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tee-hee (Score:5, Funny)
There's a joke here about federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison and clogged tubes but I'm just going to savor the indictment instead.
Re:tee-hee (Score:5, Insightful)
People like Ted Stevens don't go to pound-me-in-the-ass prison.
Some pigs are more equal than others.
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Re:tee-hee (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:tee-hee (Score:5, Funny)
His first name is "The" and his last name is "People".
Aww, aren't you cute. You actually believe that, don't you. That's just precious.
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Re:tee-hee (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because you've bought into the whole "cheap cynicism is cool" BS, doesn't mean you have to be so condescending to those of us who still recognize that sometimes the right people do the right things for the right reasons.
Maybe not often, but it happens.
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Re:tee-hee (Score:5, Interesting)
Politicians are powerful, but nowhere near that wealthy. The CEO of even a modestly sized company earns more than a US Senator.
The likelihood is that Tubes was simply far too blatant with his shady deals. So blatant that even the masses began to notice. Once that happened, he became a liability to the people that were once willing to use him and he had to be gotten rid of.
The smart politician is corrupt, but always discrete about it.
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Re:tee-hee (Score:5, Insightful)
You have to be kidding me. US Senators might only be paid a base salary of 165K or so, but their ability to generate wealth far exceeds the ability of many corporate CEOs.
Quote from Forbes:
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Re:tee-hee (Score:5, Insightful)
You have to be kidding me. US Senators might only be paid a base salary of 165K or so, but their ability to generate wealth far exceeds the ability of many corporate CEOs.
Quote from Forbes:
The point you missed is that their net worth was that high before they became Senators.
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Re:tee-hee (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Nobody (Score:5, Interesting)
Being indicited is nothing. Yet. Once convicted, either W or McCain will pardon him, if they are in office.
Don't be so sure on that one. Although I'm not fan of the major parties, McCain and Stevens have been opposing each other on key issues for a long time. Probably the most distinctive between the two is the issue of earmarking. McCain's opposition and Stevens' abuse of them have been completely polar stances on the issue.
Just because people share the same political party does not mean their views do not vary widely, and the idea that 50% of politicians get to walk just because their party is in the white house is not reality.
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Re:Nobody (Score:5, Funny)
McCain and Stevens have been opposing each other on key issues...
Ah yes, the Geritol "Tastes great/Less Filling" debate.
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Re:tee-hee (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:tee-hee (Score:5, Funny)
the senator will be learning a new line;
You've got Male!
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Re:tee-hee (Score:5, Funny)
At the moment it's only his finances that are being probed.
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Re:tee-hee (Score:5, Insightful)
I can only assume that you are confused by Alcatraz being a recreational area now. Alcatraz was not a pleasant place when it was a federal prison. Back then the tour of the place lasted a bit longer than an afternoon.
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Re:tee-hee (Score:5, Insightful)
Uncle Ted may be going to Leavenworth, or some other Federal joint, but he's going to be held in the minimalist minimal security section, and will have unlimited visits and weekend trips home. No US senator (or Bush Administration member) will ever see the inside of a real jail cell. No matter what they've done.
Hell, the Vice President shot a guy in the face and told the sheriff who came to the door to come back tomorrow, and then had the luxury of almost a full day to clean up any potential evidence (or potential witness). Next time you get stopped for speeding, try giving the trooper your cell number and asking him to give you a call tomorrow, when you promise to take care of the matter. See where that gets you.
Ted Stevens' attorneys will say that their client is too old and feeble to do any time at all, even if Ted goes hunting every other weekend and bangs hookers and snorts meth daily. And the federal judge will talk about how losing his reelection bid will be "sufficient punishment" for this great man who has served his country for so long, blah blah blah.
Bottom line is that Senator Stevens will, like his brethren, jack off in the face of the Rule of Law.
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Re:tee-hee (Score:5, Interesting)
Federal prison is mainly big-time drug users and drug dealers.
