Israelis Capture Arafat to Win "March Madness"

srael, plagued by suicide bombers and endless terrorism on the home front came from behind Friday to invade Palestinian territory and take its leader prisoner, winning March Madness in a surprising upset.

It was a victory for Israel fans who hadn't seen an insanity play of that caliber from the country ever before. It has become almost an annual tradition for Islamic fundamentalists to take the cake in March Madness, but the unexpected break in this year's event was the shot of life many Israel fans needed.

"Who knew they had it in 'em?" said former Israeli Prime Minister and lifelong Israeli fan Shimon Peres. "I would have expected more diplomatic routes. Pleas for sanity, stepped-up security, calls for sanctions or U.N. action to ferret out terrorism in Palestine and Israel. This was truly a new level for Israel fans."

President Bush was woken early this morning to the news of Israel's shelling campaign on Yasser Arafat's headquarters. The president responded promptly, "No shit?"

Israel has claimed the larger body count for quite some time against Palestine, though terrorists from the area have held the Madness advantage. Their primary form of retaliation and attack on the state, suicide bombers, is as insane as it gets. Though Israel surprised everyone Friday with their bold move to "isolate" the Palestinian leader Arafat by shelling his headquarters and engaging Palestinian troops in armed combat.

"What a terrific show of Madness," said Britain's Queen Elizabeth, applauding in her queenly fashion.

With his troops unprepared, outnumbered, and ill-equipped, Arafat barricaded himself in his bunker as long as he could and tried to inform the world of his situation via cell phone calls to American news sources. A call to CNN's Christiane Amanpour was broadcast in the afternoon Friday. Arafat eventually reached the commune late in the evening, by which time it was obvious the esteemed Palestinian leader had been dipping into the stock of the wine cellar.

"It is time for the U.S. … if the U.S. is an opponent of terrorism they should speak out against the terrorism taking place here in Palestine. The occupation—" A loud hiccup interrupted Arafat. "Curse you! You try to poison me? You and your Israeli terrorism? I am an asshole? You are the asshole! I will fart on your children while your wife makes me breakfast. This I swear, for all of Pakistan. Wait… did I say Palestine or Pakistan? That's crazy!"

The phone was then hurled across the room as the firefight increased in Arafat's compound. Either that or he passed out.

"It is a glorious day for Israel," Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told the press Saturday. "We have fought terrorism and won. If this does not stop the wave of lawless destruction, nothing will."

Sharon cut the press conference short when advised six Palestinian suicide bombers had detonated within the last fifteen minutes. The Prime Minister said he had previously mistaken them for celebratory fireworks.

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A quart of bad milk later and I'm on the way to the hospital. "Stomach pump, stomach pump," that's all I heard on the way up there. Then I threw up in the doctor van and felt better instantly. They didn't even take me all the way to the hospital. I didn't even get a lift back home either, and I told them I didn't mind riding home in the same van. They were pissed or something, but it's not my fault. Or I suppose it is. But it's not my fault in the way that all of our destiny is predetermined.

Did you know they call those hospital vans ambulances? Learn something new every day, and about once a month something sticks. But all this crap got me thinking about ambulances.

I didn't know this, but those guys who ride around in the "ambulances" aren't doctors at all. Sure, they got some medical training, they're licensed to perform CPR and they can sell drugs out of the back, but they're not full-fledged doctors. Which stinks. I don't want some guy who smells like exhaust and trucker speed to work on me if he's not a doctor. That's where I got my latest idea—they should make doctor training easier. Make it so half the people in the world can be doctors. It's basically the same thing they did with public school courses. More people pass, more people are certified, and everyone feels better since we have the false idea everyone's properly trained.

Really, how often are you going to need a real fully properly-trained doctor anyway? Once in a blue moon, at least, and let's face it, you were probably going to die when he left his watch in your chest anyway.

So the next time someone is choking at your local restaurant, you can raise your hand and tell them, "Excuse me, I'm a doctor." Then cut their neck open and just take the McNugget right out with your bare hands. I'm not sure what's involved in sealing the neck back up so it works right, but that's the kind of training we don't need. Let the super doctors or whatever the regular guys are do that. We'll just freeze the neck so they can reattach it later. You can freeze things and reattach them now. It's just one of our modern medical miracles, and I saw it on the TV.

