When the economy's in the crapper, time really can slow down. Take Venezuela.

In a bizarre mass-malfunction, Venezuela's clocks are ticking too slowly due to a power shortage weakening the electric current nationwide.

I'm trying to finish a story for Linux Magazine tonight, so only really geeky procrastination will do. Tonight's results: a list of Web sites located within 500 miles of me. Because anyplace may be a mouseclick away on the World Wide Web, web communities can rob us of any awareness of our real, physical communities. Enter the GeoURL ICBM Address Server. You put your latitude and longitude in meta tags on your web page, and it associates your web page with a physical address (in my case, our home on Filbert Street).

So apparently this dude lives right around here somewhere. As does Scott Merritt, and the San Francisco Treasure Hunts people.

When Anna, Vinnie and I went to see the Chinese New Year's Parade a couple of weeks ago, we cut through this rainy alley in Chinatown that was filled with zombie like people staring hard at the brick walls and flagstones. They all had these white photocopies in their hands and Vinnie went up to one of them (a cute girl, no doubt) and asked what was up. "What are you looking for? What are the clues? Oh, that's so cool, have you found anything?" Her answers were as short as possible. "Clues. They're on this paper. No." Despite the damp response, Vinnie kept pressing, hoping that the conversation would somehow move into the Vinnie zone, where everyone talks a mile a minute and has a great time. Laughing and imagining a new world like very sophisticated children.

But Madame White-sheet would have none of it. She admitted that she was on a treasure hunt, but cut things off right there. "How do I know you aren't working for another team?"

That was a conversation-stopper.

"There's no way you can. Very clever. You're playing the game extremely well. We were just checking. Carry on," I said before cracking up as the three of us moved on past these silent, intense ghosts in the Chinatown night.

And now I run into the Treasure Hunters again. Right next door to me... somewhere.

Is there a mainstream media conspiracy to keep the truth from the unsuspecting masses? I don't think so. Occam's razor suggests that conspiracy theories are rarely needed, when pure and simple laziness will do the trick.

Take the results of the VaxGen study. On Sunday, this California drug maker released the results of its three year long test of an AIDS vaccine. Of about 5,400 volunteers, two thirds were given the vaccine, and one third a placebo. The resulting rates of HIV infection? 5.8 percent for placebo takers; 5.7 percent for the vaccinated.

And the news headlines? On the cover of USA Today: "Vaccine for AIDS appears to work." (The headline has been changed for the online story, but you can see the paper's original headline, of you look here.)

On the front page of the New York Times: Large Trial Finds AIDS Vaccine Fails to Stop Infection.

So which is it? Does it work or not?

As both stories noted, HIV infection rates were noticeably lower amongst non-white-or-Hispanics who took the vaccine. 9.9 percent of Black, Asian, and other minorities who took the placebo got HIV, but for those taking the vaccine, that rate dropped to 3.7 percent.

So the newspapers took these minority group numbers as scientific proof that the vaccine "appeared to protect blacks and possibly Asians" (to quote USA Today). The Times wrote, "the vaccine did, however, seem to significantly lower the infection rate among African-American and other non-Hispanic minorities."

But as both stories note, there were about 10 times as many white and Hispanic participants in the study as minority participants. Common sense dictates that it's much more likely to have statistical variation with lower numbers. For example, every single HIV case drove the minority placebo results up by more than half a percentage. Either way, it seems silly to compare the results of a 4,500 strong test group with those of a 500 member group.

And, by the way, why were Hispanics and white results lumped together? Nobody seemed to ask this question. Could it possibly be because if the Hispanic results had been included with other minorities, the results would have looked even worse? Perish the thought!

And, finally, what about the flip side? The results show that amongst the 4,500 white and Hispanic participants the placebo was more effective than the vaccine (5.4 percent infection rate for placebo takers; 6.0 rate for the vaccinated). Why didn't the stories talk about this magnificent placebo effect for whites and Hispanics? Maybe state of mind can really prevent HIV for some people.

Or maybe there really are no promising results to be seen here. The journalists may have seen them, but the next day, the market saw otherwise.

Here's a link submitted by Janie. Apparently the US censored some information from Hans Blix's Iraq report about the involvement of US companies in outfitting Saddam, including the following juicy item:

Halliburton Oil was doing over $100 million in business with Saddam in 2000. Who was the CEO of Halliburton - why Vice President Dick Cheney.

