A  high school teacher was arrested today at Sydney’s Kingsford-Smith  International airport as he attempted to board a flight while in  possession of a ruler, a protractor, a compass, a slide-rule and a calculator.

At the press conference, the Attorney General said he  believes the man is a member of the notorious extremist Al-Gebra movement.

He did not identify the man, who has been charged by the AFP with carrying weapons of maths instruction.

‘Al-Gebra is a  problem for us’, the Attorney General said. ‘They derive solutions by  means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in search of absolute  values.’ They use secret code names like “X” and “Y” and refer to  themselves as “unknowns”; but we have determined that they belong to a  common denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country. As the Greek philosopher Isosceles used to say, “There are three sides to every triangle.”

When asked to comment on the  arrest, Federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said, “If God had wanted us to have better weapons of maths instruction, He would have given us more fingers and toes.”

Fellow Labor colleagues told reporters they could not recall a more intelligent or profound statement by the  Opposition Leader.

By Ven