Political Bits

Voter fraud....World's most expensive video game....Sierra sell-out....poop power and rock snot

Charlie White's mugshot when arrested for voter fraud

By Will Collette

Voter Fraud update. Two recent news items show that the real voter fraud problem in this country is not ACORN registering poor people or undocumented immigrants sneaking onto the voter roles. Block Island’s annual Ground Hog Day town census showed only a total of 948 men, women and children under 18, while it has just under 1,500 people registered to vote. And in Indiana, the guy responsible for running the state’s whole election system, Secretary of State Charlie White, was found guilty on January 27 of committing voter fraud by lying about where he lived.  Starting this year, Rhode Island will require voters to produce a government-issued photo ID when they turn out to vote. While voter ID laws, this one included, are generally aimed at the virtually non-existent voter fraud by immigrants and the poor, in our state, we may just end up busting some non-residents who think that owning property gives them the right to vote twice.

Your tax dollars at work. Tomorrow, former Red Sox pitching ace Curt Schilling’s 38 Studios will officially release its first ever video game for sale at $59.99. Rhode Island taxpayers funded Schilling to the tune of a $75 million loan. 

This is what $75 million gets RI taxpayers

If this game flops, the odds are that 38 Studios will go belly up, and then it’s bye-bye $75 million. But even if it hits the 1 million sales market anticipated by the Providence Journal (Feb. 4, behind their subscription wall), the gross revenue at $60 a pop is only $60 million, which is obviously not all profit. 


Schilling was embarrassed over the past few weeks when an on-line demo version of his game turned out to be “buggy” and unplayable.

In an interview with Games Beat, Schilling said he was “nervous” and “powerless.” “Kingdom of Amalur,” the role-playing knights-versus-monsters game, was more than seven years in the making. Schilling’s fame as a star pitcher for the Boston Red Sox and credentials as a right-wing Republican led former Governor Donald Carcieri to work this deal for taxpayers to front Schilling’s video game dream. I just hope it doesn’t turn into a total taxpayer nightmare.

Is nothing sacred? Last week, the Sierra Club admitted that it accepted $26 million in donations from the natural gas industry in return for the Club’s opposition to proposals for coal-fired power plants. The current director of the Sierra Club said he found out about the quid pro quo in 2010 when he took over from long-time Sierra Club head Carl Pope. Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said he moved to terminate the deal. However, he only went public on the Sierra Club’s blog last week after Time Magazine broke the story. 

The Sierra Club has been a long-time opponent of coal-fired power plants even without the funding from the natural gas industry. But the controversy over natural gas “fracking” technology made the Sierra Club’s use of industry money at best an embarrassment, if not a sell-out.

Alternative energy for Charlestown? Since Charlestown has banned wind power as a source of energy, maybe we should look to Brooklyn, NY, for a way to not only generate energy but also address our wastewater treatment problem. 


At the newly redesigned Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant, the city is processing sewage to extract methane gas. It then sends the gas to National Grid. According to New York Magazine, this process will produce enough methane to heat 2,500 homes. 

Rock snot

This process could be another use for the controversial YMCA property. I had suggested earlier that the property would be ideal for the growing of “rock snot,” whose only beneficial use is as a bio-fuel source. If Charlestown residents also could be encouraged to collect their sewage in barrels and bring them to the site, we could combine that sewage with the rock snot and gain true energy independence for Charlestown in no time.

Plus, we could follow Brooklyn's lead; they incorporated a quarter-mile Newtown Creek Waterfront Nature Walk to the newly designed plant. At the old YMCA camp, we have 700 feet of frontage on Watchaug Pond. 


As Town Council Tom Gentz likes to put it, that's a real "win-win-win solution."