A Big Pun on Weapons of Math Instruction
At Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson
airport today, an individual later discovered to be a public school teacher was
arrested trying to board a flight while in possession of a protractor, a
T-square, 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 3 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 dis-integrate
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 said, "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
around their necks."