After a 238-day feud over who would be the next state senator of Minnesota, the Republican incumbent, Norm Coleman, finally conceded to his rival, Al Franken, a Democrat, comedian, and political pundit and activist.

For months, it's seemed as if Coleman just didn't want to give in out of principle, despite the increasingly obvious fact that he'd been licked. He waged a nearly tireless legal battle against Franken, and the recount that ensued made that fiasco in Florida back in 2000 look like small potatoes.

But now that it's over, Franken has become the 58th Democrat now serving in the U.S. Senate. Just two more seats and the Democrats will have a filibuster-proof majority -- something that hasn't existed since 1981.

Here Coleman tries to save face by wishing his former rival well, but maintains that he fought a good fight for the past eight months. Maybe he did, but partisan politics aside, if you're done, you're done. Insisting otherwise only slows the machinery of politics and prevents the senator-elect from focusing on the work to be done. Thank god it's over.

About 15 hours after official word that Michael Jackson was dead ricocheted around the world last week, I realized something about what makes the headlines -- and it had nothing to do with Farrah Fawcett or Ed McMahon getting short shrift.

I was in a public space with two large TVs tuned to CNN on Friday, and news of MJ was everywhere. He dominated the front page of the Times and every other paper that morning, too. The subway was full of people reading articles about him. And above ground, he's all anyone seemed to be talking about.

Then it occurred to me: if Michael Jackson hadn't died, we all would have instead been talking and reading about one of the country's front-runners for the Republican ticket in the 2012 presidential election, and how he used tax payers' money to visit his mistress in Argentina. We'd have been talking about how he publicly denounced such behavior in other politicians just a few years ago, revealing himself to be a hypocrite who's arrogant enough to believe he could get away with it.

Mark Sanford, the governor of South Carolina who went missing over Father's Day weekend, only to turn up a few days later claiming that he'd been hiking the Appalachian Trail, was the hot story on Thursday morning. He had just confessed to his affair, and a case was mounting against him for all the betrayals and hypocrisies listed above. What's more, the GOP had just lost someone it was calling one of its strongest contenders against Barack Obama just three years from now.

But by the next day, he was a sidebar, and the news -- TV, newspapers, blogs, and chit-chat around the water cooler -- was all Michael.

You've no doubt seen Barack Obama dressed up as Superman on many a handmade posters, flyers and T-shirts. The folks at JibJab seem to ask, Why does he have to be a stand-in for the man of steel? He's Barack Obama! No allusions to other superheroes necessary.

But let's be fair. I believe in equal air time as much as the next American. So lest anyone accuse me of being partisan, here's JibJab on our former Commander-in-Chief, W:

After days of criticism for not taking a hard stance against the violence and election controversy in Iran over the past week, President Obama has made his position clear: While it is not up to the United States to tell the Iranian people who their leaders should be, it is within the United States' rights to object unequivocally to the violation of international norms and principles against violence.

The Daily Beast offers this abbreviated version of what that site considers the most important part of the president's press conference on Tuesday. The rest of the conference can be seen at CNN.com.

According to a recent edition of the International Herald Tribune, world leaders gathered at the Copenhagen Climate Summit and collectively vowed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They say they were inspired by the massive protests around the world, and especially thanked the people who were arrested at those protests for their dedication to the environmental cause.

Yes, the issue was recently printed, but according to its date of publication, the news it reports hasn't happened yet. Dated December 19th, 2009, the special edition of the IHT, a product of the New York Times Company, is a hoax. There's even an extensive -- and utterly convincing -- online version.

Produced by the Yes Men, who brought us a special edition of the Times last fall declaring the end of the war in Iraq, this latest piece of good news represents not reality, but the pranksters' hope for what could be reality if certain people in power chose to make it so.

Of course, it's not so easy as uniting French president Nicolas Sarkozy, German chancellor Angela Merkel and European commission president Jose Manuel Barroso, pictured above, in a sing-along for the planet, but it's also not so far-fetched as to be unfeasible.

The Yes Men, dedicated as much affecting actual change as they are to pulling pranks, are directing people to BeyondTalk a site where visitors can learn how to really make a difference about climate change.

[Image: AFP Photo/Eric Feferberg]