From: dolan@XENON.BERKELEY.EDU (Kent Paul Dolan)
Newsgroups: talk.bizarre
Subject: Re: the trouble with australia
Date: 8 Sep 92 20:09:13 GMT

Memo

To:i     mrx, himself
>From:    Dr. Science, Science Advisor to X Industries
Subject: Prior proposals have it all upside down in solving the down under bit

There have been proposals to blow up, melt down, or carry away the
Australian continent, merely to solve the problem of out of synch
school calendars that lead to a uniform distribution of inexperienced
("newbie") posters over the course of a calendar year.

These proposals are all entirely overkill, and fail to solve the
problem in the simplest way. My following proposal solves the problem
correctly, at minimum cost and disruption, and is a direct response to
the problem itself, not to the attitudes it arouses in previous
proposers.

Analysis:

he reason the Australian school system inputs a batch of newbies at an
inappropriate (to us) time of year is that the seasons in Australia run
opposite to those in God's Country.

Cure this unfortunate situation, and you put the learning curve of
their newbies in synch with (though of course much lower than) that of
our own.

Now the reason the seasons "down under" are out of whack is that the
lower half of the planet tilts its surface more away from the sun when
the upper half tilts its surface more toward the sun, due to the well
known 23 degree misalignment of the earth's axes of revolution and of
rotation.

Again, cure this problem, and you cure the newbie desynchronization
problem.

Now putting the earth's rotational and revolutionary axes in alignment
is a solution the inexperience might jump upon, but the affect on the
earth's ecosystem must be computed out to be believed.  Let's just say
you'd never get the environmental impact statement accepted.

Instead, with just a knife, a mallet, a couple center punched ceremet
disks and a long ceramet pole, we can do the proper solution.

The trick is to recognize that this is a _hemispherical_ problem, and
deserves a _hemispherical_ solution, not a continental solution.

Proposal:

Cut the earth carefully in half at the equator.

Cap the cut portions with the ceremet disks.

Turn the "down under" half right side up, storing the angular momentum
in the moon temporarily.

Using the mallet, drive a stake through the "north" pole and out the
top half's ceremet disk cap's center, then through the "south" pole and
out the other half's ceremet disk cap's center.

Leave enough space between the bottom of the top half and the top of
the bottom half to allow for complete sunlight on the bottom half even
at maximum tilt toward or away from the sun. This avoids problems with
disrupting the famous hole in the ozone layer, etc., not to mention the
contribution to the health of a lot of penguins that don't buy X
Industries products anyway.

Now the hemisphere's rotate in synch, tip toward and away from the sun
in synch, and so will have seasons in synch, and school years in synch,
and therefore, at long last, newbies in synch.

My calculations show that in the long term, such a configuration will
be rotationally unstable. On the other hand, in the long term, we'll
all be dead, and meanwhile there are those juicy employee stock options
just waiting to be exercised.

Implementation:

There are a few minor technical problems to be worked out with my
staff, but I think this approach is infinitely superior to the previous
proposals, and I eagerly await your go ahead to begin collecting the
necessary materials.

                /s/ Dr. Science

a.k.a.


Kent, the man from xanth.
--
<dolan@nrlmry.navy.mil> or <dolan@192.138.87.240>
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