LAT: Bloggers to Senator Ted Stevens: Put a Tube Sock in It

[DeepModem Mom]

Bloggers to Stevens: Put a Tube Sock in It
By Jim Puzzanghera, Times Staff Writer
July 14, 2006

....Alaska Republican (Senator Ted Stevens) is being hammered by bloggers for describing the Internet as "a series of tubes" in a rambling speech last month defending a telecommunications bill that could influence how information flows online.

As chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, Stevens is one of Washington's main players on technology policy. But his disjointed description of how the Internet works -- digitally recorded and spreading like wild on the Web -- has led opponents of the legislation to portray him as a Luddite doing the bidding of phone and cable companies that want to charge Web sites for faster content delivery.

"Stevens has amplified for the country the extent to which he and his colleagues don't understand the fundamental issues that are at stake," said Josh Silver, executive director of Free Press, a nonpartisan media-reform organization. The group, along with many others online and leading Internet companies, want to prohibit what they call "toll lanes" on the World Wide Web. The issue is known as "network neutrality."

Stevens, 82, who wrote the bill, opposes such restrictions. He defended his position at a June 28 hearing, complaining that some companies were clogging the Internet with "enormous amounts of material" -- so much that it took four days to receive an e-mail sent by his staff....(To) many bloggers, Stevens' meandering monologue made him appear bewildered about the inner-workings of the Internet....A search of "Stevens" and "series of tubes" produces more than 200,000 Web links, including a song with parts of Stevens' speech playing over a thumping techno-beat.

Jon Stewart mused on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" Wednesday that Stevens sounded like "a crazy old man in an airport bar at 3 a.m." and said there was an easy explanation why his e-mail was delayed.

"Maybe it's because you don't seem to know ... about computers or the Internet," he said. "You're just the guy in charge of regulating it."

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-tubes15jul15,0,2789265.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[MADem]

1. What Michael Moore would call THE AWFUL TRUTH!!!!!! NT

[Historic NY]

2. And to think these idiots laughed at Gore.............

when he made his internet comment. Al knows more then they will ever know about the internet.

[cboy4]

3. Stevens is a living day Emily Litella from Saturday Night Live!!

Remember Gilda Radner? "What is all this fuss I hear about the Supreme Court decision on a "deaf" penalty? It's terrible! Deaf people have enough problems as it is!

Stevens is just too much.

I swear, I'm going to look into doing a reality series on the guy.

Every word that comes out of his mouth has me rolling on the floor, grabbing my side.

He's hysterical! Bat shit crazy, but hysterical! :spray: