"My clients are hoping for a heroic rescue and a percentage of the adjusted gross," said Ian Whitestone of the William Morris Agency, who is representing the self-trapped miners in their Hollywood dealings.

The stakes are high for the so-called "copycat" miners, who are trying to land not only a movie deal but also seven-figure paydays for trapped-miner video games, action figures, and a possible sitcom or Broadway musical.

But with several Hollywood studios and broadcast networks taking "pitches" from the trapped miners via conference calls yesterday, the initial results were somewhat less than encouraging.

"I heard their whole story, and I thought they needed a new ending," said Stacy Conant, a production vice president at Paramount Pictures. "Right now, all that happens is they get rescued. I was like, So what? It seemed a little tired to me."

Bob Littlesmith, a programming executive at ABC, agreed: "Their whole pitch kind of fell off at the end. It definitely needs a twist. Maybe they could eat each other or something."

For his part, William Morris' Whitestone said his clients would do whatever it takes to score a deal based on their self-inflicted ordeal.

"My clients are completely open to the idea of not being rescued, and are currently exploring the idea of eating each other," Mr. Whitestone said.

Hollywood executives called the stories pitched by copycat miners "derivative."

BUSH: SADDAM BOUGHT GERANIUMS, NOT URANIUM.

White House Defends War Decision Based on Typo In an extraordinary retraction of key elements in his last State of the Union address, President George W. Bush revealed today that Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein did not attempt to buy uranium in Africa, as earlier alleged, but merely geraniums.

"As I was reading the speech to the nation, I should have caught that typo," the President told reporters today. "My bad."

While the news about the uranium/geranium goof stunned diplomatic circles, Mr. Bush remained resolute about his decision to go to war, arguing that buying geraniums, while not as potentially dangerous as buying uranium, still represented a "suspicious" activity on the part of the Iraqi madman.

Saddam may have sought deadly geraniums (pictured) in Africa.

"The question we have to ask is, who was he buying these geraniums for?" Mr. Bush said. "Was he buying them for Osama bin Laden or Kim Jong II or some other evildoer? Luckily, we'll never find out."

Mr. Bush said that, thanks to Operation Iraqi Freedom, "Saddam Hussein is no longer free to terrorize the world with his evil flower-buying sprees."

While the President may have been trying to quell international criticism, his comments instead sparked more controversy, as French President Jacques Chirac challenged the U.S. to find evidence of geraniums anywhere in Iraq.

In response, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said that while the U.S. had yet to turn up any concrete evidence of geraniums, U.S. forces had uncovered several "suspicious" empty flowerpots outside of Basra.

Asked by reporters about the flowerpots, Mr. Bush gave a thumbs-up gesture and said, "Mission accomplished."

QWEST SELLS YELLOW PAGES FOR $7 BILLION; HIGHEST PRICE EVER PAID FOR FREE ITEM FOUND IN DRIVEWAY.

Phone Book's Price Tag Surprises Many at Company's Yard Sale Embattled telecom giant Qwest Communications sold the Yellow Pages yesterday for $7.05 billion, believed to be the highest price ever paid for a free item found in the driveway.

The surprising ten-figure sale occurred at a company yard sale held to avert a bankruptcy filing, said Roy Helton, a Qwest employee who helped run the yard sale.

"We were just throwing stuff in the back of our Explorer to bring it to the yard sale, and my wife said, 'Hey, how about those Yellow Pages?'" Mr. Helton said, referring to a phone directory that had just been delivered and was still sitting in the driveway.

"So I said, 'Sure, what the hey,' but I never thought in a million years that anyone would buy it," Mr. Helton said. "n.o.body ever pays for the Yellow Pages-they're free."

Contrary to his expectations, Mr. Helton said, the Yellow Pages were snapped up at the yard sale by the Carlyle Group and Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe.

"To say I was surprised that they paid several billion for a phone book is putting it mildly," he said. "There were perfectly good copying machines and printers sitting right next to it on the table."

Qwest stunned a.n.a.lysts with the $7 billion it received for a phone book it sold at a company yard sale.

