Meet Ted Stevens- Republican senator from Alaska (originally from Indianapolis, Indiana). He's a bleeding-heart conservative who has distinguished himself by grabbing half a billion of US tax dollars to build a literal bridge to nowhere (which, of course, will be named the "Ted Stevens bridge.") In the wake of the Katrina disaster, he was asked whether he'd consider dropping a few million from his bridge projects to help out the folks in New Orleans. The resulting spectacle was like watching a five-year-old crap his diapers on the senate floor- a juvenile tirade that featured (among other things), a threat to resign the senate on the spot (promises, promises.)

But never let it be said that ol' Ted isn't without heart- he has consistently tried to attach riders to senate bills requiring immediate oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, saying that a portion of the oil revenues will certainly be given to people in need (even though full exploitation of ANWR, over the course of a decade, would net us one week's supply of oil.) The riders are (thankfully) always voted down, but he keeps trying.

You get the picture?

Well, believe it or not, this idiot is in charge of the Senate Commerce committee, and he is, in his characteristic clownish stubborn way, dead-set of turning the internet over to AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast. Why? Let senator Stevens explain hisself, in his own words:

“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 any commercial purposes. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It’s not a truck. It’s a series of tubes.”

Uhh- okay. Am I the only one here who sees a problem with allowing a 83-year-old who apparently knows jack-all about the internet free reign to dictate the future of said free marketplace of ideas? Might I further suggest that the reason why the "internet" wasn't received by Senator Stevens, is because his staff interns were too busy getting high to send him the "internet" on friday, and told him a cock-and-bull story come monday, because the old bird would believe anything he was told?

Unfortunately, that's the way things are done, in this young, vibrant democracy. You can write to Ted Stevens here- but I doubt he'll listen to you. You can call his office at (202) 224-3004, but again, he's an idiot, set in his ways...

In three years, a site like Bushflash (or, for to conservatives out there, Blackfive) won't be able to exist. Thanks, Senator Stevens!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 5th, 2011 at 4:47 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the feed. You can trackback from your own site.