So the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, Ted Stevens, the republican from Alaska, made a total ass of himself in session the other day. The commerce committee is in charge of regulating the e-commerce, which means they have a tremendous amount of influence over what sorts of services are available on the internet. So it's a little disheartening to see the extent to which Stevens has no idea what he is talking about.

Jon Stewart helps explain the Stevens description of how the internet works.

Someone made a commemmorative music video.

I can just imagine the scenario; someone had to explain to him how latency on the net came about, and was forced to use... really simple metaphors. And Stevens took it to heart. And I'll bet the staffer responsible for this explaination is now taking heat for it.

Anyway, this is the sort of screw job that comes about when non-technical people are put in a position of making important technical decisions. Reminds me a bit of some of my work.