Eat it, Mickey!!

The Plutocracy is over! That pesky bit of Kuiper Belt detritus, that frigid, bifurcated dustball, that hiddeously ancient frozen Yuggoth of Lovecraftian nightmares is history. Today the International Astronomical Union finalized it's definition of just what constitutes a major planet. As before, a planet must not be in thrall to any other body but good old Sol, must not be a star, must have enough mass for gravity to pull it into a roughly spherical shape(we live on an ovoid), and(here's the planet killer for Pluto) it must have a clear neighborhood around its orbit. In other words, all of the major planets have scooped up, or flung away, all debris, asteroids, and other space crap in their ways. Pluto, on the other hand, has such a wonky orbit that it crosses over the orbit of Neptune, which tiny Pluto could never hope to clear away. So rather than the unwieldy 12+ planet Solar System I fretted over the other day, we are now left with an official, and undisputable 8 planets. And what of frozen Yuggoth? It, and it's Kuiper Belt bretheren and sisteren are to be dubbed Dwarf Planets. This way we don't have to change the kids' mobiles every time another big rock is found out beyond Neptune, and all we need do to make all of our schoolbooks accurate is just apply some creative Sharpie action.

Peace out, yo!
Marius