State prison is mainly small-time drug users and drug dealers.
A friend's brother down in the St Louis area went to federal prison for loaning a cocaine dealer a thousand dollars; the charge was conspiracy to deliver cocaine (the dealer had been busted and was setting up innocent guys to lessen his own sentence; most of his high school graduating class went to Maximum Security Club Fed for twice as long as he did).
Violent criminals usually don't get caught. When they do, it depends on who they attacked.
A woman I know went to Dwight Correctional (Illinois hardcore women'sprison) for 4 months for nonviolent drug posession, while a guy I know and intensly dislike broke into a man's home and tried to kill him with a butcher knife. He spent two weeks in the county jail - but the man he attacked was a poor black man.
That is American justice.
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Down the tubes.. (Score:5, Funny)
It's a house, that you can add things to...apparently for free.
Well, there goes another political career... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Well, there goes another political career... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Well, there goes another political career... (Score:5, Insightful)
One good option for him is to win reelection, then resign to allow the Republican Governor to appoint another Republican to serve out his term. For that Bush will grant him a pardon on the last day "for the 40 years of service to the country", and he will fade away.
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Tubes dance mix (Score:5, Funny)
Enjoy:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=_cZC67wXUTs [youtube.com]
The indictment (pdf) (Score:5, Insightful)
text of the indictment [adn.com] is now available.
It was a part of the scheme that STEVENS, while during that same time period that he was concealing his continuing receipt of things of value from ALLEN and VECO from 1999 to 2006, received and accepted solicitations for multiple official actions from ALLEN and other VECO employees, and knowing that STEVENS could and did use his official position and his office on behalf of VECO during that same time period.
That sounds like good old-fashioned bribery to me, but with our screwed-up laws it's probably a lot easier to convict a politician for lying about the bribes than for taking the bribes.
As a lifelong Alaskan... (Score:5, Interesting)
Let me be the first to shout:
"Yeee-hawww!!!"
Good riddence! The coming Alaska senate race is going to be one of the most interesting in history. I suggest everyone look into it. On the democratic front, we've got popular Anchorage city mayor, Mark Beigich, who's taken the election scene by storm in just the last month or so. And Stevens, being a long time incombant, is running virtually unopposed on the republican front.
In the house, rep. Don ("I'll beat you over the head with a walrus penis") Young is having even more trouble, due to falling public perception and the VICO scandal. This long-time incumbent may be KOed in the primary by our Lt. Governor.
The republicans only star runners, at this point, are Gov. Sarah Palin and Lt Gov. Sean Parnel. Parnel is running against Young in the house, and Sarah just had a child and is busy fighting some of her own battles.
Translation: the alaska republican party is FUCKED. Before the year is out, there's a very good chance we'll see our one house seat filled by a Dem, one of our Senate seats filled by a Dem, and the state's electoral votes go to Barak Obama (currently a very close race). AK is one of the most conservative and republican states in the country, btw.
Re:As a lifelong Alaskan... (Score:5, Interesting)
AK is one of the most conservative and republican states in the country, btw.
Alaskans love calling themselves conservative. However, when it actually comes down to the issues, they seem to be pretty strong liberals (I'd call them anarcho-socialists, even though the term is somewhat self-contradictory)
A few observations:
1) They're pro-gun rights, but more in the "protecting yourself from grizzlies" sense than then the "self defense against unarmed burglar" sense.
2) Pro-drug-legalization. 20+ hours/day of darkness in the wintertime. 'Nuff said.
3) Surveillance isn't an issue. (Seriously)
4) Pro-alternative-energy. Alaskans are among the first to see the real effects of climate change. In places like Fairbanks, the temperature inversion in the winter also causes smog to hang low to the ground, and accumulate over the course of the winter, which has a very noticeable effect.
5) The bible belt hasn't really infiltrated Alaska nearly as much as it has the other "red states". People actually seem to be vaguely rational regarding social issues.
