[extropy-chat] Extended Weapons of Math Instruction

[Olga Bourlin]

I ordinarily don't forward such things to this list, but it's time for a little levity.  Also, this will delight all of you persnickity (or is it "pernickity"?) wordsmiths.  Ta ta, Olga



MATH


At New York's Kennedy Airport the other day, 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."





-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20031218/ed0f420b/attachment.html>