Come to think of it, is there really any reason we have to drive sick people around in a van? None, so far as I can tell. It's just more to clean up when they throw up and don't get to go to the hospital anyway. Most of these guys probably aren't going to make it anyway. I say we should buy Camaros and Thunderbirds, all sorts of really cool convertible cars. For one thing, then everyone would suddenly want to be an ambulance doctor—they might even go through the full hard training! But the main thing is, if you're choking on a McNugget and about to die, and you're not going to make it anyway, wouldn't you rather be going full speed toward the hospital in a car like the Knight Rider rather than some big clunky van that can't even drive on its side wheels if it needs it? I know my answer.

If you see me zipping by you on the freeway, driving a really hot car with some guy turning purple in the passenger seat, you'll know I made my dream a reality. But keep your windows rolled up, in case he pukes.

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While your average American gives no thought to the complicated world of politics, concerned more with trivialities such as "Will my job survive the year?" and "How can I afford to keep my family medically insured?" the think-tankers in the upper echelons of the U.S. government are asking only one question: "Is Saddam Hussein alive, and if so, where is he?" Yes, if you check, that's technically only one question, hence the single question mark.

The short answer is: No. But wait! Before you think I've become boring in my old age, I haven't cracked your brain with the baseball bat of conspiracy yet, and I assure you there is more to the Saddam Hussein story than you've considered before. And always more than they're telling you.

The reason Saddam Hussein is no longer alive is that he was never alive. Saddam Hussein, was, is, and always has been nothing more than a computer program. Surprised? Good, I say. You don't think I hold off on telling you all this shit simply because it slipped my mind, do you? I get my jollies watching your jaw drop, friend.

Has anyone ever seen the movie Virtuosity? Of course not. Some would chalk this up to the film being predictable and fairly empty of any real enjoyment, but I say this underestimates the part played by the American government to make the movie go unseen. The film is a roundabout way to propose that many of our society's villains are nothing more than distracting computer creations, and it took a lot of government operatives countless hours to make the film so utterly forgettable as to slip through the box office cracks unnoticed. But there was good reason for all the time spent doing so.

If we open ourselves up to the possibility that one villain is really just a souped-up Atari made to look like Russell Crowe doing a decent American accent, where do we stop questioning everything? Consider this: Have you ever been in a room with Saddam Hussein, the actual man? I didn't think so. That should make it abundantly doubtful a real Saddam Hussein even exists.

Everyone knows Iraq was only targeted by the military for one reason, and that's oil; this is only up for debate by people who enjoy deceiving themselves about everything, such as the government has only altruistic motives, or J.A.G. is a really good show. In fact, whenever you hear a government official say they want to bring democracy to another country, it should automatically translate as they have natural resources vital to our economy and are holding out. Hence we decided to bring democracy to Iraq, in exchange for barrel upon barrel of yummy oil.

Of course, Iraq was a foreign culture and has virtually no strategic value, following that we have no enemy after the Soviet Union dismantled and had no strategy against no enemy. The original leaders of Iraq, looking pretty dopey and smiling all the time like they just squeezed out a silent fart, weren't much motivation for the American people to go to war. So the U.S. war machine created the Saddam Hussein computer program, based an old Abbot & Costello routine beloved by Sec. Jim Bakker. "Who's in charge of Egypt?" "Hussein." "I'm sayin', I want to know." Love that one.

But if you build a computer program too good, as any hack movie producer knows, it can develop its own intelligence and decide to take things over. Which is exactly what happened when we installed the Saddam Hussein program on Iraqi Amigas. Pretty soon we did have a Saddam Hussein threat to overthrow—our own. He even generated independently more pictures of George Bush's Uncle Herb in full Iraqi military guard and had him doing ridiculous Herb-like things, such as waving a shotgun around or reading threatening messages to the U.S. government in great big glasses from his underground bunker.

Keep in mind, I still think the Saddam Hussein program is a threat, and if one mainframe carrying the program survived the Baghdad bombing, the danger remains. But all of this could have been dealt with much quicker and efficiently by planting a virus in the Iraqi intranet, or installing Windows 2000 on one of the network computers.

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