Earth Knocked Off its Axis!

According to scientists, the earthquake in Chile was so powerful that it knocked the Earth off its axis by as much as three inches, which means that our days are now shorter by something on the order of one millionth of a second.

I'm impressed that we can actually tell that the axis has been changed.

...or can we...?

I'm getting this vision of a bunch of eggheads sitting in a room...

"That was a big earthquake in Chile."
"Yeah, really big."
"People are going to want some scientific information as a result."
"It's crazy! We tell them that it was big, but they always want to know more!"
"We need to impress the people with some scientific crap that will wow and scare them at the same time."
"What should we tell them?"
--lots of fingers drumming on tables--
"How about that it was so big that you could see the land shifting from space!?"
"Ooh...that's good!"
"No...the astronauts already uploaded some video to the internet and you can't see squat."
"Astronauts? Really? I thought that was all hog-wash, too."
"Hey...what if we said that it was so big it shook junks of ice loose from the Antarctica?"
"Nah...we're using the global warming theory for that."
"I know...ready for this?...we say that it knocked the earth off its axis!"
"Wouldn't we be floating through space or toward the sun or something then?"
"No, no! This is good....we say it was only by five inches or something. Something small, but impressive. Small enough that no one can prove us wrong, even though they'll try."
"I like it."
"But if the earth has been knocked off its axis, then..."
"...then...our days are shorter!"
"Yeah, by a hundredth of a second!"
"Or even smaller!"
"A millionth of a second!"
"Ha! Yeah! No idiot's going to go out and actually measure to prove it right or wrong!"
"They couldn't if they wanted!"
"That's great! Let's type it up and send it out as a press release!"
"Good job, guys. See you tomorrow?"