Was Pythagoras a secret Communist too?

It's no wonder that Texas sees no harm in politicizing its educational system; they clearly weren't using it for anything else. Even the dumbest math student knows that a^2 + b^2 = c^2, although they may need some prodding to remember what it means. I will say, though, that I'm confident that none of my journalist friends would make this mistake:

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/spt/outdoors/stories/091610dnsposasser.291bac0.html

I watched hunters fire at doves at ranges I'm sure were 55 to 60 yards. In all likelihood, these particular hunters don't hunt doves other than opening weekend, but we all owe it to the game to become more proficient to judging distances and understanding our own capabilities. As Dirty Harry once noted, "a man's got to know his limitations."
If you own a spinning wing dove decoy, you can set up the decoy, which is about the same size as a live dove, at various distances. Try your hand at estimating the range to the decoy, then measure it with a laser rangefinder or by stepping off the actual distance.
Remember your old geometry lesson about the long side of a triangle being equal to the two shorter sides. That means a dove 40 yards out and 10 yards high is 50 yards from the gun and clearly out of range.

Nope. Fail #1: you can't even make a triangle with sides of 10, 40, and 50 (try it). Fail #2: it's got to be a right triangle for any such property to hold.

Journalists like to make fun of themselves for not knowing much math, but only in Texas would that extend all the way down to the sixth grade.