Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, the longest standing Republican in the Senate and previously famous for his absolute idiocy in the face of technology - including making the stunning assertion that the internet is “not a big truck” but is in fact “a series of tubes” - has been indicted on seven felony counts of concealing more than a quarter of a million dollars in house renovations and gifts from an oil contractor:

The Justice Department accused Stevens of accepting expensive work on his home in Girdwood, Alaska, a ski resort town outside Anchorage, from oil services contractor VECO Corp. and its executives. VECO normally builds oil processing equipment and pipelines, but its employees helped do the work on Stevens’ home.

Prosecutors said that work included a new first floor, garage, wraparound deck, plumbing and electrical wiring. He also is accused of accepting from VECO a Viking gas grill, furniture and tools, and of failing to report swapping an old Ford for a new Land Rover to be driven by one of his children.

From May 1999 to August 2007, prosecutors said, the senator concealed “his continuing receipt of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of things of value from a private corporation.”

Move over Hedgehog, US Federal Appeals Court Judge Alex Kozinski is my new porno hero. Because of his personal web site, which includes a few “adult” images purportedly uploaded by his son, Kozinski has suspended the obscenity trial he was overseeing.

From my pal the BBC:

Mr Kozinski granted a joint prosecution and defence motion to suspend the trial after prosecutors asked for time to explore a potential conflict of interest.
It came after Mr Kozinski admitted in an interview published on the Los Angeles Times website that he had posted the material and shared some of it with friends.
Earlier, jurors had spent hours watching videos of bestiality and extreme fetishes that were evidence in the trial of Ira Isaacs, a Los Angeles businessman.
Everyone in the family stores stuff there, and I had no idea what some of the stuff is or was
Judge Alex Kozinski
Mr Kozinski told the newspaper that he thought most of the material on his website was “funny” but acknowledged some of it was inappropriate.