“The Internet is not a big truck, it is a series of tubes”

“Just the other day an Internet was sent by my staff at 10 o’clock in the morning on Friday and I got it yesterday. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the Internet commercially.”

The above quotes (NYT 7/8/06 B5), which if true, imply there is a horrfic disconnect between the technological wonders our society has built and the knowledge of those elected to legislate them. It was Steven’s committee, by a 12-12 partisan vote that blocked a bill rider to ensure the egalitarian and forward-thinking policy of first-come first-serve data transfer on the internet may become written into law.

Sen. Steven’s, who could seek testimony from Interenet and WWW founders and geniuses, chose to use his own flawed experiences as justification to allow changing the single most important (and unbroken) communication system on the planet.

Confidential to Senator Ted Stevens:
A) Check with the IT guy and make sure your mail server wasn’t failing during that period.
B) Ask your staff if they really send it. Just so you know “I sent the email” is the modern version of “The checks in the mail.”
C) Network packets do not get caught in traffic jams or held-up in transport nodes for longer than a matter of seconds. Ever. They get stuck on servers (that are the responsibility of the sending and receiving parties.)
D) The ‘Internet’ is a global network of computers. You do not send an ‘Internet’, you send a message via electronic mail. As an aside, just because your secretary prints and types your emails for you it’s still fine for you to call them an email.
E) The commercial Internet is actually much more important for your country’s well being than the message your staff sent, but they both commercial, professional, government and personal internet uses coexist happily respected equally by routers more powerful than a airplane hanger full of world’s most genius telegraph operators.

Confidential to American voters:
A) Act up now before the Internet becomes cable TV and the last best chance for equal educational access to all becomes subverted by th anti-wisdom market-driven economies.

Update:
I was so pleased to see someone already built a cafepress store. Ha, I just have to say it one more time, “The Internet is a series of Tubes.” What do you think the Internet is?