Washington is full of idiots...

[jglass38]

No, not the state, the District of Columbia. Where our hard earned tax dollars are being spent by morons. Not sure if anyone saw this but here are the comments of Republican Senator Ted Stevens who is heading the committee that is trying to regulate the Internet and what occurs on Al Gore's superhighway. It is quite obvious that this old coot wouldn't know the Internet from a clarinet. Enjoy!

The Senate Commerce Committee deadlocked 11 to 11 on an amendment inserting some very basic net neutrality provisions into a moving telecommunications bill. The provisions didn't prohibit an ISP from handling VOIP faster than emails, but would have made it illegal to handle its own VOIP packets faster than a competitor's.

Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) explained why he voted against the amendment and gave an amazing primer on how the internet works.

"There's one company now you can sign up and you can get a movie delivered to your house daily by delivery service. Okay. And currently it comes to your house, it gets put in the mail box when you get home and you change your order but you pay for that, right.

But this service is now going to go through the internet and what you do is you just go to a place on the internet and you order your movie and guess what you can order ten of them delivered to you and the delivery charge is free.

Ten of them streaming across that internet and what happens to your own personal internet?

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.

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.

Now we have a separate Department of Defense internet now, did you know that?

Do you know why?

Because they have to have theirs delivered immediately. They can't afford getting delayed by other people.

Now I think these people are arguing whether they should be able to dump all that stuff on the internet ought to consider if they should develop a system themselves.

Maybe there is a place for a commercial net but it's not using what consumers use every day.

It's not using the messaging service that is essential to small businesses, to our operation of families.

The whole concept is that we should not go into this until someone shows that there is something that has been done that really is a viloation of net neutraility that hits you and me."

[Mendel's Balls]

I cant understand a word of what he is saying......

but I dont like Ted Stevens at all.....

I use Vonage here....which is much cheaper than Comcast's digital phone service

[SarahMB]

Yeah, I saw that. Honestly, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

[xdeus]

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?

That's my favorite quote.

[jglass38]

That's my favorite quote.

I personally like:

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.

[shhhli]

I love it when politicians bs their way through a subject they have no idea about. A series of tubes? wouldnt that mean people in one tube ie ording a movie not affect someone in another tube ie his pokey email?

[xdeus]

I personally like:

It's a series of tubes.

Like vacuum tubes? I always thought it was a series of transistors.

Yep, gotta love the people in charge.

[Ginevive]

LOL, that really made me laugh! "your own personal internet??"
Many providers already limit the amount of DLs you can do (ours does; satellite bolohna) like we need some ignoramus limiting things more! Don't you love when people in positions of power spout off about things they know zilch about?

[Boarder4l154]

come on jamie, go ahead and pull up the floorboards, don't be suprised to find a bunch tubes thats carrying information to your own personal internet!

[Sputnik]

You can all sleep soundly knowing the country is in the good hands of people like Ted..... and there's plenty more from where he came from!