Yesterday was Alaska Senator Ted Stevens' worst birthday ever: he turned 85, and lost his reelection fight! You commit seven little felony counts of fraud and making false statements, sheesh. The AP called the race for Democratic challenger Mark Begich last night, as he leads by 3,724 votes, with 46.58% of the Alaska electorate not even caring that their million-term senator is a convicted felon and voting for him anyway. Now we officially don't have to write about him anymore, until Alaska voters give his corrupt son Ben a seat in congress. Now the magical 60-seat majority is up to Al Franken's recount (possible!) and the Jim Martin/Saxby Chambliss runoff in Georgia (difficult!). Then the Democrats will do everything you've always wanted them to do. [NYT]

Peter Braunstein, the former WWD writer who went psycho and turned into a rapist on the run a couple years back, has been sentenced to 23 years in prison in Ohio. That's after he finishes his 18-to-life bid in NY. He called himself a "Hamlet character," complained about the "absurdist quality" of the trial, and promised to orchestrate his own murder in jail, preferably before Christmas. So, still crazy. [NYDN]

Comedy ensued on MSNBC last night when pundit Tucker Carlson happily admitted that when a guy hit on him in a men's room in Georgetown, he went back with "someone I knew and grabbed him... and hit him against the stall with his head." Then the cops came and arrested the gay dude. But not Tucker! The laughs just keep coming; MSNBC top exec (um, and lawyer) Dan Abrams and chatshow host Joe Scarborough were besides themselves with giggles. We're no lawyers ourselves, but didn't Tucker just confess to an actual crime on air?