortune telling."
A worthy topic, but strange that she doesn't tie it in with the real-life playing-out of "extreme" fantasy, something that seems casually accepted in many parts of the Bay Area we live in. There's the real life in which feminists want to see women treated appropriately - with respect, and as equals. And there's the sexual fantasy of dominating or being dominated - a situation where the power differential is part of the appeal. And there's the real-life scene where the fantasy is played out with a trusted partner - not quite the same reality as the constant daily life where equality and respect are desired, but still, it has more of an impact on that daily reality than a fantasy will.

Tangent (since we're talking about forced sex fiction): I went to Inside Story Time back in August - one of San Francisco's many monthly literary nights, this time themed "Bottoms." It didn't change my belief that Writers With Drinks is the only monthly literary event worth going to in this city. Charlie Anders' between-authors banter used to annoy me; now I realize it's one of the things that saves her event from sameness and lameness.

Start from the SFist story:
"...Arnie's office announced that they had proof that somebody had broken into the computer system. They suspected someone from the Angelides camp and had proof to back it up. After some hemming and hawing, the Angelides people finally fessed up."
Well, no; what the Angelides people fessed up to is finding audio files on the governor's website. Audio files which nobody had directed them to, sure, but - they were there, and easily available to anybody with a good idea of how web browsers work.

The situation in Sudan's Darfur region is still bad. The Christian Science Monitor reports on the recent upsurge in violence, the probable impending retreat of the African Union force, and the possible deployment of UN troops.
Aid organizations say that without outside troops of some kind - whether from the African Union or the UN - providing aid to displaced civilians will become impossible.
What can you do? Show up for the Global Day for Darfur on September 17th. Or familiarize yourself with the situation at Amnesty International's website, which also includes calls to action.
Amnesty International is the September 2006 donation of the month.

Another Wikipedia mistake. They say Cheech Marin is of Iranian descent:
"Cheech is, by his own admission, ethnically Iranian. In an article published July 27th, 2006 in Canada's The Province, he plainly states that despite being typecast as a chicano he is in fact Iranian."
Unfortunately, ace Wikipedia editor TheKyleD, the guy who insists Cheech is not Chicano, doesn't recognize that comedian Cheech was making a joke when claiming to be Iranian. At least two easily-findable online articles make it clear that his parents were Mexican.
Wikipedia: your well-read friend who can tell you about all the stuff he's read, but you can't really be sure if what he's read is true.

"A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that if a motorist is carrying large sums of money, it is automatically subject to confiscation." (Another article here.)
Where "large sums of money" is $124,700.
Sure, carrying around that much money is suspicious, but it should take more than suspicion to allow government agents to take your money. But those activist judges on the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (the majority of whom were appointed by our current president according to a law.com article) disagree.