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Great circles are the shortest route.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Circle

I'm sensing a great circle joke with s/kerosene/kerosine/

Please don't drag the conversation off onto a tangent.

Ok, so admittedly that was a lesser circle joke.

The route that goes over the U.S. is shorter.

By 18 minutes. It's hardly a huge diversion.

I know you're kidding, but for the edification of anyone wondering why the normal route looks longer than the current route:

Lines on maps are not accurate representations of the shortest distance between the points, because maps are 2d representations of a 3d globe. The shortest path is approximately along a "great circle"[1], which looks like the path in the first link.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_circle

The normal route is shorter. The map projection is misleading.