fficials at the Fox network announced last week that despite record ratings for the first two rounds of baseball’s postseason, the Yankees-Marlins World Series will be cancelled due to lack of viewer interest. The announcement stunned and disappointed sports fans, who thought Fox was talking about canceling the World Cup. Executives have since issued a statement assuring the viewing public that the little-watched soccer tournament, which appeals to foreign-born Americans and small children who play soccer, will go on as scheduled.

“Our focus group research indicates that watching the Yankees play in the World Series has the same level of audience appeal as watching the Iraqi National Guard gang-rape Mother Theresa,� explained Fox Sports head Walter Lawrie. “And the Marlins’ name recognition ranks comfortably between one-hit wonder Jim Basnight of ‘Sex Teen’ fame and Secretary of Commerce Don Evans. Frankly, if we hadn’t made this announcement, I doubt anyone would have noticed the change.�

Fox executives originally announced that the Yankees-Marlins series would be replaced with footage of the cast of Malcolm in the Middle playing catch in their backyard, interspersed with thousands of commercials for the upcoming Fox shows Skin, Arrested Development and 24. But after focus group research conducted by opening office windows and listening indicated that baseball fans would still be interested in watching a Red Sox-Cubs World Series, rules be damned, a mid-season replacement series was organized.

“Yankees-Marlins was underperforming in several key markets, most notably the entire United States of America,� said Fox spokesperson Lana Rauch. “We were originally taking consolation in the notion that we’d at least get strong numbers out of New York and Miami, but it turns out fans in New York consider anything short of a four-game World Series sweep by the Yankees an unwatchable travesty, and the three Marlins fans don’t live in Nielsen households. So even in those markets, the numbers stank like David Wells’ burp-up rag.�

Network executives hope a Red Sox-Cubs match up will breathe new life into the flagging World Series franchise, which lost some if its luster after last season’s breakout star Barry Bonds was unable to return for the 2003 season due to the failure of his supporting cast. Fox executives attempted to engineer a trade of Bonds to the Cubs after San Francisco’s first-round exit from the playoffs, but Cubs manager Dusty Baker vetoed the trade on the grounds that the 39-year-old Bonds wasn’t old enough to warrant displacing any of Baker’s trusted veteran players.

Fox had gone to great lengths in the preceding weeks to ensure a Red Sox-Cubs World Series, expected by many to be a ratings bonanza. But after succeeding in bombarding the Oakland A’s lineup with microwave radiation in the ALDS and scheduling ALCS Game 4 during a flash flood to prevent Boston Achilles-heel John Burkett from taking the mound, Fox was ultimately thwarted by the Red Sox and Cubs’ own considerable self-destructive quirks, ending up with an albatross series slung stinky-like around their necks.

Some baseball purists have decried the move, which goes beyond Fox’s usual postseason gametime juggling and bizarre scheduling decisions. But when questioned, all admitted they weren’t actually watching the Yankees-Marlins series, they were just tired of waiting for The Simpsons’ Halloween special to air.

eports of persistent anal leakage at the White House gained credibility today when it was learned that current resident and alleged President George W. Bush has consented to a deep intestinal probe to determine the source of those leaks. Said Bush spokesman Scott McClellan, "We're looking at this as sort of a Katie Couric-type fiber optic investigation, and anticipate that there will be quite a market for the subsequent tapes and DVDs."

Speculation has grown about the cause of the leakage, with pundits and politicians alike advancing any number of theories as to its origin. According to one unnamed source, the alleged President has had "a whole lot of Olestra" in his foreign policy lately, while another closely-placed informant theorizes that the extraordinarily unprecedented amount of "mainstream media butt-kissing" is having an adverse effect on the chief executive's digestive system.

"I mean, guys like Chris Matthews, George Will, Robert Novak, Bill O'Reilly, guys like that, they just get all up in there with their smooching and licking and sucking and so on, and who knows where else those lips and tongues have been?" said the aide, who asked not to be identified by name. "That's bound to be unsanitary, at the very least, and could be the whole problem right there."

Asked what could be done to curb such behavior, the source expressed doubt that there would be any changes made in the near future. "You know, the big guy (referring to Bush) just really, really likes that sort of thing. It would be awfully hard for him to quit now, to go cold turkey, especially with an election coming up and his poll numbers dropping."

