I believe this is just a light-hearted spoof, but my apologies in advance to
anyone who might take offense.
This was forwarded to me without attribution:
At New York's Kennedy Airport today, an individual, later discovered to be
a public school teacher, was arrested trying to board a flight while in
possession of a ruler, a protractor, a setsquare, a slide rule, and a
calculator.
At a morning press conference, Attorney general John Ashcroft said he
believes the man is a member of the notorious Al-Gebra movement. The FBI is
charging him with carrying weapons of math instruction.
"Al-Gebra is a fearsome cult," Ashcroft said. "They desire average solutions
by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in a search of
absolute value. They use secret code names like 'x' and 'y' and refer to
themselves as 'unknowns', but we have determined they belong to a common
denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country. As
the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say,
'there are 3 sides to every triangle'."
When asked to comment on the arrest, President Bush said, "If God had
wanted us to have better weapons of math instruction, He would have given us
more fingers and toes."
