At New York's Kennedy airport today, an individual, later discovered to be a school teacher, was arrested trying to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, protractor, set square, slide rule and 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 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 to count on."

Algebra comes from an Arabic book that revolutionized how mathematics was done in western cultures. "Al-jebr w'al-mugabalah" written by Abu Ja'far Ben Musa (about 825 AD) who was also known as al-Khowarazmi. The phrase Al-jebr at the start of the title became the word Algebra in western languages. The phrase means "the reunion of broken parts".

INSERT FART NOISE

In Response to jon (#24331):

who was also known as al-Khowarazmi.

And, thanks to consonnal drift, the pronunciation of "al-Khowarazmi" shifted to "al-Karazm", and eventually to our modern "algorithm".

[Gratuitous fart noise deleted]
 

In Response to gtyrrell (#24337):

And, thanks to consonnal drift, the pronunciation of "al-Khowarazmi" shifted to "al-Karazm", and eventually to our modern "algorithm".

and, thanks to continental drift, the pronunciation of "al-Karazm" changed to "ala-kazam!"

[insert catchy tune]

In Response to kornz (#24358):


and, thanks to continental drift, the pronunciation of "al-Karazm" changed to "ala-kazam!"

And thanks to condimental drift, the pronounciation of "ala-kazam" changed to "A La Peanut Butter Sandwiches".

In Response to zamphir (#24360):

And thanks to condimental drift, the pronounciation of "ala-kazam" changed to "A La Peanut Butter Sandwiches".

And, thanks to constillational shift, "A La Peanut Butter Sandwiches" collapsed into the white supergiant "Almaaz".

In Response to Nagy_Vilmos (#24378):

And thanks to you, it's not funny anymore.

In Response to unFalln (#24383):

I actually think Kornz killed the joke and then Zamphir made a desperate attempt to save it, but that's when Nagy came by and kicked it in the head.

In Response to GeminiCrash (#24391):

Go find out what Almaaz means...

In Response to Nagy_Vilmos (#24397):

No one said that it wasn't a little bit clever, just that it wasn't funny.

In Response to GeminiCrash (#24405):

And you misspelled constellation.

In Response to GeminiCrash (#24405):

Since when was I funny?

I can speak really crappy Swahelie... even though i can't spell it...

In Response to Humbaba (#24480):

You can barely speak English, why would you butcher another language?

In Response to Humbaba (#24480):

Great. That's wonderful. Everyone knows that Swahili is so closely tied to algebra.

Oh wait, it's not?

Dumbass.