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A Great Mind

By TChris, Section Corruption Cases
Posted on Tue Oct 14, 2008 at 06:36:30 PM EST
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This was not meant to be the indictment of the Senate that it seems to be:

Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch called Sen. Ted Stevens ... one of the Senate's greatest minds during testimony at the Alaska senator's corruption trial.

You'll recall that Stevens is the genius who said this:

"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... And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck. It's a series of tubes."

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    A Great Mind | 16 comments (16 topical)

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    To Be Fair... (5.00 / 1) (#3)
    by reedsanchez on Tue Oct 14, 2008 at 07:27:29 PM EST
    Stevens' characterization of the internet as a series of tubes is far more apt than most people give him credit. I wrote a blog post about the hidden wisdom of that "gaffe" a few months ago. It can be read here.

    Is it likewise true (5.00 / 1) (#6)
    by Steve M on Tue Oct 14, 2008 at 08:09:53 PM EST
    that his staff sent him an internet that morning?

    Parent
    heh. (none / 0) (#11)
    by Salo on Tue Oct 14, 2008 at 09:30:15 PM EST
    You could give him a zone 1 pass on the Tube. He could go from Kensington to Finsbury park.  A Tube to nowhere.

    Parent
    Technical lingo (5.00 / 1) (#5)
    by ding7777 on Tue Oct 14, 2008 at 07:45:55 PM EST
    is nothing more than PR created words and phrases to create the illusion of a better mousetrap.

    Making fun of Steven's description of the Internet as a series of tubes is as silly as Josh Marshall's put down of Bill Clinton as "a man out of his time, out of his element" because Clinton refered " to the YouTube viral video of the Rev. Pfleger as "the movie."

    Ya gotta point there... (none / 0) (#8)
    by kdog on Tue Oct 14, 2008 at 08:35:02 PM EST
    I only get nervous when pols talk about man eating brontosaurus burgers..."a series of tubes" is kinda quaint like calling the refrigerator an icebox, or the remote control a clicker.  Doesn't mean you're dumb or a bad guy...being a corrupt congress-critter makes you a bad guy:)

    Parent
    The Icelanders call the computer something... (none / 0) (#10)
    by Salo on Tue Oct 14, 2008 at 09:28:44 PM EST
    ...like a "Brain Box". They have to recombine old Norse in funny ways to get to descriptions of new things. The TV has a really odd one too. I'll look it up.  

    Parent
    When I (none / 0) (#12)
    by cal1942 on Tue Oct 14, 2008 at 10:26:15 PM EST
    was a kid we had an icebox.  Our family got its first refrigerator when I was eight.

    The term icebox was used in reference to the refrigerator from time to time.

    Parent

    It was a bit poetic. (none / 0) (#9)
    by Salo on Tue Oct 14, 2008 at 09:27:03 PM EST
    Almost like the dystopian theories of Barthes or Foucault.  

    it's just a series of panopticons baby! or
    ,It's a serial simulacra suckers!

    And the classic: bridge to nowhere.  I couldn't get the Talking Heads out of my head on that one.

    Parent

    Yeah, sort of quaint, like calling JMM (none / 0) (#13)
    by ThatOneVoter on Tue Oct 14, 2008 at 10:29:44 PM EST
    a journalist.

    Parent
    In Josh's defense (none / 0) (#15)
    by Repack Rider on Wed Oct 15, 2008 at 01:11:10 AM EST
    He broke the Palin corruption case before she got the nomination, and he also broke the US Attorney firings by connecting dots no one else had noticed.

    That seems like journalism to me.

    Parent

    But he's so much MORE, isn't he? :) (none / 0) (#16)
    by ThatOneVoter on Wed Oct 15, 2008 at 09:43:15 AM EST


    Parent
    Is there a defense in this trial? (none / 0) (#1)
    by Steve M on Tue Oct 14, 2008 at 06:47:26 PM EST
    If I were on the jury, I'd be very suspicious if the defense chose to lead off by introducing one celebrity character witness after another, rather than addressing the merits.

    The jury instruction alone (none / 0) (#4)
    by robrecht on Tue Oct 14, 2008 at 07:42:25 PM EST
    may sink the prosecution on this case.  IIRC, didn't the judge says the prosecution knowingly presented false evidence?

    Parent
    Shrug (none / 0) (#7)
    by Steve M on Tue Oct 14, 2008 at 08:10:29 PM EST
    If that's what the defense intends to hang their hat on, one has to wonder what their strategy was going in.

    Parent
    Last week the Democratic senator from Hawaii, (none / 0) (#2)
    by hairspray on Tue Oct 14, 2008 at 07:08:57 PM EST
    Daniel Inouye, also came out with glowing testamony to Ted Steven's character. That is what made me think a fix was in.  Or else some "old boyism" is at work here.

    Offtopic: series of tubes (none / 0) (#14)
    by jerry on Tue Oct 14, 2008 at 11:43:11 PM EST
    Ya know, having worked with the Internet since 1982, it is a series of tubes.

    At a *nix system call level, it's built out of sockets, pipes, and virtual circuits.  On a more physical level, it's often built out of copper tubes, and fiber optic tubes.

    To connect one computer to another, we can use sockets, or even pipes.  And often if a connection fails, even if it's a socket, the error we get back is EPIPE that is, "broken pipe."

    Up until 10 years ago, it was somewhat common that a computer could only connect to 256 other connections (on perhaps different computers) at a time.  About 5 years ago, it was hard to connect a webserver to 1000 other connections at a time and give them each good service.  You see, basically the CPU was getting clogged (the CPU if not the tubes.)   But even now, with p2p traffic, the various tubes ARE getting clogged.

    There maybe all sorts of reasons to hold little respect for Stevens, but his analogy isn't one of them.  Actually, I think those laughing at his analogy say more about their own dubious understanding and pseudo sophistication about the Internet than it does about Stephens.

    A Great Mind | 16 comments (16 topical)

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