WATER,
WATER, EVERYWHERE,
AND THE EARTH IS TIPPING OVER
Based on: SCIENCE NEWS, Feb. 17, 96
You will be delighted to know that your tax money has been hard at work at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD. A geophysicist name Benjamin Fong Chao has been checking out the earth's spin. He has determined that the earth's axis angle to rotation has moved closer to the line of the axis. The result is that our days are a whopping 8 millionths of a second shorter than they were 40 years ago. I have thought for some time now that we just don't seem to have as much time to get things done. Perhaps the Labor unions should also look into demanding some adjustments in working hours.
How did this terrifying change come about? Water! Benny Chao, while looking at his water glass in the chao hall at NASA, has determined that the cause of this shift is all of the reservoirs which we have built in the North American continent. When a one worlder space cadet scientist gets away out on a limb, you can be sure he is going to find Americans guilty of some new travesty against the environment. This time, we stack up too much water.
Now, before the Conservancy demands we all drain our rain barrels and buckets, let's consider how we could change the world back to a more leisurely day-- 8 millionths of a second longer. The editorial staff of BALAAM'S ASS have come up with a "modest proposal."
Rather than drain all the ponds in America and Canada, let's re-distribute mass. Where is the greatest human mass on earth? Answer-- Not in the Oval Office chair, but in China with over a billion people. In order to slow down the earth a bit, here is the plan:
1. Sign a "Treaty of the Mass" at the United Nations. There is fruit for puns here, but we fear the results. This treaty will call for all people of the world to co-operate in the control of the earth's spin.
2. Assign China the task of all one billion Chinamen to stand up or climb trees. They may also lift rocks and bricks into the air. This would have to be done for at least 30 minutes every day. Since the mass at the top of the world needs to be balanced by the same pattern at the bottom of the world, Argentina and Chile would have to stand and lift bricks at the same time as the Chinamen. They are opposite China in the same weight shifting position as China.
3. To enhance the maneuver, All North American citizens must lie down or go down in the basement at the same time that the Chinamen and Argentinians do their number. To enhance the North American weight shift, the Australians, who are directly opposite the USA, should also lie down and go down in the basement.
4. To make permanent changes in the mass of the earth, Americans could mail bricks to Chinamen and Aussies could ship Ayers Rock to Argentina. This would result in a permanent "paradigm shift" which would offset all the water in buckets in every backyard in America and Canada.
When the brick is in the second house,
And Chinamen are aligned with Mars,
Then truth will shift the axis,
And grease will guide the cigars...
This is the dawning of the Age of Nefarious....
If this activity were repeated every day for 30 minutes, everyone at the same time, a paradigm shift would result, and the earth would slow down. Once the bricks were mailed in sufficient quantity, the program could be terminated. This too would be earth shattering, since the United Nations has yet to invent a program that has an end.
The "Treaty of Mass" could be fine tuned as Benny Chao and company determine the need. We calculate that, with a body weight shift of about 70 pounds, one billion Chinamen would be able to lower the mass of China by 70,000,000,000 pounds, or 35,000,000 tons. Adding the Argentinians, the mass in one direction would shift as much as 40,000,000 tons. The total shift worldwide, with the North Americans and Aussies included, could reach 80,000,000 tons of shift.
Who knows, we might even be able to shift the poles, or even move the north pole to Nashville, Tennessee. With time and practice, every point on earth could be given periods of weather and fame that comes from shifting paradigms all over the place. We might even be able to see the Winter Olympics held in Fez, Morocco, or Nairobi, Kenya. If this proposal is adopted, please don't any of you forget who thought of it first, OK? We want our 15 minutes of fame.
In the old spirit of ecological panic over any tiny change in the earth, we must assume that if we do not implement this plan at once, the earth's angle of shift will reach the maximum hyperbola of the mediary effect in the casuistic extrapolation. This will result in disintegration of stationary inversion, thus setting the hydrological insipiation of the Gratsafratz layer into irreversible retrograde from the nominal apogee. This will result, in a minimum of 10 million years, of the earth being consumed by termites.
So, you can see my friends, this is very urgent stuff. It also will require a whole new section in the United Nations-- UNAWOMSAARBIITL (United Nations Area Wide Office of Mass Shift And Axis Rescue Before It Is Too Late). We have a corner of our office where the UN could put a phone and file cabinet if they want us to run the thing. We would need some cash from UN Secretary General's office, to put in a wider door to hold the name plate.
