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.

Please, George, watch that disgusting mouth of yours. Nobody cares if it's the truth, they don't want to hear it anyway. The truth is not always beautiful, George, and in this case, it's positively sickening.

Do you really think anybody wants to hear about your medical history, your sexual proclivities, or a combination of either? No, George. Giving you the simplest, quickest answer: No, they don't. That sound you hear isn't the whisper of a freshly-created buzz, or catty town gossip. It's dry-heaving, and you've caused it, George.

Let's assume for one second you even had a reasonable excuse to mention you've recently begun taking that Cialis drug—and that's a big enough if, George. Bypassing that, was the look of disgust some clear signal you should proceed with the story, adding even more detail and description when possible? I think not. Did the way my face flushed red and the gasp that came out of my mouth, did these things beg for elaboration on your fascinating story about the dick pills? Because I personally fail to see the encouragement.

I was watching the crowd reaction, perhaps better than you were, and I didn't see anyone asking to hear about your erectile dysfunction, either with words, facial expressions, or body language. It's possible, I suppose, given that my eyesight is not what it used to be, some schmuck far in the back of the crowded room wore a T-shirt asking for you to tell us more about your floppy phallus, but we've had discussions before about you following the advice of a T-shirt before, so that certainly can't be it.

Maybe you assumed, incorrectly, people would be fascinated with the articulate description of your medical exam. Nope, George, a resounding nope. The image forced upon our minds of a doctor with his hands squeezing your furry scrotum is only slightly more appetizing that the unwelcome imagined sight of you with your pants around your ankles, your withered drumstick cranking up for action.

And if it needs saying, thank you so much for dragging me into your embarrassing reality. The fact we showed up together to the soiree, even forgetting our marriage of seemingly endless years, automatically leads people to assume you would be using that deadly medicated erection on yours truly. Did I warrant your hate so much as to make people think we have sex together? Not even on our best day together, George, not with a belly full of booze and a borrowed dick. But I hardly had time to explain that, did I? Agnes was too busy asking us to leave for me to assure her you and I have never even been naked in the same room together. And if only I could have gone a few more years, I'm sure death would have claimed me and I would have avoided the ugly prospect of having to imagine you unclothed. I want to check with your mother, bless her piteous soul, and make sure you actually were born naked. Even God would not be so cruel as to do that to a woman—perhaps you emerged from the woman with a seersucker suit made of placenta. It's the one thought that gives me hope for a heaven.

Everyone at the party lived in a happier world before you arrived. The mere notion that something resembling a penis lives in your pants is more than anyone should have to live with. I can never go back to the childlike innocence I once held, and even saying the word "erection" should bring me post-traumatic flashbacks for the rest of my life. A life, by the by, which will be dedicated to making you one hundred percent miserable from now on, of course. The game starts here, you dangling dandy.

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