6) Pro-military. Tons of military bases in Alaska. Like much of the military, they're also a bit uneasy about the number of dead bodies returning from Iraq.
7) Pro-small-government. If you enjoy living in the middle of nowhere, you probably don't support a large, overbearing government.
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For Old Time's Sake (Score:5, Informative)
Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) offered up this bizarre explanation for why he voted against net neutrality laws. In it, he explains how the internet works...
"There's one company now you can sign up and you can get a movie delivered to your house daily by delivery service. Okay. And currently it comes to your house, it gets put in the mail box when you get home and you change your order but you pay for that, right.
But this service isn't going to go through the internet and what you do is you just go to a place on the internet and you order your movie and guess what you can order ten of them delivered to you and the delivery charge is free.
Ten of them streaming across that internet and what happens to your own personal internet?
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.
We aren't earning anything by going on that internet. Now I'm not saying you have to or you want to discriminate against those people [...]
The regulatory approach is wrong. Your approach is regulatory in the sense that it says "No one can charge anyone for massively invading this world of the internet". No, I'm not finished. I want people to understand my position, I'm not going to take a lot of time.
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.
Now we have a separate Department of Defense internet now, did you know that?
Do you know why?
Because they have to have theirs delivered immediately. They can't afford getting delayed by other people.
[...]
Now I think these people are arguing whether they should be able to dump all that stuff on the internet ought to consider if they should develop a system themselves.
Maybe there is a place for a commercial net but it's not using what consumers use every day.
It's not using the messaging service that is essential to small businesses, to our operation of families.
The whole concept is that we should not go into this until someone shows that there is something that has been done that really is a violation of net neutrality that hits you and me."
RS
Re:For Old Time's Sake (Score:5, Insightful)
When I'm too old to understand what the fuck I'm talking about, I'll resign from congress and not try to legislate it.
If he's too old to get it, it's time to get out. I wouldn't be angry about some other old man not understanding new technology, but he has power over it. That's dangerous.
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Time to clean house (Score:5, Insightful)
And when will Dodd and the Democratic senators who got their mortgages personally handed to them by bank CEOs receive the same treatment? I'm not a partisan in this, and I do enjoy seeing Stevens go down, but this guy is just the tip of the iceberg. I suspect that most of Congress would have to be indicted if a sweeping investigation were done.
Re:And watch the "discussion" devolve... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:And watch the "discussion" devolve... (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone hates congress...until election time when 95% of them get reelected.
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Re:And watch the "discussion" devolve... (Score:5, Insightful)
The consequence of this system is that corruption never gets rooted out and a bunch of old men are deciding the future of a country that's changing very rapidly. I'll vote against incumbents when they give me a good alternative, and that doesn't happen too often.
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Re:And watch the "discussion" devolve... (Score:5, Insightful)
That pattern can be explained in a single word: gerrymandering.
Actually there is a bit more to it than that. Your own Congressman is probably pretty good at delivering "economic development" to his district. The other 434 assholes are just wasting our tax dollars on "pork".
Ever wonder why Congress as a whole gets shitty approval ratings yet people usually have good things to say about their own Rep?
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Re:So what I want to know (Score:5, Insightful)
"How did he stay in office so long if there was already evidence of corruption in 2003 and 2004?"
The same way Dan Rostenkowski did and Marion Barry and Murtha after Abscam:
"He may be a son-of-a-bitch, but he's OUR son-of-a-bitch"
Also keep in mind that he has brought home a lot of bacon to the residents of Alaska, and they probably view such minor corruption as a cross they just have to bear to get the goodies. Remember, the "bridge to nowhere" ALMOST got approved.
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Re:So what I want to know (Score:5, Insightful)
How did he stay in office so long if there was already evidence of corruption in 2003 [pqarchiver.com] and 2004 [thehill.com]?
The same way that William Jefferson [cnn.com] of New Orleans did (and still is).
