Wednesday, August 1

He Must Be A Republican

We know that Senator Ted Stevens from Alaska, a Republican, had his house searched yesterday by the FBI as part of a federal investigation. Stevens is also (in)famous for his pork barrel projects like the $453MM Bridge To No Where linking Ketchikan (population 8,900) with its airport on Gravina Island (population 50). But did you know that Mr. Stevens is a linguist? His explanation of the Internet, extracted from public record and Wired Magazine in October 2005, sheds new terminology - and insight - into the In-tur-net.

"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.

So you want to talk about the consumer? Let's talk about you and me. We use this internet to communicate and we aren't using it for commercial purposes.

We aren't earning anything by going on that internet. Now I'm not saying you have to or you want to discrimnate against those people

The regulatory approach is wrong. Your approach is regulatory in the sense that it says "No one can charge anyone for massively invading this world of the internet". No, I'm not finished. I want people to understand my position, I'm not going to take a lot of time.

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."