At New York's Kennedy airport this week, 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.

Attorney General John Ashcroft said he believes the man is a member of the notorious al-Gebra movement. He is being charged with carrying weapons of math instruction.

"Al-Gebra is a very fearsome cult, indeed," Ashcroft said. "Its members desire average solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on a tangent in a search of absolute value. They consist 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 three sides to every triangle."

When asked to comment on the arrest, President Bush declared, "If God had wanted us to have better weapons of math instruction, He would have given us more fingers and toes."

A member of the Presidential group, who spoke without attribution said, "I'm extremely grateful that our government has given us a sine that it is intent on protracting us from these math-dogs who are so willing to disintegrate us with calculus disregard. These statistic bastards love to inflict plane on every sphere of influence. Under the circumferences, it's time we differentiated their root, made our point, and drew the line."

President Bush, under questioning, said, "These weapons of math instruction have the potential to decimal everything in their math on a scale never before seen unless we become exponents of a Higher Power and begin to factor-! in random facts of vertex."

Attorney General Ashcroft added, "As our Great Leader would say, read my ellipse. Here is one principle he is certain of -- though they continue to multiply, their days are numbered and the hypotenuse will tighten around their necks."