Dear All, This is off topic (except, perhaps, for the last paragraph) but it appealed to my sense of humor.
Cheers, Pat Naughtin LCAMS Geelong, Australia ** At New York's International Airport, an individual male person, 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. He is being charged with carrying weapons of math instruction. Security officers believe that the man is a member of the notorious Al-gebra movement. A senior security officer said, 'Al-gebra is a very fearsome cult, indeed. They desire average solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on a tangent in a search of absolute values. 'Al-gebra consists of quite shadowy figures, with names like 'x' and 'y', and, although they are frequently referred to as 'unknowns', we know they really belong to a common denominator and are part of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country. As the great Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, 'there are 3 sides to every triangle'. When asked to comment on the arrest, President George W Bush said, 'If we had been meant to have weapons of math instruction, we would have all been born with enough fingers and toes so we could measure with twelve inches to a foot and count up in dozens!' Anon --
