MATH MANIA

 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 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
 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 said, "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."