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.

he world said a collective "huh" March 22^nd when director Steven Spielberg hamfisted his cutesy 2-hour plush toy commercial E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial back into theaters to commemorate the 20^th anniversary of Spielberg's vanity project.

In the movie, a flawless alien midget is left behind on earth by a superior alien race who have never heard of a head count before departure. The alien befriends foul-mouthed American kids and endorses M&M-style products and Pepsi before faking his own death in an elaborate intergalactic insurance scam and escaping in a flying bike, leaving the evil government agents to wonder: Why didn't he do that much earlier?

The film is a re-telling of the familiar friendly-alien-meets-asshole-humans story. "Re-telling" being Hollywood code for updating old scripts with modern slang and improving the special effects by leaps and bounds.

Spielberg started out in Hollywood making enjoyable adventure movies with low marketing tie-in potential such as Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Having invented the summer blockbuster, Spielberg went on to cut himself a slice of the pie with E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. He would later perfect action figure merchandising with Jurassic Park, after the dismal failure of his The Color Purple doll line.

To keep his product fresh for a new generation with more hyper-sensitive parents than his own, Spielberg digitally replaced rifles in the arms of federal agents with walkie-talkies. The director also changed the audio for a line spoken by Dee Wallace in which she tells the children not to go out dressed as "terrorists." Since no one in our current generation hates and fears terrorists, Spielberg wisely changed it to "hippies."

Also removed from the film: Scenes in which E.T. tries to eat a cat—better done on Alf; a scene where E.T. and child friend Elliot get hammered; two scenes where Drew Barrymore does a line of coke (interfered with Pepsi tie-in); and instead of building a phone out of household items, E.T. e-mails his alien friends using free webmail at Hotmail.com.

Digitally added into the film: Child actor Henry Thomas is replaced with modern acting wunderkind Haley Joel Osment; David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson from TV's The X-Files have a quick cameo; and E.T. is digitally altered so he's always wearing shorts and a bow tie, so as to dispel questions about his genitalia today's more mature generation will be quick to ask.

"I lacked the vision and technical skills to make the perfect film I wanted to make at the time," said Spielberg in a press conference the media were court-ordered to attend. "Now, thanks to modern technology and 21^st century revisionism, I can do it."

If E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial proves profitable the second time around, Spielberg has other plans on the table. He reports it recently occurred to him Jaws would have been much more fun if he had replaced the shark with a big, cuddly bear ala TV's Gentle Ben.

Also, said the director, Schindler's List would have been more effective if the Jews had won against the Nazis.

In the Valley of Sali, beneath a beautiful bridge, lived an Imp named Jojo who dreamed of one day being a construction worker. His daydreams were filled with visions of hardhats and bolt-throwers and rivets shining in the noontime sun. It was a stupid dream, but nobody had the heart to tell Jojo this, since he was the fragile sort and cried at the slightest provocation. Seriously, like when it rained and the ground got all muddy or when the sun came out and the water evaporated. Anything, really. One time he cried for two days because there were an odd number of blades of grass growing under the bridge. Thank God a caterpillar came along and ate one of them, or else Jojo might never have recovered.

One day Jojo woke up and the valley was buzzing with excitement. Really, it was making this sound like a refrigerator with a bad freon coil. There was some kind of problem with the trees being out of compliance, technical stuff. But besides that, everyone was excited. An exciting stranger had come to town, and even better: he was wearing a gigantic Mexican-style hat. Few things excited the people of Sali more than a genuine Mexican-style hat.

The stranger's name was Senior Sombrero ("Touché!" Jojo thought to himself wittily) and he promised the people of Sali (and by "people" I really mean all sorts of magical creatures and different-sized folks, not the boring kinds of people you see every day) many magical wonders if they would only allow him to take off his hat. And the people of Sali were practically starved for excitement, since though they lived in a magical enchanted land, people are people and they were bored with it. So of course they said yes, by all means beautiful stranger, take off your gigantic authentic Mexican-style hat!

In retrospect that was a stupid call, but few of the people had read ahead in the story so they didn't know that as soon as Senior Sombrero took off his hat and set it on the ground, all manner of different-sized and colored snakes would come pouring out of it, flooding the land with snakes extraordinaire. Senior Sombrero laughed a relieved laugh, as he'd been trying for weeks to get rid of all of those snakes in his hat and this was really starting to look like his day. He ducked into a doorway carved into an otherwise-ordinary tree and left his snake-erupting hat and the people of Sali behind. They would never see Senior Sombrero again, except for one time at the mall but that could have just been some guy who looked like Senior Sombrero, nobody was completely sure.

For ten days and ten nights snakes poured forth from the gigantic authentic Mexican-style hat, and the valley of Sali was filled to the brim with snakes. Everywhere you turned, there were snakes. Coming up out of the sinks, raining down out of airplanes, curled up inside the basketballs, they were absolutely everywhere. It was nearly impossible to find a place to sit down and there were major problems because all of the toilets were clogged up with snakes and when it was hot you couldn't turn on a fan unless you wanted to turn your house into a snake-themed Jackson Pollack painting.

All the people of Sali lamented and wondered aloud what they could do to get rid of all of the snakes. Wasn't there some meek little creature who could rise above his fears and save them all, proving everyone wrong who had always said he was good for nothing, and lending a touching conclusion to this dark tale? They often wondered this very aloud while walking past Jojo's bridge, and they sent him faxes musing the same. And they were right. Only Jojo could save them from this dastardly predicament.

Too bad he'd ditched out of town the second all of those snakes started pouring out of the giant Mexican-style hat. Good Lord was Jojo afraid of snakes! And that's the story of the town you know as Snakehampton.

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