ANN COULTER CHALLENGES PRESIDENT OF IRAN TO INSANE COMMENT CONTESTConservative Pundit, Iranian Madman to Face Off on Live TVConservative pundit Ann Coulter today challenged Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to what she called “an insane comment contest” on live TV to determine who is the insane comment champion of the world.

Appearing on Fox News this morning, the sharp-tongued darling of the right wing said that while she respects Mr. Ahmadinejad’s work, she believes he will be “no match” for her arsenal of crazy, unhinged remarks.

“I’ve heard Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s nutty rants in the past, and while I think he comes off like a total bananahead, in a one-on-one with me he will be the picture of sanity,” Ms. Coulter said.

In Iran, President Ahmadinejad accepted Ms. Coulter’s challenge and said that while he was “confident of victory” he recognized that besting her in an insane comment contest “would not be easy.”

“In any competition involving verbal lunacy, Ann Coulter is the favorite going in,” Mr. Ahmadinejad. “I will need to train for this for months.”

But even as the rules for the insane comment contest were being set, North Korean president Kim Jong-Il and televangelist Pat Robertson expressed outrage that they had been excluded from the competition and demanded to be invited.

Within hours, Ms. Coulter apologized for omitting President Kim and the Rev. Robertson but said that the omission would be corrected: “Me, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Pat Robertson and Kim Jong-Il: that’s the Final Four.”

Elsewhere, President Bush hailed the elimination of terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, telling reporters, “The world has been rid of a tricky-to-pronounce name.”

CHERTOFF CUTS ANTI-TERROR FUNDING; ASKS OSAMA TO CUT TERROR FUNDINGHomeland Security Boss Makes Pitch to Budget-Conscious Bin LadenDays after cutting anti-terror funding for New York City, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff reached out to Osama bin Laden today to suggest that the al Qaeda boss in turn cut his terror funding for New York.

“Today I am slashing my department’s anti-terror budget for New York,” Mr. Chertoff wrote in a letter to Mr. bin Laden that was released to the media today. “Needless to say, this is a unique opportunity for you to slash your terror budget for New York.”

While Mr. Chertoff’s overture to Mr. bin Laden struck many in Washington as highly unorthodox, the Homeland Security chief told reporters that he was appealing to “the budget-conscious side of Osama bin Laden.”

“Just like me, Osama bin Laden has budgetary concerns, and that’s where the two of us are on common ground,” Secretary Chertoff said. “I can’t afford to protect everything, and he can’t afford to attack everything – so this proposal is truly a win-win.”

But even as Mr. Chertoff was explaining his proposal to the Washington press corps, Mr. bin Laden appeared on the Arabic-language al-Jazeera network to rebuff the Homeland Security Secretary’s deal.

“Here at al-Qaeda, we do not have any budgetary concerns,” a chilly bin Laden said in the broadcast. “We have a very low overhead.”

In Washington, Secretary Chertoff was philosophical about Mr. bin Laden’s response: “Oh well, it was worth a shot.”

Elsewhere, President Bush said he would deploy National Guard troops on the border of Canada to keep gay married couples from sneaking into the U.S.

IRAN TRYING TO OBTAIN PARIS HILTON’S ALBUMClaims It Will Be Used For ‘Peaceful Purposes’One day after hotel heiress Paris Hilton announced that she is recording her debut album as a singer, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that his country was attempting to obtain an early copy of the record but claimed Iran would use it only for “peaceful purposes.”

For Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who this week has been attempting to engage Iran in a conversation about its nuclear program, the news that the Iranians were trying to obtain Ms. Hilton’s debut album was a serious foreign policy setback.

“We regard any attempt by Iran to obtain Paris Hilton’s album as a threat to the region and we will not sit idly by while that happens,” Dr. Rice said at a press conference in Washington today.

But in an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council, the ambassador from Great Britain warned that aerial photos taken by a spy satellite indicated that bootlegged copies of Paris Hilton’s album have already been smuggled into Iran and may be on the verge of being enriched and weaponized.

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said that if attached to the tip of a long-range missile, Paris Hilton’s new album could threaten not just the Middle East but parts of Europe as well.

“This is the most serious threat to world peace since North Korea obtained an early DVD of ‘Gigli,’” Mr. Annan said.

Elsewhere, one day after their latest album reached number one on the pop and country charts, President Bush named all three Dixie Chicks to the Axis of Evil.