SLD

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. He is being
charged by the FBI 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 three sides to
every triangle," Ashcroft declared.

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.

"I am gratified that our government has given us a sine that it is intent on
protracting us from these math-dogs who are willing to disintegrate us with
calculus disregard. Murky statisticians love to inflict plane on every
sphere of influence," the President said, adding, "Under the circumferences,
we must differentiate their root, make our point, and draw the line."

President Bush warned, "These weapons of math instruction have the potential
to decimal everything in their math on a scalene never before seen unless we
become exponents of a Higher Power and begin to factor-in random facts of
vertex."

Attorney General Ashcroft concluded, "As our Great Leader would say, 'read
my ellipse.' Here is one principle he is uncertainty of though they
continue to multiply, their days are numbered as the hypotenuse tightens
around their necks."




The sad thing is, it isn't too far off the truth for this administration!!

SLD

Arken

Cute. Reminds me of an old episode of the Goon Show. You find out that the Major is stationed at the fort in Wadi El-Issit... so he answers the phone when it rings, 'what de hell is it?'

Loren Pechtel

Old idea!

I think the author was Margaret Ball. Anyway, the book was sworods & sorcery type with the basic idea that al-gebra was the language of magic.

This was long before 9/11.

tracer

Waaaaaaait a minute ... the Uncertainty Principle comes from quantum physics, not math! I call foul!

ElectEngr

Booz and Calculus don't mix...

Don't Drink and Derive!!!!

Later.
ElectEngr

Gar

So true! Reminds me of that one in the onion about the Georgia school board taking the "Theory of Math" out of the curriculum.

Postcard73

Of course, the obvious difference is that in the story, the weapons actually exist...

SLD

Yeah, try getting on an airline with a compass (the pointy kind for drawing circles).

SLD

Postcard73

Or a protactor for that matter. They can get pretty pointy where the flat side and the round side meet...

Karalora

That's why I only travel with full-circle protractors. They don't arouse suspicion and if I find the need to hijack the plane, or to defeat others who have hijacked it, I can use it as a Xena-style chakram!