Capital of Nasty Electronic Magazine
Volume I, Issue XXVII, Year AD MCMXCVI
Monday, December 23th, 1996
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1.      Christmas Propaganda
2.      You are getting married.  Tomorrow.
3.      Memoirs of Physics
4.      A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling

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1.      Christmas Propaganda

        During this holiday season, we should reflect upon the amount
of propaganda washing up on the shores of our minds. What propaganda?
The propaganda to which I refer is a theme used by many advertisers
during Christmas: in giving, you receive. Personally speaking, to
give is to receive refers to the joy one feels from within when
offering anything to another person that makes that individual
happier. Unfortunately, the media has subverted that meaning and
replaced it with another--one receives appreciation from another
person when giving this product to that person. If the gift is not
this product, the giver feels no joy.

While preparing for this holiday season, We urge you to share and give
the word. Wrap your gifts in printed issues of CoN.

Merry Christmas

                                           [anonymous]

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2.      You are getting married.  Tomorrow.
                                by Leandro (ordnael@freenet.hut.fi)

        My family is pretty traditional.  Over the years however,
they seem to have relaxed a bit, and some things, first particulary
culturally crucial, now are of no interest to anyone.  I was at
first told that I could go out with anyone I wanted, as long as
they were white, Italian and Christian.  You can imagen their
reaction when I went out with girls of other cultural backgrounds.
They bitched and complained but never really said or done too much
about it (other then threats in fear of what others might think).
The other day I was talking to Suzan, a friend of mine, a girl with an
Indian background.  Her parents had found out that she had a
boyfriend, and to make things worse he wasn't even Hindu.  In a
burst of tears she revealed that her parents had decided that in
July she would go to India and get married.  Married to some guy
she will meet a few seconds before the ceremony.  Married at 17.
If she was lucky to return to Canada, they had even decided that
they wouldn't have any kids until she was done her studies here.
In my family the most they had done was to introduce me to some
girl or point out that "she'd be perfect for you" -- yeah if only
she had a personality.  What saves me, I guess, is that I am a
guy, and the only male son.  I used to get the typical comment:
"but your cousin is married and so happy!".  Good for him.  Maybe
I don't want to be "happy".  Being forced into marriage with someone
you don't know is insane.  Suzan isn't too happy and she is going to do
something about it. I suggested her to try talking to her parents and
convince them to let her live her life the way she wants to.  After
all she was born here, not there.  "This is Canada, not India" she said
"but to them it doesn't really make much of a difference.  It's
because I'm in love with a Muslim that they are doing all this".
If all fails, she is thinking of leaving them.  It shocked me to see
these decisions being taken on her life because of the difference in
religion.  Honestly, aren't we supposed to "all just get along?".
It also surprised me how she had suddenly grown up in a matter of
days.  She quickly returned to her incredibile positive attitude.
A sure sign of strenght.  I guess this goes to show that a problem
is only a problem if we decide to see it as such.


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3.      Memoirs  of  Physics:(Not a President's Choice sauce)*

        [I've been told that this stuff has been going around for
years now, but it's still funny and it fits with the "spirit" of
the season.  I found this particular sheet while looking in my old
physics binder... -- Leandro]

IS THERE A SANTA CLAUS?  The scientific evidence.

*     No  known species of reindeer can fly.  But there  are
roughly  300,000  species  of living  organisms  yet  to  be
classified.   While most of these are insects and  bacteria,
this doesn't rule out flying reindeer - though Santa and  my
uncle  Ralph,  in  his drinking days, are  the  only  people
who've ever seen one.

*     There are two billion children (small people under the
age  of  18)  in the world.  But Santa doesn't  (appear  to)
handle  most non-Christian children.  By removing Muslims,
Hindus, etc., that reduces the number to  about 15% of the
total (roughly 378 million).  At a rate of say, 3.5 children
per household, that's  91.8  million homes.  One presumes
there's at least one good kid in each.

*    Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to
the  different  time zones and the rotation  of  the  earth,
assuming he travels from east to west.  That's 822.6  visits
per second.
     For each eligible household Santa has about 1/1000 of a
second  to park the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill  the
stockings,  put  presents under the tree,  eat  any  snacks,
kiss mommy when available, get back up chimney, hop in  the
sleigh and move on.
      Assuming  each of these 91.8 million stops  is  evenly
distributed  around the world we're now talking  about  0.78
miles  per  household - a total trip of 75.5 million  miles,
not  counting  stops to let Santa and the reindeer  do  what
most of us do at least once every 31 hours.
      This  means  Santa's sleigh moves  at  650  miles  per
second,  or  about  3,000 times the  speed  of  sound.   The
fastest  man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves  a
poky  27.4  miles per second.  (A conventional reindeer,  by
the way, can run 15 miles per hour, tops).

*     Assuming each child gets nothing more than  a  medium-
sized  Lego set or equivalent (about two pounds), the sleigh
is  carrying  321,300 tons, not counting  overweight  Santa.
Conventional  reindeer  can pull no more  then  300  pounds.
Even  granting flying reindeer can pull 10 times the  normal
amount, Santa would need 214.200 reindeer.
     This increases the payload (not counting the sleigh) to
353,430  tons,  or  four  times  the  weight  of  the  Queen
Elizabeth II ocean liner.

*    353,430 tons travelling at 650 miles per second creates
enourmous air reistance, which would heat up the raindeer to
incadescence in the same fashion as a spacecraft or  meteors
entering the earth's atmosphere.
      The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 quintillion
joules  of energy.  Per second.  Each.  In short, they  will
burst  into  flame  almost  instantaneously,  exposing   the
reindeer  behind  them  and creating deafening  booms.   The
entire  team (all 214,200 reindeer) will be vaporized within
4.26 thousand of a second.
      Santa,  meanwhile,  will be subjected  to  centrifugal
forces of 17,500.06 gravities.  A 250-pound Santa (a wee bit
of  an  understatement) would be pinned to the back  of  his
sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.

What do you think happened to Santa?

--
* There are food products here in Canada called "Memoirs of Antigua"
or "Memoirs of Singapore" and so on.  They are products
typical of those countries and sold here by a company called
"President's Choice", all part of the No Frills chain.  Yes, yes
free advertising.


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4.      A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling
			  by Mark Twain

	For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped
to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer
be part of the alphabet.  The only kase in which "c" would be retained
would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later.  Year 2
might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the
same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with
"i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all.
	Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear
with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12
or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants.
Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi
ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz
ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli.
	Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud
hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.
    
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