Ted Kennedy, I.P.

Katherine Mangu-Ward | August 26, 2009

In an effort to speak well of the dead, a note about the late Sen. Ted Kennedy's stealth geekiness (or his staff's anyway, which can amount to the same thing when you are a political abstraction): 

Fifteen years ago, Ted Kennedy became the first Senator to communicate with constituents over the Internet. Back in 1993, this was no small feat. At the time there were no congressional offices connected to the Internet. (The House launched a pilot program on June 2, 1993, hooking up seven members to an Internet network.) One dedicated staffer and the technology hubs of MIT and other top-level educational institutions made Kennedy into the first digital Senator.

Reliable bill text is hard to come by so far in this round of health care reform. Until something more substantial is available, we will have to content ourselves with browsing old usenet group postings for the HillaryCare text—which we can do thanks to old Teddy!:

Kennedy’s office also used the bulletin board to post the text of legislation for review, most notably the release of health care legislation prepared by Kennedy’s committee on the eve of President Bill Clinton’s big health care speech to Congress. Casey later worked with MIT to get the Kennedy bulletin board groups posted into usenet groups (ne.politics and talk.politics.misc). A year later … Kennedy launched the first official Web site for a Senate office.

R.I.P., Kennedy's I.P. address.

Via the Sunlight Foundation

Comments

Naga Sadow|8.26.09 @ 3:25PM|#

So who's gonna ram a stake through his heart in order to confirm the kill?

Xeones|8.26.09 @ 3:35PM|#

That was your assignment, Naga. Didn't you get the memo from Headquarters?

|8.26.09 @ 3:37PM|#

I remember reading an oped in the Washington Post authored by Ted Kennedy. And while I guess it's pretty gangster to get your op-ed in the Washington Post, I can't say I admired this guy's flow.

Ska|8.26.09 @ 3:41PM|#

Forget staking, let's have Mr. Kennedy "meet the sun." Step 1 - find some wood strong enough to hold that bloated corpse.

Step 2 has nothing to do with putting your junk in that box, Naga.

|8.26.09 @ 3:43PM|#

I LOVE Justin Timberlake. Awesome talent.

Xeones|8.26.09 @ 3:49PM|#

Forget staking, let's have Mr. Kennedy "meet the sun."

He's so pickled he'd go up like a Roman candle. The man's alcohol had a blood content, nah mean?

¢|8.26.09 @ 3:49PM|#

Forget staking,

Because his ribcage will be too slippery with rotting tit-fat to get a stake in.

We have to nuke Massachussets.

We always had to.

|8.26.09 @ 4:05PM|#

We have to nuke Massachussets.

Just Hyannis Port, while they are all in the same place.

B|8.26.09 @ 4:07PM|#

I think I overheard the Kopechne family state they finally had some closure.

|8.26.09 @ 4:08PM|#

We have to nuke Massachussets.

From orbit.

Jerry|8.26.09 @ 4:08PM|#

To celebrate, i'm going to download a dead kennedys song and wake up the neighbours.

Naga Sadow|8.26.09 @ 4:10PM|#

Xeones, you fool! I told you to upgrade from your Mac to a PC! I can't read those emails! This is on your head! Even now Ted is rising from his morgue slab to feast on the blood of the living!

Naga Sadow|8.26.09 @ 4:11PM|#

We have to nuke Massachussets.

From orbit.

It's the only way to be sure.

|8.26.09 @ 4:14PM|#

Jerry,

Dead Kennedys played numerous shows at local venues afterwards. Due to the band's provocative name, they sometimes played under pseudonyms, including "The Sharks", "The Creamsicles" and "The Pink Twinkies". The name generated controversy. Wrote San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen in 1978, "Just when you think tastelessness has reached its nadir, along comes a punk rock group called The Dead Kennedys, which will play at Mabuhay Gardens on Nov. 22, the 15th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination. Despite mounting protests, the owner of Mabuhay says 'I can't cancel them NOW - there's a contract.' Not, apparently, the kind of contract some people have in mind."[1] However, despite popular belief, the name was not meant to insult the assassinated Kennedy brothers, but to quote Biafra, "to bring attention to the end of the American Dream".[2] 6025 left the band in March 1979. In June 1979, the band released their first single, "California Über Alles", on the Alternative Tentacles label. They followed with a well received East Coast tour.

Hier

Xeones|8.26.09 @ 4:18PM|#

Naga, i've told you a million times: that is a fishtank, not the monitor of your computer.

Anyway, it wasn't emailed. Like all libertarian correspondence, it was tattooed on the forehead of one of the undeserving poor, then launched at your house with a trebuchet.

T|8.26.09 @ 4:22PM|#

SF,

I think this is the most appropriate DK song to mark the passing of Spongeted.

|8.26.09 @ 4:23PM|#

Trebuchet's are for sissies too afraid to use compressed air.

"Oh, look. The counterweight swings just like a purse. Tee-hee-hee."

|8.26.09 @ 4:25PM|#

T,

Spot on.

It's fashionable to hate on the DKs nowadays, but the people who gave us the line "Take out your fucking retainer and put it in your purse" deserve to be remembered forever.

T|8.26.09 @ 4:26PM|#

Trebuchet's are for sissies too afraid to use compressed air.

Them's fighting words, SF. A trebuchet is a man's device. Air cannons are for sissies who can't design a support structure. Any jackass can buy a length of pipe and some valves.

|8.26.09 @ 4:28PM|#

Any jackass can buy a length of pipe and some valves.

