Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Nine, Twelve - What's the Dif?

So a bunch of pasty shut-ins, er, astronomers decided that instead of nixing Pluto as our ninth planet, they're going to officially recognize three more. Check it out.

Who cares? Why not make it 17, or 34, or 4,286? What difference does it make? We're not going out there for at least another hundred years anyway, so all of this seems like a convenient way to waste time looking at stars rather than figuring out a way to get us to them.

Maybe it's some elaborate ploy to sell more books about planets, now with new and improved information! I mean, they've just increased the page count by 33%. The marketing revenue alone could fund more fancy telescopes and probes that make it easier for us to look at things, thereby increasing the employment demands for more pasty shut-ins to hide behind gigantic lenses and stare at the sky like galactic peeping toms.

Despite this, I am thankful that they decided to increase the number of planets rather than cut any from the team. After all, what would I do with my Pluto lunchbox?

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