(Who, BTW, in response to the AC that also responded to your post, is NOT white)
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Re:Series of Tubes (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Series of Tubes (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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Re:Series of Tubes (Score:5, Informative)
If he simply said "the Internet is like a series of tubes and if too much stuff is going through it, it will slow down", then he might have been right, generally speaking.
However, his speaking style was garbled and it frequently looked like he was trying to make a point, didn't know what it was, and was confused about technical details that shouldn't confuse someone basically in charge of setting Internet policies for the USA. Here are a few gems (thanks to the previous poster who posted this text):
Ok, talking about Netflix here. So far, so good. You order movies online and they arrive at your door.
Now he, all of a sudden, leaps from movies delivered to your door to movies streamed online. He seems to think that: 1) you would order ten movies at once, 2) you would stream those ten movies at the same time, and 3) you would be surprised when your connection speeds dropped into the basement.
Obvious misuse of terminology. I might be nitpicking if the person in question was an 80 year old grandmother who just got online, but this guy was in charge of setting Internet policies in the US. Can't he call it an "e-mail" and not an "Internet." (Unless his staff really was sending him an interconnected network of computers. I'd like to see the shipping charges on that!)
Or because the mail server was slow. These things happen and they're almost never due to commercial internet traffic slowing things down.
He seems to be of the mind that sites like YouTube just dump their content onto the Internet and it somehow clogs up the works for everyone. The reality is that YouTube, and sites like it, take up 0 content all by themselves. When you request a video from YouTube, the server responds by sending you the video and just that video, not YouTube's entire collection. If a lot of people on your network are viewing a large number of YouTube videos, then, yes, YouTube traffic will account for a fair amount of the total traffic going over the network. However, this traffic is initiated by the user, not the site.
Or, more likely, because the DOD isn't dumb and doesn't want to deliver sensitive and classified information over a public network.
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Re:Series of Tubes (Score:5, Funny)
You also call a computer a "box", but I doubt anyone would think a shoebox can serve the same purpose, or would compare it with one when it comes to getting math problems solved.
Jargon doesn't have to be accurate. It rarely is. How often do you have to search for your data that you put on a "heap" (provided you can code, that is)? How often do you kick your system while you "boot" it? Ever tried to bend or even fold a 3.5" "floppy disc"? Have you ever made out with a port because it's got a female connector? Do you have to keep your cat away from your "mouse"? Ever unlocked your door with something you got from a "keyboard"?
The audience is encouraged to come up with worse jargon abuse.
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Re:Series of Tubes (Score:5, Funny)
He's an 80+ year old Senator
Age is not an automatic criteria for cluelessness
You ignored the part about him being a Senator
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Re:An alaskan perspective... (Score:5, Insightful)
What he is charged with is so petty compared to the greater good he has done that will be a crying shame.
So, you're saying... as long as he keeps the money flowing to you, you are willing to overlook lies and deception? Do you think he's clean as a whistle in all his other dealings, too?
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Re:An alaskan perspective... (Score:5, Insightful)
I love that all the conservatives think I'm a liberal, and all the liberals think I'm conservative.
Anyway, you wrote: "Our state certainly needs to rid itself of corruption. If Stevens is convicted it will be a sad day. What he is charged with is so petty compared to the greater good he has done that will be a crying shame. And entirely his fault. He should of course take the blame for his actions. But that doesn't change the fact that it will hurt the state MORE if he is convicted... the damage comes from the hurt this does to the Republican party in Alaska."
I read you as follows:
Do I have that right?
If so, you are saying, in essence, that as long as he keeps the money [benefits, improvements, etc.] flowing, you are willing to overlook [forgive, sideline, ignore, etc.] lies and deception for the greater good of the Republican party [you]. Right?
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Re:An alaskan perspective... (Score:5, Insightful)
explore and develop our natural resources like oil, gold and copper
? Really? The letter next to your name determines whether you will allow things to be dug out of the ground? Or perhaps its just that adhering to environmental regulations already in place might cut into profits a little?
