We believe that Pluto should be demoted to a dwarf planet (also known as an irrelevant retard planet [citation needed]). In the event of a grassroots movement to elevate any dwarf planet to true planetary status, we believe that Eris (the best dwarf planet) should be promoted in lieu of Pluto. After the jump, irrefutable evidence that Pluto is stupid...
The two dwarf planets are similar in many respects. Both are quite small and lightweight. Both Pluto and Eris exist in the Kuiper Belt . I mention this only because they are not in the Oort Cloud , which is more fun to say. This is very disappointing to me.
While the two dwarves have much in common, there are significant differences that suggest the utter worthlessness of Pluto, and the total awesomeness of Eris. To begin, we will address the absurd arguments as to the promotion of Pluto to planet status.
I'm not a scientist, and I have little interest in why or why not these guys collect grant money to classify, reclassify, and declassify objects in our solar system willy-nilly.
Scientists are the coolest people in the world. The should be allowed to do whatever they want.
However, as a child raised in a pre-September 11th world where Pluto was most definitely a planet, I have multiple reasons for wanting it to stay that way.
September 11th changed everything, except for the worthlessness of Pluto.
1. Building models is fun. We got to build lots of models of the solar system when I was little, using Styrofoam balls (before the CFC crisis), a basketball for Jupiter and a pea for Pluto, etc. I think that Pluto's inclusion both illustrates the sheer size of the solar system, and also teaches kids the value of including the little guy - not just cutting him out of our solar system and letting him drift without a family or a home.
As should be clear, the demotion of Pluto does not affect the enjoyment of model building. Hell, it doesn't even ban the construction of models that include irrelevant planets like Pluto. Pluto can (and probably will) continue being included in solar system models, constructed by people who do not understand the worthlessness of Pluto.
It is also interesting to note that the pro-Pluto camp do not argue for the inclusion of Eris in these models. They support one minority, while keeping another down. Such callous disregard for the feelings of other dwarf planets shows the moral depravity of Pluto supporters.
2. My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pickles/Pizzas. Pluto's the most versatile planet in that mnemonic device. Also, I'm not really sure how to rewrite it so kids can remember the planet names, but I think the scientific community has that ethical obligation to our children and our educational system.
There are many possible changes to the mnemonic that work fine without Pluto. My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nuts, for example. True, it can be interpreted in a dirty and fairly disturbing way, but it's the first one that came to mind. Perhaps we should consider the mnemonic with the promotion of Eris. My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Eagles, for example. The inclusion of eagles makes it more patriotic! Although the suggested eating of said eagles probably negates the patriotism.
3. Pluto has popular culture currency. Although, to be fair, Disney kinda sucks.
Pluto (the dog) has always sucked (as has the ex-planet). Renaming Pluto after Astro from the Jetsons would add greatly to the pop-culture argument. While Eris doesn't really have any connection to popular culture, at least it is untainted by popular culture that sucks, unlike Pluto.
While some of these arguments would validate the promotion of a dwarf planet, none suggest that Pluto in particular should be promoted. Perhaps we should consider the advantages of elevating Eris to the list of planets, while keeping Pluto down where it belongs.
(1) Eris is bigger than Pluto. As a Texan, bigger = more awesome. Oklahomans may have a difficult time with this concept.
(2) Pluto is the Roman god of the underworld, while Eris is the goddess of strife. As Americans, we all love war, and hate the devil. Thus, Eris is better.
(3) Additionally, there are only two planets named for females (Venus and Earth). Isn't it time for the evil planetary patriarchy to recognize the contribution women make to our solar system? Even dwarf-planet women. An elevation of Pluto would simply reenforce the status quo, and also suggest that size doesn't matter in men. Is that what you really want, ladies?
(4) Eris kinda sounds like eros, which is kinda hot. Pluto is stupid sounding.
(5) Oort cloud! Hee hee.
(6) Puto and Eris both have moons: Charon and Dysnomia, respectively. In mythology, Dysnomia was the demon of lawlessness . Charon, of course, was the ferryman across the river Styx , who had to be paid by the dead. The implication is clear: those who wish to tax the dead (both rich and poor alike) support Pluto, while those who wish to fight the encroachment of big government prefer Eris.
(7) The name Dysnomia kinda looks like insomnia too, which suggests Eris stays up late. Charon sounds kinda like charred, so Pluto must overcook steaks. Why support a morning planet that can't cook?
(8) Pluto is the Water Chestnut of the universe.
(9) The eccentricity of a planet tells you how elliptical the orbit of the planet is. It also tells you how interesting it is, and how fun to hang out with (obviously). Pluto has an eccentricity of 0.248, whereas Eris has an eccentricity of 0.442, as shown here . As is obvious, Eris is cooler than Pluto. For those who argue that eccentric people are just crazy people who are rich, please note that there is no money in space.
(10) Pluto hates our freedoms.
As should be abundantly clear at this point, Pluto should not be elevated to planetary status at all. In fact, a pre-emptive attack against Pluto may be necessary in the near future, coupled with the imprisonment of all Pluto-supporters.
