Senator Explains Internet's Mysteries

Senator Ted Stevens' understanding of how the Internet works provoked this spot-on comment from Boing Boing: "This man is so far away from having a coherent picture of the Internet's functionality, it's like hearing a caveman expound on the future of silver-birds-from-the-sky and why we need to keep them from flying so high they anger the gods."

Here's Stevens:

"I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially... They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material."

From an eight-year-old, this would be cute. From a federal legislator, frightening.

Comments

[Amsterdamsky]

Fucking southerners. I wish we had just let them go and become part of the afrocaribbeansphere. The US would probably still have slavery if these idiots had their way. Maybe the token fell out of his token ring network?

[Amsterdamsky]

Correction: This moron is from Alaska. Same difference. They would not even have a Rep. if a minimum of 1 was not dictated by the Constitution. 2 Senators by law representing nobody.

[Martin Owens]

Look on the bright side. The American system puts people like him in public life, where they can be watched. Can you imagine the threat to life and safety they would represent as , say, electricians or airline mechanics?

[K. Dale Boley]

The thing is that if he was an electrician, the market would have buried him for his lack of knowledge. In Congress, he fits right in. It's one knee-jerk reaction after another. As an airline mechanic he would need to prove his skills several times a day. In Congress, he can just spout anything that feels good at the time.