This Is Not a Truck

Something humorous for Monday morning: on YouTube, there's a remix of Sen. Ted Stevens' remarks on internet neutrality. According to the local Belleville News-Democrat,

"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.

"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 it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material."

At another point in his 11-minute discourse, he said he'd seen these delays firsthand: "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."

On one hand, I do feel a bit sorry for the poor guy; it seems likely that he mis-spoke by saying "tubes" instead of "pipes," and then lots of people pounced on him. On the other hand, Stevens is the chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, and as such, he is leading the rewrite of the communications act, so one would hope he'd have his facts and terminology straight.

Interested in learning more about internet neutrality? Check out Save the Internet for updates and more information, as well as an entertaining clip from The Daily Show.