If the Bi-polar Model is Tom's preference (Post 30 March) we might finally be getting somewhere in developing common ground between the FE/RE Camps. I know the FE's have some difficulties agreeing a definitive version, but lets consider the most commonly seen proposal (centered roughly on Africa);
1. It shows continents in a relationship which many RE'ers would recognise.
2. It includes an Antarctic continent. We know that exists because, as well as government agencies, Michael Palin has been there (Pole to Pole, Palin, BBC Books, 1992). And no-one is going to accuse one-half-of-the-Dead-Parrot-Sketch of being a government patsy. And yes, there was midnight sun, it was December.
3. It includes, by definition, a South Pole.
An anomaly with the Bi-Polar where we struggle to bring the Roundies on-board is the relationship between the extreme East and West sides of the map. The Eastern Pacific is shown at the extreme left (West) and the Western Pacific vice versa. This is highlights a number of issues;
4. Pacific Ocean currents, helpfully illustrated by Tom in a Post later the same day (on a Mercator Projection?). Tom's illustration of the contra-rotating Northern and Southern Pacific currents/drifts seems incompatible with the bi-polar model.
5. Trans-Pacific travel. A trans-pacific flight from Chile to Australia, for instance, would not seem feasible. QED; see the recent Flat Earth Theory Topic "Are plane tickets real?". Please read that thread before disputing it.
What might be accepted by both camps: Print a Bi-Polar map on an A3-sized sheet of thin latex. Now s-t-r-e-t-c-h this around a basketball so that the left and right sides of the map meet on the "dark-side" of the Earth, sorry, basketball.
Voila!