Politicians Linked To Underworld Figure

The Illinois State Senate has decided to get involved in the matter of whether or not Pluto is a planet. Apparently they are eager for a break from impeaching Governors and trying to take back U.S. Senate appointments. An Illinois Senate committee unanimously voted to send a bill to the floor for a vote, declaring that 1) Pluto IS SO a planet, and 2) March 13 is "Pluto Day" in the land of Lincoln.

The ostensible reason for the bill is to honor Illinois-born Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto back in 1930. (Tombaugh left Illinois in childhood and did most of his growing up in Kansas, which means that not only could this movement gain some national momentum, we even have the potential for an interstate minor planet rivalry.)

Of course, that's just what they say. Veteran political observers can easily detect the hand (or pseudopod) of the influential Helium-Breather lobby.* Given that this is Illinois we're talking about, the only real question is how much did Pluto pay them?



*I should point out that most Helium-Breathing-Americans are fine upstanding citizens, despite their lack of rigid skeletal systems.

Comments

[Laurel Kornfeld]

Pluto IS a planet. Only four percent of the International Astronomical Union voted on the demotion, and most are not planetary scientists. Their decision was immediately opposed by hundreds of professional astronomers led by Dr. Alan Stern, Principal Investigator of NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto. This debate is not over, and even now, scientists and lay people are working to overturn the controversial demotion or are ignoring it altogether.