Winter Solstice: A Flaw in the Earth’s Ability to Smartly Circle
the Sun  Next Thursday, December 22, is the shortest day of the
year. You wake up in the dark, have breakfast in the dark, lunch
in the dark and then the sun rises. And then, just before
dinner, it sets. It’s awful.  It didn’t used to be like this. I
remember years ago when I was a boy, maybe it was months ago,
well it was last June when the sun rose gloriously at a quarter
to six in the morning, passed high overhead during the day and
then set also gloriously around nine at night. I recall that a
few weeks further on, on the Fourth of July, the authorities had
to wait until 9:30 p.m. before it got dark enough for them to
start sending off the fireworks. Some people, tired of waiting,
had already gone home by then. [expand]  Those in the know tell
me there seems to be something wrong with the earth. The earth
is supposed to make a perfect circle around the sun. All the
other planets dutifully make perfect circles around the sun. But
somehow, som