My Dad sent this to me last year. I found it again while searching for something else on an archive disk:
Subject: Fw: New terrorist threat
Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006
JUST OFF THE WIRE!!!
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, the US attorney general 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, the attorney general said. “They desire average solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in a search of absolute values. 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”.
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”.
And the following thought came to mind:
“This does, of course, fit in with the current (U.S.) regime’s racial profiling with regards to their ‘War on Terror.’ Those involved in the al-gebra movement use ARABIC numerals!”
I wonder if this thought occurred to the person who wrote the original piece?