I was talking about this subject with a neighbor the other day, and I'm starting to freak out at the commercial implications behind this war, and also the fact that it seems to have been planned long before the last election. Though Bush claimed to not want to be a "nation builder" during his Presidential debate, this document, signed by Cheney, Jeb Bush, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz, seems to indicate otherwise. (here's a 1998 Wolfowitz plan for the invasion of Iraq)

We need to strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values

The interesting thing about this document, published as the mission statement for a think tank called the Project for the New American Century is that it mentions the Reagan connection. In fact, the problem with our foreign policy, according to the document is that "we seem to have forgotten the essential elements of the Reagan Administration's success." A hawkish attitude, the argument goes, helped us kick Russia's ass, and it will work again in the Middle East.

This is the same kind of off-key trumpet solo that Hitler must have been playing in his mind as he sent Army Group A & B off to Stalingrad.

Protest the insane war from your home next Wednesday.

Join the Virtual March on February 26th. From MoveOn:

The New York Times reported yesterday that "global anti-war protests have put the White House on the defensive." Between the strong case for tough inspections and the growing domestic and international opposition to war, the hawks in the Bush Administration are on the run. We need to keep them there.

We've marched in the streets of New York. We've marched in over 600 cities around the world. Now it's time to bring that noise to Washington, where the President and Congress can't escape it. On February 26th, you can join a massive march on Washington without leaving your living room. Just go to:

http://www.moveon.org/winwithoutwar/

The Virtual March on Washington is a first-of-its-kind group effort from the Win Without War coalition. Working together, we'll direct a steady stream of phone calls -- about one per minute, all day -- to every Senate office in the country, while at the same time delivering a constant stream of emails and faxes. Think of it as a march -- one by one, we'll be passing through our Senators' offices and the offices of the White House to let them know how we feel about this war.

Like a normal march, the success of this campaign depends on how many people participate. All you need to do is make three phone calls -- it won't take more than 15 minutes of your time. But together with tens of thousands of others, it'll make a huge impression: on February 26th, in every Senate office and in the White House, the phones will be ringing off their hooks.

Bush takes new tack in Saddam negotiations.

Has the War on Terror claimed another 21 lives?

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who spent much of today with relatives of victims and survivors, said those inside told him someone had yelled "poison gas" and that fears of a terrorist attack fueled the chaos.

Does destroying a beautiful view and defacing a landmark reduce the rate of suicide? That's what Toronto will soon discover when the city will finish adding the 10,000 stainless steel rods and bow-string masts to the Bloor Viaduct. They talk constantly about doing this kind of thing to the Golden Gate Bridge, and if Toronto's per capita suicide rate drops after this measure, I imagine it'll give the San Francisco obstructors some new ammunition.

Of course, the only reason this project happened in Toronto was because there was a professional hockey connection:

Their campaign picked up sympathy in 1997, when a 35-year-old man named Martin Kruze jumped off the bridge to his death shortly after a man convicted of abusing him as a child received a two-year prison term, a sentence widely viewed as too lenient. The case drew national attention because the convicted abuser was part of a ring operated by employees of Maple Leaf Gardens, formerly the arena of the Toronto Maple Leafs ice hockey team.

I don't know if you remember this Dave Thomas line from SCTV, but in one of their episodes, they do this parody of the Bob Hope Desert Classic, where Thomas (as Hope) suddenly goes off into this diatribe about what weasels the French have always been and how he doesn't trust them at all since we saved their asses in WWII.

Well on the same weekend that Anna and I joined about seven million people worldwide in marching against this stupid preemptive war, Andy Rooney decided to revive this skit on 60 minutes.

So, since they'll never read it on the air, here's the letter I sent to CBS today.

Andy Rooney's comments on France last night -- aired in conjunction with massive worldwide marches that echoed France's anti-war position -- seemed particularly out of touch with the world that those of us in the under-70 set inhabit.

It's wonderful that Mr. Rooney can still remember WWII, but perhaps the French think that the Normandy invasion was simply a settling of accounts for France's crucial Revolutionary War support.

In fact, neither action gives either nation the right to simply demand that the other shut up and toe the line.

The fact that Mr. Rooney is oblivious to the fact that France's sentiments are shared by the majority of Europeans (not to mention millions of Americans) further cements my nagging suspicion that he should steer clear of international politics and stick to what he does best: curmudgeonly complaints about computers and all those different kinds of chocolate.

Robert McMillan
San Francisco CA

Hey kids. We're all Googlers now. Short version: The people who make Blogger have just been bought by Google. This qualifies as slightly scary, but also very necessary.

For Williams and his five co-workers, now Google employees, the immediate impact will be to put their blog-hosting service, called Blog*Spot, on the vast network of server computers Google operates. This will make the service more reliable and robust.

