This is your Marion Barry update for 1/23/2006

I was reading a piece about that greatest of living combinations of confidence and incompetence, (former Mayor of DC) Marion Barry. It had all the bufoonery that we've come to expect of this very unreasonable nut.

But it detailed something quite unexpected and downright surreal:

Months ago, as gas prices were going through the roof, he brought a gasification machine to town. The machine, which Barry had parked in a lot owned by Union Temple Baptist Church, looks like something from Professor Gadget: lots of pipes, motors and electric doodads attached to a two-story chimney.

But this contraption purportedly turns garbage or sewage into pollution-free electricity and drinking water. Barry told reporters (and other gawkers of the future), "This is not a sham, not a game. This is the real stuff."

He wants the District of Columbia to adopt this technology, and a spokesperson for the DC Water and Sewer Authority said, "The unit is pretty impressive, and the technology is worth looking into." The spokesperson went on to express an interest in observing this mighty machine once it is turned on.

One slight problem arose, however. Barry couldn't turn on the machine.

You see, Rev. Willie F. Wilson didn't want the machine on his property to begin with. The preacher and the politician reached a compromise where Barry and his scientists could leave the machine on the church parking lot, but not turn it on.

That was after the police were called, to prevent a fight between the Rev. Wilson and Barry. When Wilson had refused to fully embrace this opportunity for cheap, clean, limitless energy, a shouting match ensued. Wilson reportedly called Barry a liar. Barry called Wilson "power hungry," while also threatening to have the nonprofit status of Wilson's church "investigated."

As Barry explained, "He's out of his mind, being un-Christian and crazy like that" — leading the ever-thoughtful wizard of Washington to ask introspectively, "What's wrong with him?"

Meanwhile, our energy challenges persist.

A "gasification" machine?

It is true! I like this explanation:

The gasification machine's inventor, Simon Romana, says it can use garbage or sewage to create pollution-free electricity and drinking water.

Romana says his machine burns hotter and cleaner than sewage gasification plants and large incinerators, but he won't explain why.

Of course he won't!

The story would be too simple otherwise and thus have no need for the (improperly) esteemed former Mayor.