While the analingus theory was popular among a number of people this reporter spoke with, there was yet another faction that maintained that the leak was a result of Bush's recent changes in diet.

"Ever since that brouhaha with the Old Europeans, he's switched his regular lunch of salad and baked baby Mexican hearts to a heavier Continental fare of cheese-covered surrender monkey souffle topped off with a brace of frog's legs and uncircumcised German weiners," one kitchen worker said. "Besides that, he puts that nasty Russian dressing all over everything, and that can't be doing him any good."

Doctors administering the probe said that they will be on the lookout for signs of all these possible causes and much more. Proctologist Quim Lubricus, M.D., suggested that they hope to find in Bush's upper GI tract, among other things, Air National Guard discharge papers from the early '70s, the correct pronunciation of the word "nuclear," and alleged Vice President Dick Cheney's undisclosed location.

I've never been forthcoming about the commune's history, I freely admit. As far as I was concerned, how we got here isn't an issue. I prefer not to dwell on the past, unless we're talking about the time-traveling carpetbaggers who foiled the Bay of Pigs invasion. When it comes to the commune, where it came from is better off unknown, like the creation of hot dogs. Until recently, that is. With the death of my father Duke Bagel, and the impending legal action by my brother for control of the commune, it's quite clear I need to establish why the commune is mine, no matter what paper and lawyers say.

Unfortunately, this involves the unpleasant history between me and my father, which is the major reason I've not discussed the commune openly with many people before now. It is true my father owned the commune, legally, the original commune and therefore the name and likenesses. To an extent. Father was a wealthynaire, the exact figure of his wealth unknown to virtually everybody. Who knew there was so much money to be made in smoked buffalo meat? Well, my father did. It was no mere accident he began selling the delicious product just before the animal was declared endangered. It was a risky illegal venture, sure, but there's no money to be made in playing it safe, he always used to say.

I was not a blood relation to Duke Bagel, which is to say Duke himself did not give birth to me. I was adopted, a nasty a-word right up there with abortion and Agnes Moorehead, for me. But after my simple beginnings as an island boy, Duke adopted me into the fold and made me a Bagel, just as sure as he was, and always told me I was no better or worse than my brother Gay, except for we were entirely unrelated.

Still, despite my deep affection for the old twisto, I had my destiny set before me. I knew conspiracy and intrigue and getting the truth to the American people would be my path, and not buffalo smoking. This caused a rift between my father we never recovered from. The buffalo smoking empire was left to Gay, his protégé, while I only received one thing from my father, some forgotten old commune once owned by a dumb Indian, which is to say the native couldn't talk, though just between you and me he wasn't all that bright either, to lose it to my dad.

the commune, as it was called, has been mine since that day. If there is any doubt, its humble origins as a refugee from the white man, until a white man swindled the found out of it, was only the starting place. Once I took custody of the commune, a throwaway gift from my father, it was my idea to draw people in with news and columns written on the back of other brochures. From there I found my true calling, and though the names and faces have changed over the years—except for loyal medicine man Sully, who has been our Marketing VP since day one—we have kept spirit to the simple beginnings I created and kept true to one ideal: People will believe anything, if only you tell it to them.

Well, of course, the buffalo smoking empire mostly went down in flames over the years through mismanagement. Gay, in his infinite direct opposite of wisdom, refused to admit mango-flavored smoked buffalo had no future, and entirely screwed himself out of the industry. Dad may have been senile in his final years, but no one was senile enough not to notice. He wished me well in a letter written on a prostitute he sent me, and all but started clearly the commune was mine. And he was proud of me, sort of.

However, this is not enough for Gay. Even if he is my brother, though unrelated, I will not roll over in the interest of family peace and allow him to wrest from my control what I have worked so hard and worked others into their graves to build. the commune is all that I have in the world, and the millions I made from our underground casino, and I refuse to give it up. Or the casino. If Gay wants to take it from me, he's got a fight before him.

And now, I request a moment of silence for my dead dad. You can talk if you want to, but make sure you write and tell me you were silent for a bit. I appreciate it.

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