While we have not definitively shown that Eris deserves to be promoted, we have certainly shown that it kicks ass, and is better than stupid Pluto.
Friday, June 15, 2007
The Pluto-Is-Stupid-So-Keep-Defaming-It League
Gchatting after a Law Firm Event
This post will be the last thing I do before I crawl under my desk today and die at work.
12:47 AM Thomas: hey
me: tommycwhy eoyou
you silence me
Thomas: sorry im on a conference call
haha you're drunk
me: haha you suck
12:48 AM oh a conferencce call you are ver yimportnat
youi're the most iposrtant'
Thomas: i know. many people know me
me: typing is so hard
Thomas: i understand
ive always thought so
me: i have one eyh closed
Thomas: i do that when im drunk too!
12:49 AM me: you ca n't evevn talk brfause you are on a conference call
Thomas: i know
i would much rather be talking to you right now
me: what areyou doing??
12:50 AM Thomas: trying to do lab placements for VBI
me: oh erights
with vixcctor/z?
Thomas : josh and babb
me: oh that is niot important
12:51 AM Thomas: haha it kinda is
and im the connecting force between them
without me they are nothing
[content deleted so that we all stay employed and un-lawsuited]
12:55 AM me: okkki have to go to bed
feeel lie shite and i am su e it wil bre worze in the morning
Thomas : aww =(
i understand
me: how's that for grammar
Thomas: hopefully we can talk longer soon
me: ok well i iw lll talk to you soon'
Thomas: night night
good luck tomorrow
me: godnight
thx gbnye
12:56 AM Thomas : god night to you too
Happy Friday!
Hey, everyone -
Welcome to the end of the first fully-functional week for the blog! Keep blogging, posting, and ranting. Tell your friends. Tell me of problems or ideas you have.
Remember, my faithful blog authors, that any musings or queries or concerns you pose either in a post or on a blog, I answer on the FAQ page. There's a link conveniently located on the sidebar under "our stuff." Shween, my love, I'll post step by step instructions for opening a delicious account shortly.
Also, if you're going to post links, please either use html tags or use the link icon in the toolbar so that it becomes active and not just a random garbled url text.
[e.g. the difference between: http://consumerist.com/consumer/technology-is-awesome/baby-monitor-monitors-international-space-station-rather-than-baby-268600.php;
AND:
Read this cool story about a baby monitor that shows video of the space station!
Finally, you should digg Joey's stories. In exchange, Joey should open a delicious account, post links to his stories there, and we can easily see the new stories on the blog, and thus digg them. Everyone's happy.
Love
me
Thursday, June 14, 2007
copyright law be damned!
check this out.
http://www.readprint.com
now if i could only figure out how to join delicious...
Russia Has Ninjas!
A Russian ex-military man was caught ravaging the Italian countryside dressed as a ninja:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6746051.stm
Yeah. Who else wants to move back with Tommy?
Type rest of the post here
Help Joey Test Out Digg
So part of my new job as a reporter is figuring out how to drive traffic to our site. I'm experimenting with Digg.com, and you can help by voting for one of my stories. As a bonus, it's actually a kind of cool story, you know, if you're interested in how secondary markets for virtual goods affect online worlds. Yeah? Yeah! Feel free to tell your friends. Also, I promise I'll never do this again.
You can Digg the story here: http://tinyurl.com/36qz8l
Pluto Anti-Defamation League
The BBC reports today on an article just published in Science that once again seeks to demean and demote Pluto.
I'd like to announce the beginning of the Pluto Anti-Defamation League.
I'm not a scientist, and I have little interest in why or why not these guys collect grant money to classify, reclassify, and declassify objects in our solar system willy-nilly. However, as a child raised in a pre-September 11th world where Pluto was most definitely a planet, I have multiple reasons for wanting it to stay that way:
1. Building models is fun. We got to build lots of models of the solar system when I was little, using Styrofoam balls (before the CFC crisis), a basketball for Jupiter and a pea for Pluto, etc. I think that Pluto's inclusion both illustrates the sheer size of the solar system, and also teaches kids the value of including the little guy - not just cutting him out of our solar system and letting him drift without a family or a home.
2. My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pickles/Pizzas. Pluto's the most versatile planet in that mnemonic device. Also, I'm not really sure how to rewrite it so kids can remember the planet names, but I think the scientific community has that ethical obligation to our children and our educational system.
3. Pluto has popular culture currency. Although, to be fair, Disney kinda sucks.
4. Post-script: Apparently I'm not very creative. Other people have blogged about this at length, about a year ago.
On the mnemonic
Another blogger held a contest to come up with a new mneumonic, which could a) protest the demotion of Pluto (hooray!), describe the lonely 8-planet system, or include the new 3 dwarf planets. Fortunately for the future of astronomy, the protest mnemonic won: My! Very educated morons just screwed up numerous planetariums.