These people are nuts. Asking the courts to block this war. Don't they remember who put Bush in office in the first place?

Accusing George W. Bush of acting like a monarch, not an American president, a group of US soldiers, their parents, and six members of Congress sued the White House yesterday to block any invasion of Iraq unless Congress issues a declaration of war.

Why building a Lucasfilm studio the Presidio National Park is a bad idea. A reprint from the THD Semaphore.

Finally some dignity for Papa Bush. According to this blog (apparently being writen from Baghdad) the Bush Sr. mosaic at the entrance to the al-rasheed hotel has been covered over with a rug. Is this in response to international pressure? Has Iraq really changed or is this just another.... coverup? This blog is pretty interesting on its own, by the way, as a first hand account of life in Baghdad.

If you've got an extra $16,000 to drop, you might want to buy this organic-erotic Ebay item.

I'm still trying to get the word out about this Presidio thing today. I sent a note about conflict of interest allegations (you have to scroll halfway down the page to read them) to Rush Limbaugh, and I posted something to Slashdot.

AP covered the Lucasfilm story, and gave my organization a brief mention at the end. Not ideal coverage, but at least something was there.

I spent the day buzzing around as a community activist, trying to draw attention to the fact that building a 850,000 square foot office park in a National Park is a bad idea. It was interesting and, I must admit, satisfying to watch a story on the 5 o'clock news that would have otherwise been a politicians-with-the-gold-shovels puff piece take on a note of critical reality.

So this is how you record something for posterity. Call the media the day before -- make sure to get all the TV stations, but you need to get the local papers too -- they're the chroniclers of record for historians -- and don't put out anything even remotely public until the day of the event. Otherwise you're too likely to have a crowd of interested citizens or -- god help you -- people actually opposed to what you're doing.

Order champagne and canapés, make sure all your friends are there. Give them nametags, so that nobody feels the awkward stretch of trying to remember a forgotten name. Stick some gilded shovels in a pile of trucked-in dirt, far above the actual construction site, being sure to take advantage of the views you're about to ruin.

Compliment everybody. Remember names. Make small jokes.

Let the cameras roll.

Posterity loves the big lie, so grab a shovel and make like you're working!

(l-r) Presidio Trust guy, Nancy Pelosi, George Lucas, and SF Mayor Willie Brown

After being told where to park the scooter by a horsebacked policeman, I slunk into this event feeling like an enemy spy. I was expecting a few other neighborhood activist types to be there, but the only person I recognized right off was the president of our local association, Gerry. She stood away from the back-slappers, an almost ominous figure, cane in hand, white hair, watching everything. Come to think of it, I never asked her why she had a cane. She never has a cane. What can I say, I was caught up in the moment.

I sauntered up to the media registration table to get a look at the media kits and get credentials, in case they were required for the free booze I could see out of the corner of my eye. Deciding to play it cool, I ask a couple of smart-sounding questions. Before I know it I'm surrounded by flacks. It's a frigging PR ambush, I deflect the first few (agency flacks; they always just want to be nice) by telling them I work for the *cough* THD Semaphore. I do my best to make it clear that they would be insulting me by asking what this is. In my backpack, there are 20 copies of the Semaphore with a cover photograph of the very construction site I'm at right now and the words "FOR LEASE" stamped over it.

But now the queen bee is approaching. The Lucasfilm PR person, and she's not as easy to blow off.

"Semaphore? What's that? I thought you were with the media," she says.

I backpedal, "It's a community newsletter."

She immediately loses interest and within seconds is talking to someone more important. Banishment averted.

By the end of the day, I had surreptitiously connected with the Chronicle the AP, an ABC radio reporter, and every TV station that was covering the event. A couple of hours ago, I watched KRON report on how controversial this development was, and then run an interview with one of the guys from our group.

I love the Presidio, and I believe this Lucas development is going to go through, but at least the record will not show that everything was love and champagne and golden shovels.

More proof that our mechanistic approach to security is wrong-minded and dumb. Yesterday a woman pushed away a table and got on a plane at SFO without going through security. And this is what SFO security had to say:

According to TSA spokesman Nico Melendez, at least part of the blame lies with the woman, who chose not to wait in line and, instead, slipped through a closed checkpoint.

"TSA can't afford to take shortcuts with security," Melendez said. "We don't expect passengers to do that either."

Has this guy totally lost his mind? The whole point of TSA is to make it impossible to skirt the security, not to whine when people succeed. You know, expect the unexpected. This woman deserves a medal for pointed out a serious flaw in airport security, not blame for failing to wait in line.