On Wall Street, telecom a.n.a.lyst Carla Bollinger of Credit Suisse First Boston said that the $7 billion price tag garnered by the Yellow Pages may inspire troubled companies to sell other free items found in driveways, such as supermarket circulars and Chinese takeout menus.

U.S. SENDS UDAY AND QUSAY'S HEADS ON 21-CITY TOUR

"Not Gloating," Cautions Rumsfeld In an extraordinary attempt to convince the Iraqi people that fallen madmen Uday and Qusay Hussein are dead, the U.S. today announced plans to send the heads of the evil brothers on a twenty-one-city tour of Iraq later this week.

The despised heads are scheduled to make stops in Mosul, Basra, Tikrit and the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, returning to Baghdad at the end of August.

At the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld denied that the extensive showings of the Hussein brothers' heads const.i.tuted gloating on the part of the U.S., and said that T-shirts, b.u.mper stickers and beverage cups bearing the images of the two evildoers would be "tasteful."

Dismissing charges of gloating, Mr. Rumsfeld said, "It would be gloating if I danced a jig around the heads while stark naked, and there are no plans at the present time for me to do that."

The upcoming tour must convince a highly skeptical Iraqi populace that the two Hussein brothers are in fact dead, as a recent poll finds that 94 percent of all Iraqis believe that the heads shown on TV were not those of Uday and Qusay, but were instead part of a really bad makeover show.

In other dismemberment news, the right hand of Senator Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) fell off today after a three-hour book signing of her bestseller, Living History, at a San Francis...o...b..rnes & n.o.ble bookstore.

In Baghdad, an Iraqi citizen responded to the news that Uday and Qusay Hussein's heads would go on a twenty-one-city tour.

Ms. Clinton was rushed to an area hospital for treatment while her hand remained at the store and signed books for another forty-five minutes.

BASEBALL TAKES BOLD STEPS TO ALIENATE REMAINING FANS.

Commissioner Selig Declares All Future Games "a Tie"

Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig announced today that Major League Baseball is about to take a series of bold steps with the stated goal of alienating its remaining fans forever.

"At baseball stadiums across the country, it is too hard to find parking spots, and one must wait on long lines for beer and bathrooms," Mr. Selig said. "All of these problems have the same source: simply put, the sport has too many fans."

As Mr. Selig's first step in his plan to achieve contraction of baseball's fan base, the commissioner declared all games to be played for the remainder of the 2002 season a tie.

"The score's tied, fans, so please, don't watch the game," Mr. Selig said. "Watch wrestling or NASCAR instead."

In addition, Mr. Selig said, it would now take nine strikes to strike out a batter instead of the traditional three, a rule-change aimed at making the average game six and a half hours long.

These changes, along with the outlawing of home runs and stolen bases, should reduce baseball's popularity to the level of badminton or curling, Mr. Selig promised.

In addition, the commissioner said, the traditional seventh-inning stretch will now entail the playing of a thirty-minute section from rocker Lou Reed's alb.u.m Metal Machine Music, during which time stadium ushers will move about the stands poking spectators with sharp sticks.

In an effort to alienate its few remaining fans, Major League Baseball plans to make ticketholders wait for hours and then spray them with fire hoses before permitting them to enter the stadium.

KIM'S BLOG One thing you may not know about yours truly is that over the years I have been an enormous fan of American baseball. Fidel Castro turned me onto the sport many years ago at a meeting of the Council of Evil (this was before we changed our name to the scarier-sounding "Axis"-"Council" made us sound like a f.u.c.king trade a.s.sociation).

A couple of years later, Castro convinced me to join a rotisserie league he was in. During baseball season, I used to spend almost as much time updating the stats of my rotisserie team as I did restarting dormant nuclear reactors. I used to take a lot of s.h.i.t for this around the office, I can tell you that!

