McClatchey: Internet `tubes' speech turns spotlight, ridicule onto Stevens

[Rose Siding]

WASHINGTON - Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, is enduring no end of ridicule in the blogosphere for his recent explanation, in a Commerce Committee debate, of how the Internet works.

Snorting loudest are bloggers who are angry at Stevens for not adding a nondiscrimination provision - known as "net neutrality" - to the communications bill that he wants Congress to pass this year.

"The Internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck. It's a series of tubes," Stevens said during a June 28 committee session. ......

Internet pundits greeted his explanations with a nonstop snigger fest, with extra helpings of derision, on sites such as boingboing, Daily Kos, Fark, MySpace and YouTube.

"Ted Stevens, unfrozen caveman senator," was the pronouncement on Wonkette.

Stevens' staff director on the Commerce Committee, Lisa Sutherland, said the bloggers were making fun of Stevens for a pretty minor mistake: saying "tubes" rather than "pipes.".....

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/15041573.htm

So put that in your internets and smoke it.

[yellowcanine]

1. He didn't just say tubes, he said "tangled up tubes".

[Demit]

2. and he talked about his staff sending him an "internet" that he didn't get

right away. <snort>

[waiting for hope]

3. Jon Stewart spoofed this the other night....

http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_daily_show/videos/headlines/index.jhtml

[htuttle]

4. 'a pretty minor mistake: saying "tubes" rather than "pipes."'

Damn, apparently Lisa Sutherland, Stevens' staff director on the Commerce Committee, is just as techno-dumb as he is...

I think there's just too many bogons being emitted on Capitol Hill for most of them to understand much of anything.

[Bryan]

5. This is priceless

Scary and depressing when you consider this man's power, yes, but still comedy gold. Off I go to run this tubes bit into the ground: it's the new "the internets"!

[Blue_In_AK]

6. Our local NBC affiliate

did a story on the Techno-Mix of the "tubes" speech tonight on the evening news. The newscaster was cracking up so much over it that he could barely get the story out, and had the whole news team busting up. They even ran the video behind the closing credits. It was pretty hysterical...I wish I had a video of the segment to share with you guys.

In a way I feel kind of sorry for old Ted. He's done a lot for Alaska, but he's pretty obviously losing it in his old age.