For those of you who haven’t picked up the Washington Post or New York Times today, a scandal is rocking the US political scene. Alaskan senator Ted Stevens, the Senate’s longest-serving Republican ever, has been indicted on seven counts of perjury for taking over $250,000 in undisclosed gifts from Veco Oil.

The gifts apparently include a new first floor for his house (which was added, extravagantly, by lifting the entire house off the ground), and a Viking range grill, which any American will tell you is a very nice grill indeed.

A good BBQ set may have been one reason why the 84-year-old senator campaigned relentlessly (and ultimately in vain) to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. He was much hated by environmentalists, although he had recently begun supporting one version of climate change legislation that has been circulating congress over the past year or so.

But “Uncle Ted” is really famous for funneling US tax dollars up north. Most memorably, Stevens pushed hard for a $400 million “bridge to nowhere” that would have connected the city of Ketchican Ketchikan to nearby Garvina Island. But he was also a capricious funder of science… so long as it was in the great State of Alaska.

We’ve written about a few of his pet projects: a massive, $120 million dollar study of stellar steller sea-lions that yielded little, and a giant antenna known as the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), which is studying the aurora. A lot of people, though, suspected it was some kind of government mind-control project.

Interestingly enough, one of those people is Nick Begich, the brother of Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich (Democrat), who might win Steven’s seat in the Senate if he resigns. If that were to happen, it could spell big trouble for HAARP.