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Re:Guess I'll have to cancel the trip... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not a damn thing.
If the states are derelict in their responsibility then the citizens of those states can vote in a new state government. If they continue to vote in an irresponsible government that doesn't attend to their needs, then I'm not shedding a tear. People tend to get the government they deserve.
The only time the Feds have an obligation to intervene is when the states are abridging the rights of the citizens of the United States. A state's minority not getting what they want is does not give carte blanche to the Feds to "remedy" the situation.
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Re:Guess I'll have to cancel the trip... (Score:5, Informative)
Didn't that "bridge to nowhere" actually go to the town's AIRPORT? Yep. [wikipedia.org]
Sounds like a legitimate need to me.
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Re:Guess I'll have to cancel the trip... (Score:5, Insightful)
Which was already adequately served by ferry service.
And the ferry service could have been expanded at a fraction of the cost of the bridge.
It was unnecessary pork that signified an enormous disrespect for the idea of spending tax dollars efficiently.
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Re:Guess I'll have to cancel the trip... (Score:5, Insightful)
Citation needed. Badly.
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Re:Guess I'll have to cancel the trip... (Score:5, Informative)
Here's an obnoxiously laid out page that shows many dollars a state received per dollar paid out in 2005. I'm sure you can find a red state/blue state map somewhere and do the comparison yourself.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/266.html [taxfoundation.org]
Actually, if you would compare that to the 2004 election and post red/blue totals, that would be great.
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Re:Guess I'll have to cancel the trip... (Score:5, Informative)
If you want to see balance of payment figures, check this link [northjersey.com] out. New Jersey (my home state), for example, only receives $0.61 for every dollar remitted to the federal government.
Here's [taxfoundation.org] a nice slideshow that shows 25 years of historical BOP rankings for each state (flash required).
The correlation between "red state" and "high ranking in funds received vs. remitted" is extremely strong... I'd seen a map of red/blue states where the data was plugged in that made it ridiculously apparent, but couldn't find the link quickly & can't be bothered to do the same myself right now. I'm sure it's around somewhere if you care to spend some time googling.
Funny, though, how it's primarily due to the higher incomes in the blue states and the progressive tax system... and the Republicans are the ones against a progressive tax system that benefits their states. Just goes to confirm that the rural poor in the US vote against their own economic interests.
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Uh-oh, "hypocrisy" (Score:5, Funny)
There is nothing particularly hypocritical in denouncing, what you think is an awful idea, while milking it for as long as it is forced upon you anyway.
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Re:An Alaskan perspective (Score:5, Informative)
The simple truth is that Ted Stevens has been sent back repeatedly because he is effective at ensuring that Alaskans get overrun as little as possible by the Will of the People (who live SOMEWHERE ELSE), and that when they must bow to the Will of the People From Somewhere Else, that those peolpe pay mightily for the privilege. Ted Stevens has never pretended to have any other mission in the Senate, in fact.
Dear old Ted has been an Alaskan senator for a long time, during which Federal control over Alaska has escalated. He's good at telling you he fights for Alaskan autonomy, not actually doing it.
Incidentally: most of the charges in this case are bullshit, as anybody who thinks about it for a minute can tell you; in a state that is "sparsely populated", exactly how many choices of company do you have for things like home construction? Very few. Who benefits from legislation? Likewise very few people. There are not that many people in these circles; it's difficult to avoid "benefiting" one of them.
The charges revolve around Ted getting tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of goods and services for free. Is that normal? Does that sound legal to you?
Incidentally, I live in another state where people from the rest of the country are called "outsiders," and I've come to find that use of the term correlates very strongly to an inability to see things from other perspectives and think flexibly. The more you recognize that you live in a small part of a large continuum of geographical and cultural diversity, the less you'll fall into the sad trap of dividing the world into Us and Them.
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