back to article 'Series of tubes' senator indicted for false statements

Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in the US Senate, was indicted today for making false statements to federal prosecutors. These statements do not include his claim that the internet is "a series of tubes." As the Associated Press reports, Stevens is accused of falsifying his annual Senate financial disclosure …

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  1. skeptical i
    Thumb Up

    Bridges to nowhere, receipts are nowhere ...

    ... he's a real nowhere man, eh? Can't say I'm sorry to hear that one of the bigger pigs at the taxpayer- funded boondoggle trough got his curly tail pinched.

  2. Stef
    Unhappy

    Wow!!!

    A gas-grill, some furniture, and some power tools.

    How embarissing.

    If you are going to get accused of accepting bribes, you would at least want it to be something like 50 kilos of cocaine or a diamond prostitute.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Inquiring minds want to know...

    ...when he's going to be taken to task for TubeGate. That particular meme has caused so much braindamage that there's bound to be a criminal investigation hiding in there somewhere. Although "intartubes" is a quite nice word...

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Tubin'

    I don't get why the tube analogy is so ridiculed, we regularly talk about "pipes".

    Buffers get referred to as "buckets" and there's no better analogy for the internet than a bunch of tubes pumping crap into a bucket.

    In fact "pipe" is a riskier choice given the French...

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    re interwebs

    He seem to have more of a clue then most net neutrality and other politicans who think the interwebs is made out of magic pixie dust.

  6. Eddie Edwards
    Paris Hilton

    Remind me

    Why is the internet *unlike* a series of tubes? Why is that statement laughable?

    Paris, coz she's as confused as I am.

  7. Dr Patrick J R Harkin

    Series of tubes?

    Idiot. It's all transistorised these days...

  8. Anonymous Coward
    IT Angle

    Gobbledygook

    The Internet a series of tubes ?! Nonsense ! Anyone who knows anything knows that the Internet is a series of hops from one shrine to another, hops that are made by tireless Energizer bunnies carrying data in their wicker baskets.

    Must I always spell out everything ?

  9. Hollerith

    bought for a song

    As said above, he was bribed with a new car, gas grill and furniture? How pathetically picayune and second-rate. He doesn't even have the swaggering greed of a true rogue. He's just penny-ante.

    I would have liked to have heard the conversation of the VECO Corp employees who arranged for the delivery of the swag, and who may, for all I know, have delivered it themselves. They must have had to swallow hard not to show their contemptuous sneers for a public official who could be bought, and bought so cheaply.

  10. Robin Bradshaw
    Boffin

    I quite like the tubes analogy

    And the magic of tubes is if you make them really really strong and ramp up the pressure you can pump enormous amounts of crap into gigantic buckets, a bit like fibre to the home.

    Porn at lightspeed! Its the way of the future, a very long way into the future if BT has anything to do with it.

  11. Richard Porter
    Dead Vulture

    Series of tubes?

    Of course the internet is a series of tubes. I'm sucking one right now.

  12. TeeCee Gold badge
    Paris Hilton

    @Stef

    A diamond prostitute?

    You know someone with a todger capable of cutting diamond? Do tell!

    Paris, because, er, nevermind, the legal boys are making throat-slitting gestures at me from offstage.

  13. Stephen
    Go

    i'll take what he got....

    from CNN:

    "In the indictment, Stevens is charged with lying about receiving gifts worth more than $250,000 from Veco, an Alaska-based energy company on whose behalf he intervened in Washington."

    "The indictment says the home improvements provided by Veco and its chief executive officer, Bill Allen, a "personal friend of Stevens," included a new first floor, a new garage, a new first- and second-story wraparound deck, new plumbing and new wiring."

    it's not the paltry sum most of you seem to think...

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    TeeCee

    You know someone with a todger capable of cutting diamond? Do tell!

    I'm not not getting Mr. wanky near that. Now if you are covering to Judaism and need the tip snipped, there you go.

  15. Mark

    re: re interwebs

    Is that you, Orlowski?

  16. Chris
    Boffin

    Read the article

    before making dumb comments. The company made extensive renovations (hundreds of thousands of dollars worth) to his home, AND gave him a gas grill, furniture, etc. (including a Land Rover).

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What I don't get

    Is why they HAVEN'T indicted him on bribery charges. If you listen to the press release, the prosecutors were very specific on that point. It's more as if they've got him on a few technicalities. Now the technicalities may add up to vast sums of money, and thus be worthy of criminal investigation, but it seems a bit weak imo to indict someone for filling out his forms wrongly.

    Seems to me his immediate get out of jail card will be to say he has so much in the way of bribes and backhanders going his way, he simply forgot to send the receipts for this lot to his accountants. In other words he included the millions, but forgot the pocket change.

    As for the pork, well yes, I live in Alaska and it is difficult for people outside to understand the harsh conditions and the cost of building in an area of the world that is a bit less than forgiving if you make a mistake. Communities that literally depend on billion dollar bridges for their survival are quite big supporters of this guy.

    But the time for taking money from the cash-strapped continental US to build our infrastructure is long gone. We are the richest state in the union. We actually turn a profit, and a very nice one at that. So we can afford to build our own bridges to nowhere. Actually it wasn't nowhere, it was a small town of only a few hundred, who's access to civilisation meant driving hundreds of miles along the coast line in a big loop - hence the bridge to give them a bit of a shortcut should they need to do things like buy food and clothes. The truth is that most pork actually has significant benefit to the state that receives it. Allowing a small community to drive 10-20 miles to go grocery shopping as opposed to hundreds seemed like a good idea, but we are quite capable of funding that shortcut ourselves.

    To give you some idea of how well Alaska is doing right now, we haven't had the need for income taxes or sales tax (the US equivalent of VAT) for over 20 years.

    Not only that but we give everyone who lives here a dividend check based on the profits the taxes we get from oil makes on the stock market over a 5 year period. That means a family of four can receive between $2000 and $8000 a year (the usual dividend being somewhere between $500 and $2000). In other words our local government pays taxes to the people. A better way of doing things don't you think? Wouldn't you rather the government added taxes to your paycheck rather than took them from it? Perhaps people living in California, Florida and Texas ought to ask their state governments why they don't get the same deal from their oil revenues... particularly as oil seems to be doing quite well at the moment.

  18. ian

    "I never >knowingly< made false statements..."

    Yes, bend over, here it comes again. Obviously it was just an oversight. No doubt any proof of guilt will have been dumped over the side of his bridge to nowhere- soon to be renamed the bridge to freedom.

    Like a bridge over troubled waters....

  19. Ian Borge
    Alien

    Hey, lighten up !!

    He said a few months ago that he "paid every bill that was sent to me".

    I kid you knot.

    ET cos he's from the same planet.

  20. Francis Boyle Silver badge

    Hardly a technicality

    Since it's notoriously difficult to prove in a court of law that a gift is a bribe most jurisdictions simply require taht public officials declare gifts over a certain value and leave it to the court of public opinion. The corollary, of course, is that if you don't declare a gift the presumption is that it is a bribe and you've got a lot of explaining to do.

    PS, if you think that "the internet is a series of tubes" makes sense, read the transcript. This guy make Dubya look like JFK.

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