It's like Ellen Ullman has pointed out:

What has most struck me about the reaction to what has become know as "the events" of 9/11 (an odd designation, if you think about it) is how quickly we turned to "systems" to protect us. Let me explain. I have traveled on the Israeli airline El Al, and what most struck me about their security methods was how little they relied on technological systems. A well-skilled human being looked me over (discovering what could have been a damning situation -- ticket bought in Rome, connecting through Frankfurt: a nice little terrorist route). The security person looked me in the eye. He was a skilled observer of people. El Al security works for this reason: It relies on the intelligence of human beings.

The U.S. response, in contrast, has been to rely on systems: baggage X rays, federal screeners, etc. Really, this is foolish. What we need are skilled, well-paid human beings looking us over as we get on the plane -- looking at where we bought the ticket, how, who we are. As of now, there is no computer system on Earth, and no set of systematic procedures, that can even approach the subtlety of the perception of a skilled human being. Why trust your safety to a system, when what a system does is merely distribute responsibility, making each (potentially smart) person think, "Someone or something else must be taking care of it"?

Thanks to Klinkfamily.com (and a referral from 1-i'd-Jack) I've added a comment feature to my blog. If you'd like to add to anything I've posted here, just click on the "Comment" tag at the end of every post.

Tomorrow is Anna's last day at St Luke's. She's getting out just ahead of the mass smallpox innoculation, and though she met some great and inspiring people and was doing some important work there (it must be interesting to work at a place where lives really are at stake), I'm glad she's leaving.

Mimosa invented around the corner from me.

This site claims that the mimosa was invented in one of my favorite San Francisco restaurants: Jacks.

Jacks closed a few years back (and then re-opened for Nick's 29th birthday, only to close for good after that), and it almost made me cry. It was like walking into a Cassavettes set, eating at that restaurant. With its Humphrey Bogart waiters, palms, and faded, faded glory. What a place!

Are We Nation-Building the Wrong Country?


Our dear friend Karaab gave Anna a subscription to the New York Times to help Anna quit smoking (the idea is she'll do the crossword instead of killing herself with tobacco: great news Karaab. It worked!). Anyhow, much as I love the Times, I'll be kind of glad when it's over, because the headlines have been extremely depressing. Every day there seem to be at least three stinkers about the Bush administration that make me feel that this country is simply going to hell.

Take today. We've got:

US Economy in Worst Hiring Slump in 20 Years

Ashcroft Pushes Executions in More Cases in New York

And finally, North Korea Intensifies War of Words With US

Why are we in a war of words with North Korea? I thought it was Al Qaeda who attacked us? For that matter, why are we even going into Iraq. Buried in this NY Times story about an Al Qaeda cell in Baghdad, is an argument to invade a country. Not Iraq, not North Korea, not any one of the Axis of Evil countries. No, if we should invade anyone, it should be Qatar.

According to the Times, the Qatari Royal Family is supporting Al Qaeda:

Mr. Powell withheld some critical details today, like the discovery by the intelligence agencies that a member of the royal family in Qatar, an important ally providing air bases and a command headquarters for the American military, operated a safe house for Mr. Zarqawi [an Al Qaeda lieutenant] when he transited the country going in and out of Afghanistan.

The Qatari royal family member was Abdul Karim al-Thani, the coalition official said. The official added that Mr. al-Thani provided Qatari passports and more than $1 million in a special bank account to finance the network.

...

Private support from prominent Qataris to Al Qaeda is a sensitive issue that is said to infuriate George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence. After the Sept. 11 attacks, another senior Qaeda operative, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who may have been the principal planner of the assault on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, was said by Saudi intelligence officials to have spent two weeks in late 2001 hiding in Qatar, with the help of prominent patrons, after he escaped from Kuwait.

This is a sensitive issue, because Quatar allows US air forces to use its land. So they're an ally, even though they support terrorism.

And as for Iraq? Well, they seem to have a different attitude toward Al Qaeda:

The decision to identify Mr. Zarqawi, still at large in Iraq, as the leader of a Qaeda cell will put his life in jeopardy because Mr. Hussein has insisted that Baghdad has no links with Osama bin Laden's network.

"A half hour after Powell mentioned his name, I'll wager he disappears or is killed," said a coalition official, recalling the death in Baghdad in 2001 of the Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal, after intelligence reports suggested than he might be activating his own terrorist network.

I just found out that my work phone number is "foam-wow."

404 File Not Found? Pray to the Patron Saint of the Internet.

Italian Roman Catholics have launched a search for a patron saint of the Internet. And they hope their online poll will yield a holy Web protector by Easter.