math suspect caught

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 slide rule, and a calculator.

At a morning press conference, the U. S. Attorney General disclosed that
he believes the man to be 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," he declared. "They seek
average solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on
tangents in 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 argue, there are three sides to every triangle."

When asked to comment on the arrest, the President stated,

"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 shown 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. Under the circumferences, we must differentiate their root,
make our point, and draw the line."

The President 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."

The Attorney General concluded,

"As our Great Leader would say, 'read my ellipse'. Here is one principle
he is uncertain of: though they continue to multiply, their days are
numbered as the hypotenuse tightens."