The Oddball News for 09-11-2008

Plans unveiled to convert human waste to energy

SAN ANTONIO - The U.S. city of San Antonio unveiled a deal on Tuesday that will make it the first U.S. city to harvest methane gas from human waste on a commercial scale and turn it into clean-burning fuel.

"You may call it something else," Clouse said, but for area utilities, the main byproduct of human waste - methane gas - will soon be converted into natural gas to burn in their power plants.

The city approved a deal where Massachusetts-based Ameresco Inc will convert the city's biosolids into natural gas, which could generate about 1.5 million cubic feet per day, he said.

Methane gas, which is a byproduct of human and organic waste, is a principal component of the natural gas used to fuel furnaces, power plants, and other combustion-based generators.

"The private vendor will come onto the facility, construct some gas cleaning systems, remove the moisture, remove the carbon dioxide content, and then sell that gas on the open market," Clouse said.

The gas will be sold to power generators, he said.

Some communities are using methane gas harvested from solid waste to power smaller facilities like sewage treatment plants, but San Antonio is the first to see large-scale conversion of methane gas from sewage into fuel for power generation, he said.

Following the agreement, more than 90 percent of materials flushed down the toilets and sinks of San Antonio will be recycled, he said. Liquid is now used for irrigation, many of the solids are made into compost, and now the methane gas will be recycled for power generation.

Police: Man blames bad driving on spilled beer

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - A man with four previous drunken driving convictions who was stopped for weaving in and out of traffic on Interstate 40 was ready with an excuse for his poor driving: his passenger spilled his beer.

"He was so matter of fact about it, like it wasn't a big deal," Ward said.

The 31-year-old man was allegedly too drunk to perform field sobriety tests and was arrested on aggravated drunken driving charges, court records said.

Ward found four opened bottles of beer in the car, court records showed.

It was the man's sixth DWI arrest. He had been found guilty of four of five previous drunken driving charges and has paid $1,750 in fines, the DWI Resource Center said.

Preacher with 86 wives gets court reprieve

LAGOS -A Nigerian court has granted temporary reprieve to an 84-year-old Muslim preacher with 86 wives after local leaders threatened to force him to leave the area unless he divorced all but four of them.

The Islamic preacher said in his petition that the threats violated his right to life and personal liberty.

"Leave is hereby granted to the applicant to enforce his fundamental human right to personal liberty, life and to freedom of movement," state news agency NAN quoted Abuja High Court judge G. Kolawole as saying.

The ruling gives Bello temporary protection from banishment while the court decides whether his rights have indeed been violated. The judge adjourned the case to September 18.

Bello has received a number of death threats in the last few weeks after the Nigerian media began reporting on his unusual marital situation, his spokesman said.

Some newspapers said last week that Bello had agreed at a meeting with local officials to divorce all but four of the women and had asked for time to return them to their families.

But his spokesman denied the reports and said the preacher intended to marry more wives instead.

His case has stirred controversy in Africa's most populous nation of 140 million people, roughly half of whom are Muslim. Many Muslim scholars say Islam allows men to have up to four wives at any given time who must be treated equally.

Wisconsin man has eaten 23,000 Big Macs since 1972

FOND DU LAC, Wis. - Talk about a Big Mac attack! Don Gorske says he has eaten 23,000 of the burgers in 36 years.

"I enjoy them every day," said Gorske, 54. "I need two to fill me up."

Gorske has kept every burger receipt in a box. He says he was always fascinated with numbers, and watching McDonald's track its number of customers motivated him to track his own consumption.

Despite a diet some would call unhealthy, Gorske says he keeps himself in good shape. He says he's 6-foot-2 and weighs 185 pounds, and walks as many as 10 miles a day.

He used to order fries every day in the 1980s but began to cut back in the '90s, now eating them about once a month. He eats two Big Macs and two parfaits a day. Gorske has written a book about his experience.

"Sometimes people call me a freak but it doesn't bother me. I just say respect people as they are," he told The Associated Press. "I just want to make sure people understand I'm not going to change."

He can instantly recall the eight days in which he failed to satisfy his craving. One was in 1988, the day his mother died, to respect a request she made.

"I made a promise to her and I always keep my promises," he said. "I also promised her I wouldn't cut my hair and in 20 years I haven't."

He twice failed to attack a Big Mac because of his job. A correctional-institution employee, he said a number of work emergencies kept him on the clock past midnight so he recorded those days as missed days.

Three other times he was traveling and couldn't find a McDonald's. He also went Big Mac-less on Thanksgiving Day 2000, and during a 1982 snowstorm that prevented the local McDonald's franchise from opening.

"That's when I started a habit where I kept them in the freezer," he said. He keeps one or two burgers on hand but increases his inventory to four to five during the winter.

Airline seeks bald men as walking billboards

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - New Zealand's national airline is offering to pay bald travelers to use their heads — literally — in a new advertising campaign.

The airline would pay 1,000 New Zealand dollars ($660) for each walking billboard, a company official said.

The tattoos will promote a new system that is meant to reduce check-in waiting times.

Air New Zealand marketing manager Steve Bayliss described the campaign as "a bit of fun."

"It's a ... tattoo on the back of someone's head, so they have to have their head shaved or be bald already," he told National Radio on Wednesday. "It will be an advantage for them to be bald already."

The tattoos would fade or wash off after about two weeks, he said.

Bayliss added that he won't be part of the program since he was "doing OK" in the hair department.

Sumo chief resigns over marijuana scandal

TOKYO - The head of Japan's sumo association resigned Monday after a young wrestler at his gym was accused of smoking marijuana, the latest in a string of scandals to hit the ancient sport.

Two Russian wrestlers tested positive for marijuana last week, setting off a media frenzy about abuses in the sport, which historians say dates back 2,000 years and which makes much of its respect for tradition.

Hakurozan, who trains at Kitanoumi's gym or "stable," and his brother Roho, both denied smoking the drug. The positive test results came shortly after another Russian wrestler was arrested and fired for suspected marijuana possession.

Both Roho and Hakurozan have been expelled from the sport, an official said.

Kitanoumi, a grand champion "yokozuna" until he retired in 1985, had been facing growing criticism for the marijuana incidents and other recent scandals that have dented the sport's popularity.

Last year, the head of another stable was arrested on suspicion of assault leading to the death of a teenage trainee who had talked about quitting. The case sent shockwaves across the country as the boy's father spoke of his son's battered body.

It shone a spotlight on sumo's harsh training practices and the closed, rigid society of the male-only sport in which wrestlers wearing only loincloths tussle in a rope-lined dirt ring.

Still retaining many traditional Shinto religious overtones, sumo's pageantry and carefully choreographed ring-entering rituals play almost as big a role as the bouts, which sometimes last only seconds.

Fans dismayed by the scandals say changes are needed. Japan's top government spokesman urged the JSA board, now a clique of former wrestlers, to bring in outsiders to improve management.

"The sumo association needs to reconsider the situation now in which someone cannot be an executive unless he is a former wrestler," Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura told a news conference.

In another scandal last year, one of the sport's highest-ranked stars, Asashoryu, sparked an uproar when he was filmed playing in a charity soccer match in his native Mongolia after pulling out of a tour in Japan citing a back injury.

This is TheOldGuy reporting from