Horse pucky. Sabot or go home!

Xeones|8.26.09 @ 4:33PM|#

Guys, guys, quit fighting and try to remember the original point, which is that Naga is grossly incompetent.

|8.26.09 @ 4:34PM|#

which is that Naga is grossly incompetent

How could I forget? My dry cleaning is a mess.

Federal Dog|8.26.09 @ 4:37PM|#

"We have to nuke Massachussets.

Just Hyannis Port, while they are all in the same place."

Nah. Trust me. The whole place has got to blow.

T|8.26.09 @ 4:40PM|#

Horse pucky. Sabot or go home!

Bah. Quantity has a quality all it's own. Try launching an engine block with an air cannon. Pain in the ass, isn't it? You can launch anything with a trebuchet as long your counterweight is big enough. Engine blocks, a hundredweight of cow manure, a dead senator... anything!

|8.26.09 @ 4:44PM|#

You can launch anything with a trebuchet as long your counterweight swinging gay purse that is totally gay is big enough.

FTFY

|8.26.09 @ 4:47PM|#

Oh, and:

"big enough"

Size queen.

Naga Sadow|8.26.09 @ 4:47PM|#

For the last time, SugarFree! No tickee, no laundry!

|8.26.09 @ 4:48PM|#

I will end you.

Naga Sadow|8.26.09 @ 4:48PM|#

Xeones,

Grossly? I read that sentence and that was the only part I was wondering about.

Xeones|8.26.09 @ 4:56PM|#

Oh Naga, why you got to make me cut'n'paste the dictionary for you? Applicable portions are bolded:

gross (grōs)
adj. gross·er, gross·est


1. Exclusive of deductions; total: gross profits. See Synonyms at whole.
2. Unmitigated in any way; utter: gross incompetence.
3. Brutishly coarse, as in behavior; crude: "It is futile to expect a hungry and squalid population to be anything but violent and gross" (Thomas H. Huxley).
4. Offensive; disgusting.
5. Lacking sensitivity or discernment; unrefined:
6. Carnal; sensual.
7. Overweight; corpulent.
8. Dense; profuse.

gross'er n., gross'ly adv., gross'ness n.

|8.26.09 @ 4:58PM|#

I fought Newton's Law of Gravity, and I won,

I fought Constitution Law, and I won,

I fought Natural law,


and Nature won.

T|8.26.09 @ 4:58PM|#

Only you would fetishize a quarter-ton of steel plate into a purse. You're projecting again. Just because you can't see an item which spews forth projectiles without descending into the twisted hell of your submissive transvestite fantasies doesn't mean the rest of us are similarly afflicted.

Naga Sadow|8.26.09 @ 5:01PM|#

That dictionary is wrong. Utter should be udder. Get your facts straight, Xeones. ;)

|8.26.09 @ 5:01PM|#

Are the bolded definitions relevant to Naga (try using that Sith mastery you bumbling turd), or the erstwhile Uncle Teddy (too soon)?

Naga Sadow|8.26.09 @ 5:02PM|#

T,

Your gonna end up looking pwned in one of SugarFree's stories. The blog doesn't lie.

T|8.26.09 @ 5:03PM|#

Are the bolded definitions relevant to Naga (try using that Sith mastery you bumbling turd), or the erstwhile Uncle Teddy (too soon)?

Yes.

Naga Sadow|8.26.09 @ 5:08PM|#

try using that Sith mastery you bumbling turd

I think that was aimed at me . . . *scratches head*

|8.26.09 @ 5:19PM|#

I don't know T, I think Sug has a point.

Trebuchet? Even the name sounds gay.

Oh HI! It's me! Tre-bu-CHET!

T|8.26.09 @ 5:33PM|#

I don't know T, I think Sug has a point.

Trebuchet? Even the name sounds gay.

Oh HI! It's me! Tre-bu-CHET!

Any device which can sling plague-laden horse corpses at your enemies is not gay, no matter what the name sounds like.

|8.26.09 @ 5:38PM|#

Anyway, it wasn't emailed. Like all libertarian correspondence, it was tattooed on the forehead of one of the undeserving poor, then launched at your house with a trebuchet.

Say, that's pretty funny. You could always just say ballista or catapult if you don't a likee the Frencha peoples.

|8.26.09 @ 5:44PM|#

You can keep your sissy ballistas ProL. I'll stick with my mighty siege engine.

Which, I might add, does not sound gay at all. In fact, it's a good name for a metal band.

T|8.26.09 @ 5:57PM|#

In fact, it's a good name for a metal band.

Or a gay porn flick set in a Medieval castle. Whichever.

|8.26.09 @ 6:02PM|#

Well, there's onager. Better still, there's mangonel. Which, incidentally, would make a good name for a metal band: Mangonel, live in concert! Or maybe in the Latin: Manganum, P.I.

|8.26.09 @ 6:08PM|#

Hey! I wonder what they're talking about in the Kennedy email thread?

What the...?

|8.26.09 @ 6:12PM|#

:::shakes fist at T::::

|8.26.09 @ 6:30PM|#

Why would you shake your fist when you have a perfectly good mangonel?

Mary Jo|8.26.09 @ 6:37PM|#

Will he be sent out to sea like Jr.?

BakedPenguin|8.26.09 @ 6:50PM|#

See ya later, legislator.

Perhaps, in the spirit of coming-together-ness, which I know all the fucking pundits (and all of Teddah's political groupie fucks) are going to claim was a huge part of Teddah's legacy, we here can simply agree that his remains should be flung far, and high.