Bechtel California | Bizarro MacWEEK Welcome to the Bechtel California The Knife will be the first to admit that he is a born conspiracy theorist. While he has finally accepted the fact of Jim Morrison's demise, for example, he is still disturbed by hints of a political cabal behind Buddy Holly's tragic plane crash in 1959. Of course, the Knife's special brand of obsessive paranoia got a real boost last month when he and his MacWEEK cohorts were compelled to walk the trail of tears from their ancestral homeland at 301 Howard St. to 50 Beale St., headquarters of the shadowy conglomerationists of Bechtel Corp. The Knife and his colleagues are rapidly becoming inured to quizzical stares from button-down Bechtellians. They are even growing accustomed to overhearing their neighbors citing CIA protocols in the elevator. Nevertheless, the Knife still can't show up for work without feeling a bit like Robert Redford in the opening scenes of "Three Days of the Condor." In search of a few answers, the Mac industry's quintessential gay blade has gone to the source: Bechtel's Web site at http://www.bechtel.com. While he has yet to uncover the frozen alien babies he is convinced are lurking somewhere in the building, he is happy to report that the company seems to be amorphous and terrifying enough to keep him cowering under his desk for the next decade. It's got the look: The site's jaunty industrial design evokes some of the finest architecture to appear in East Berlin after the Second World War! It's got the feel: The Knife was wowed by such Machiavellian statements as, "Bechtel offers its customers the most complete range of services available from one organization to bring projects from vision to reality. Whatever it takes to get the work done, Bechtel can make it happen." It's informative: Crypto-anarchists everywhere will thrill to read page after HTML page detailing the length of Bechtel's reach. In the 140 countries it owns or leases, Bechtel's holdings include 500 fossil-fired and nuclear power plant units, 350 chemical and petrochemical projects, 150 nuclear generating units, 27,000 kilometers of highways and roads, 80,000 kilometers of pipeline systems, 40 percent of the world's natural-gas liquefaction capacity, 20 new towns and 150 hotels and resorts. It's radioactive: "Around the world," the Web site claims, "Bechtel squeezes schedules because TIME IS MONEY. Every day that a nuclear power plant is off-line can cost a utility hundreds of thousands of dollars." Zoiks! The Knife will be certain not to skimp on the iodized salt next time he visits the Bechtel Cafeteria! It's acquisitive: The How to Join Us page describes exciting opportunities to join the huddled masses employed in the Bechtel empire. "Bechtel people have developed a reputation for making things happen when others cannot," the digital recruiting poster claims. Were Bechtellians "making things happen" to the Big Bopper on the morning of Feb. 3 somewhere over Clear Lake, Iowa? Are J. Edgar Hoover's private files somewhere in this very building? And why did the price of soft drinks go up to 65 cents? Coincidence, or proof of ancient astronauts? >From the Mac the Knife Home Page
