Well, today’s post is a bit off topic (and a bit old), but since it’s my blog I guess that’s OK.

I’m sure many of you know about all of the Network Neturality talk that’s been going around for the last several months. If you don’t, you should research it, it’s important.

In response to the Net Neutrality legislation that appeared before Congress in May of this year Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, sponsored a bill requesting more study be done by the FCC on the potential abuses of Net Neutrality. In a Senate Commerce Committee on June 28, 2006, Senator Stevens discussed his views on the Internet and it’s potential uses. If you haven’t heard Senator Stevens oration you should listen to the mp3, it’s enlightening to say the least. No wonder he want’s more study done - he obviously doesn’t understand how the Internet workw.

Here are some excerpts from his speech:

“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.”

“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.”

He also tirades about services that are going to allow movies to be downloaded and how that commercial use is going to clog up the Internet and hurt the consumer. Never mind the fact that communication across the Internet is often a commercial use. Never mind that many of us buy products from Amazon and Ebay as a commercial use. This 37 year veteran Senator and Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee obviously can’t even identify commerce when he sees it.

Now there are many posts in blogs and podcasts around the Internet makeing fun of Senator Stevens’ buffonary. That is not my intent here. Instead, I want to criticize the voters of the state of Alaska for sending this man to the Senate term after term and for his fellow congressmen for allowing him to chair a committe which he obviously has no business even being on.

When we go to the polls this August and November please think about Senator Stevens. Experience does not automatically make a good elected official. Any representative of the people should have the capability and willingness to change with the world we live in and understand current concepts and events. If this is not possible a new person should be elected.