In recent years, though, much of the fun of the sport of baseball has been drained out of it, largely due to the widespread use of steroids. When players who might have hit only ten home runs a year now routinely hit fifty or sixty, the uniqueness of the achievement is gone. It's like, what would be the fun of having ninety long-range ballistic missiles if you found out that South Korea had ninety big ones, too? It's enough to make you want to blow up the world.

So lately I've been gravitating away from baseball and watching women's tennis. That Anna Kournikova is some hot hot hottie! I wonder If she's with anyone.

PETER JENNINGS RESPONDS TO PAY CUT WITH NEWS CUT.

His Salary Slashed, ABC Anchor Plans to Read 50 Percent Less News ABC's World News Tonight anchor Peter Jennings said today that if the network proceeds with plans to cut his salary, he would respond by reading 50 percent less news during each evening telecast.

"Mr. Jennings acknowledges the network's desire to curtail costs in its news division," a spokesman for Mr. Jennings said today. "But if his salary is slashed as has been proposed, Mr. Jennings will respond by reading the news in a totally lazy-a.s.s way."

According to his spokesman, Mr. Jennings will also refuse to read news stories taking place on more than two continents in the same telecast.

Under this plan, Mr. Jennings might read news stories about Afghanistan and Venezuela in the same evening, for example, but refuse to report any news about America.

"In an ideal world, it would be great if Peter were willing to report events that are happening in America," ABC News President David Westin acknowledged. "But we have to cut corners somewhere, and if that means no news about America, so be it."

Contacted at his office in New York, Mr. Jennings said that he would no longer feel obligated to speak in complete sentences, or even grammatical ones.

Peter Jennings has threatened to read 50 percent less news if ABC insists on slashing his salary.

"You gets what you pays for," Mr. Jennings said.

In addition, Mr. Jennings indicated that he would not make an effort to dress up for his nightly news broadcasts anymore, but would instead dig into his closet full of raunchy-slogan T-shirts.

Jennings' collection of s.m.u.tty T-shirts has been legendary in news circles ever since last summer, when the esteemed newsman showed up at a party in East Hampton wearing a shirt that read ANCHORMEN DO IT UNDER THEIR DESKS.

BUSH EYES SWEATER-RICH KASHMIR AS KEY SOURCE OF STATIC ELECTRICITY.

"No Blood for Wool," D.C. Protesters Chant Just days after the worst electrical blackout in U.S. history, the Bush administration is focusing new attention on the contested region of Kashmir, the world's leading producer of wool for cashmere sweaters, as a sustainable source of static electricity.

With the U.S. electrical grid overtaxed and with public opposition to nuclear power plants on the rise, Mr. Bush has become an enthusiastic supporter of using cashmere sweaters to create substantial amounts of static electricity going forward, aides say.

Kashmir, a region long contested by India and Pakistan, had been on the administration's back burner before the blackout, but all that changed Monday when Mr. Bush announced that he was "very concerned about the freedom of Kashmir's goat population."

"If those goats and their precious wool are threatened, that threatens the world's supply of cashmere sweaters and static electricity," Mr. Bush told reporters at the White House. "And that directly threatens the security of the United States of America."

In Washington, rumors that the U.S. might divert forces currently in Liberia and send them to Kashmir instead to secure the region's coveted goats sparked ma.s.sive protests, as marchers headed for the Capitol chanting, "No blood for wool."

On the Fox News Channel, Vice President d.i.c.k Cheney clarified the administration's position on Kashmir, telling Fox's Brit Hume, "The United States must decrease its dependence on foreign wool."

"The only way to do that," Mr. Cheney added, "is by seizing vast quant.i.ties of foreign wool with overwhelming military force."

NO BLOOD FOR WOOL: Precious Kashmiri goats are seen as a plentiful source of static electricity.

GREENSPAN: NUMBER OF AMERICANS PRETENDING TO WORK SURGED IN FEBRUARY.

Jump in Internet Casino, p.o.r.n Usage Signals Economic Recovery, Fed Chief Testifies In testimony before the U.S. Senate today, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan said that the number of Americans pretending to work at the office jumped in February, more proof that an economic recovery is underway.