Part 3 (1/2)

Trip to OfficeMax Crucial to Agency's Overhaul, Mueller Says In what its director described as a ”crucial” first step to upgrade the Federal Bureau of Investigation's intelligence-gathering capabilities, the FBI paid a visit to an OfficeMax superstore today and bought ”a substantial number” of While-You-Were-Out message pads.

The agency, which has never had access to such message pads in the past, believes that the introduction of the While-You-Were-Out pads will dramatically improve the relaying of phone messages at FBI headquarters and in field offices across the country.

FBI Director Robert Mueller, speaking at a press conference in Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C, said that the FBI had also purchased ”these little yellow reminder thingies with stick-um stuff on the back so you can post them on your desk and whatnot.”

Mueller added that the FBI was ”intrigued” by a machine they saw at OfficeMax that could record phone messages and store them while an FBI employee was away from his or her desk.

”Once the phone messages are played back, they could theoretically be written down on the While-You-Were-Out pads,” Mueller said.

While Mueller p.r.o.nounced the trip to OfficeMax ”a resounding success,” FBI whistleblower Colleen Rowley revealed today that she had urged the agency to invest in While-You-Were-Out pads months ago-but no one listened.

”I then tried to write a memo about it, but there were no pens or paper anywhere in the office,” Rowley complained. ”This visit to OfficeMax, I'm afraid, is too little too late.”

For his part, Mueller said he welcomed Rowley's latest round of criticism.

”I'm always delighted to have Colleen Rowley rip me a new one,” Mueller said.

The FBI's visit to OfficeMax to purchase While-You-Were-Out message pads represents a major ramping up in the war on terror, FBI officials say.

SOTHEBY'S AUCTIONS RARE HOME MOVIES OF BOB CRANE NOT HAVING s.e.x

Startling Footage of Fully Clothed Hogan Fetches Record Bid In London today, leading auction house Sotheby's auctioned a reel of rare, recently discovered home movies of Hogan's Heroes actor Bob Crane not having s.e.x.

The extaordinary footage of a fully clothed Crane engaged in such nons.e.xual activities as reading the newspaper and was.h.i.+ng his car fetched a winning bid of $1,825 million, exceeding even Sotheby's most optimistic expectations.

”Given that these are, to our knowledge, the only home movies of Mr. Crane not having s.e.x, the high price is justified,” said Clive Widdington, a spokesman for the auction house.

The rare footage, discovered in the attic of a home in El Paso, Texas, where Mr. Crane had appeared in dinner theater in the seventies, at first appeared to be a hoax.

”When I first saw the videos, I said to myself that this could not possibly be Bob Crane,” said Dr. Bernard Fulton of the University of Minnesota. ”For one thing, he had his pants on.”

But Dr. Fulton, who teaches a graduate course in the home movies of Bob Crane and ultimately authenticated the s.e.x-free Crane footage, warned that the movies ”should not force us to call into question all of our previous thinking about Bob Crane.”

For decades, collectors have been searching for rare home videos of actor Bob Crane not having s.e.x, Sotheby's confirmed.

”Even though he is not having s.e.x in these movies, it's safe to say that he's thinking about having s.e.x,” Dr. Fulton said.

The winning bid for the footage of Bob Crane not having s.e.x established a new record for a celebrity home movie auctioned by Sotheby's, topping the $1.675 million paid for a 1997 home movie of actress Pamela Anderson not having s.e.x.

BUSH ACCUSES IRAQ OF HIDING WEAPONS IN NORTH KOREA.

Calls North Koreans Dupes of Saddam's Latest Scam In a bombsh.e.l.l with serious ramifications for U.S. foreign policy, President Bush today accused Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein of hiding nuclear weapons in North Korea.

While the President offered no hard evidence to back up his startling claim, he insisted that the so-called secret North Korean nuclear weapons program was actually a secret Iraqi nuclear weapons program.

He went on to quote intelligence reports suggesting that Saddam Hussein had sent the weapons to North Korea in big wooden crates stamped with the logo of Harry & David's, a popular food-by-mail gift service, to avoid interdiction en route.

”This may be the evilest thing this doer of evil has ever done,” Mr. Bush said.

Mr. Bush's stunning announcement may have been meant to deflect criticism of the administration's policy of being mean to Iraq but not quite so mean to North Korea.

But North Korea complicated that effort somewhat by announcing later in the day that the weapons were in fact their own and did not come from Iraq, adding that Saddam Hussein did not even have North Korea's mailing address or home phone number.

For his part, the President quickly dismissed North Korea's denials, calling the North Koreans ”dupes” of Saddam's evil plan to sneak nuclear weapons into their country.

”The fact that Saddam has snuck evil weapons into North Korea and has somehow convinced the North Koreans that they made them themselves just goes to show you how dangerous Iraq is and how not-dangerous North Korea is,” the President said.

North Korean soldiers stand guard near a supersecret hiding place where Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is believed to have hidden weapons of ma.s.s destruction.

KIM'S BLOG During the months leading up to the war with Iraq, Bush and Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld kept going on TV talking about how dangerous Saddam Hussein was, and I was like, What am I, chopped liver?

You've got to understand-I've spent half my life trying to prove how evil I am. My reputation is totally based on that. If people don't think I'm evil, what do I have to show for all of those reprocessed spent fuel rods? Jack s.h.i.+t, that's what.

So here comes Saddam Hussein, who's basically just been sitting in Baghdad getting fat and with those two loser sons of his, pretending like he's got all of this awesome bio-s.h.i.+t (Dr. Germ, Mrs. Anthrax-f.u.c.k, those people sounded like characters out of Clue) and suddenly he's the most evil guy in the world? Excuse me, but that sucks.

Then I turned on the TV on Halloween and there were American kids trick-or-treating as Saddam Hussein. Not a single Kim Jong II mask in the bunch. h.e.l.looo! Earth to America! Evil guy over here! Restarting nuclear reactors!

I don't want to make it look like Saddam and I have a whole Freddy vs. Jason thing going, but come on! After a while, it's pretty hard to take. I'm cranking out seven f.u.c.king nuclear weapons a day-give me my props already.

DENNIS MILLER TAKES OBSCURE, HARD-TO-UNDERSTAND PARTING SHOT AT ABC.

Fired Comedian Dennis Miller, fired from ABC's Monday Night Football last week, lashed out at ABC Sports today in a blistering tirade packed with obscure literary and pop cultural references that may take his former bosses years to decipher.

”Hey, you guys pulled a Pete Best on me,” Miller told the executives at ABC Sports. ”Well, you don't need to show me the exit. Who am I, Jean-Paul Sartre?”