The Economist weighs in on the controversy, although the facists advocate killing Pluto
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Open letter to tourists
Dear D.C. Tourists:
Welcome to Capitol Hill! I'm actually glad that you've decided to take your family here this summer. It's beautiful here this time of year, the entire Capitol Complex is lovely, and seeing the Constitution and Declaration of Independence sure beats your kids playing video games all summer. As someone who will be sharing the city with you this summer, I just have a few small requests.
One: Please continue to wear your Hawaiian shirts, fanny packs, khaki shorts with long-sleeved shirts tucked in, and visors. If you haven't arrived with these items of clothing, then your family should at least all wear the same color shirt (neon colors work nicely). Any of these outfits make it easy for folks like me to identify you from a distance, stay as far away as possible, and thus give you all the room you need to make your visit happier and your family time more intimate.
Two: The map from National Treasure really, really isn't on the back of the Declaration of Independence. Sorry. I could tell you it was, but that would be enabling your strange fantasy. And, no, the guards probably won't make an exception for you to just "take a quick peak," even if you did drive Betty and the kids all the way from Idaho. Sorry.
Three: I think it's fantastic you want to talk to your Senators and/or Representatives. I think more people should. Become involved, voice your concerns, develop a relationship with your elected officials. However, when I am outside of my building, listening to my ipod, smoking a cigarette, and not making eye contact with you, it is difficult to mistake me for a Capitol Hill information booth staffer. I don't mind telling you where buildings are, or giving you directions to the metro.
However, there are 100 Senators and 435 Representatives. I don't know where your Member's office is. I have absolutely no idea if they're in town right now, or if they have time to see you. Maybe, before you sailed up the Atlantic coast from Florida in the fishing boat you bought for retirement, you should have given your Senator a call to see if (s)he'd be around. Just a thought. You'll have a nice time in the district anyway.
Four: Metro etiquette. I'm going to break this into several parts.
a) The metro is hard to navigate sometimes. The maps help, but no one minds answering your questions. Really. However, knowing the stop you want, the area of town you want to get to, or at least the name of the restaurant where you're meeting your "high-school-sweetheart-I-haven't-seen-in-15-years-I-wonder-if-he's-fat-now" helps me a lot when I'm trying to give you directions. It's great that it's somewhere near Pennsylvania, but Pennsylvania happens to be a long street, with lots of restaurants. I really, really would help you if I could, but I also don't want to talk about what an amazing quarterback Gerald was when he was 17. I don't know why he divorced Marlene. I just want to listen to Wolf Parade. That's it.
b) One of my favorite things about DC is that people move from place to place as quickly as I do. I don't believe in standing still on metro escalators. If I'm on the metro, I'm either late for work, or I want to go home. So, particularly during rush hour, PLEASE pretend like the left side of the escalator will spontaneously burst into flames if you spend more than 2 seconds on a given stair. The left is for WALKING. If you want to stand, that's what the entire right half is dedicated to. I have nothing funny to say here, but seriously, people. LEFT=walk. RIGHT=lazy. Choose a side, embrace the side, but please don't stand on the left.
c) On a related note, I know that when a few hundred people are getting off the metro, and 50 of them belong to your party, it's scary and nerve racking and you want to be able to count heads as quickly as possible. PLEASE, though, do not do this at the very top or bottom of the escalators. Back up 10-15 feet, and then congragate. Again, nothing funny, but we'll like you so much more if you do this one simple thing for us.
d) I bet that your children are adorable, brilliant, and that they're very excited to be on vacation and to meet new people. I think that's fantastic. However, when I'm on my way home, I'm really tired, and need to retreat into what I like to call my "metro bubble of aloneness." I don't take up much space, I don't talk to anyone, I put on my headphones, and I read. It's REALLY hard to bother me. What does bother me, though - a lot - is hearing this conversation screamed:
50-year-old woman, top of her lungs, to entire train: "Jimmy is collecting people from all 50 states! What state are you on now, Jimmy?"
8-year-old boy: "Alaska, Mommy!"
Woman: "Hear that? he needs Alaska! Who on this train is from Alaska? Anyone? Anyone? Come on! DC is the great melting pot. Fine! Alabama? Really? No takers? Well, don't worry Jimmy, we've got an entire alphabet to get through!"
Boy: "I love long metro rides! I can sing all the states in alphabetical order, wanna hear?"
Woman: "Listen to him! My boy's going to be president one day!"
Good lord.
I think that's it. Generally, you're all very nice people, who make working on the Hill more interesting. Just please, please, don't be the typical tourist.
Thanks!
Love
Me
DC Rape Crisis Center
Many of you know that I recently started volunteering at the DC Rape Crisis Center. Working at the Center has been a powerful and rewarding experience for me. The Center is starting a "Dollars for Doers" initiative, and I was hoping you'd take a few minutes to read about it.
I know that many of us are short on funds right now, and if you're interested in volunteering or helping in some other way, please let me know and I'd be delighted to talk your ear off about it. I would also be happy to send you the letter in a word document or pdf if you have family or friends that would be willing to donate.
Thanks for your time and support!
Love
Kel
Cheap High
2 Excedrin washed down by a can of Diet Coke. I feel euphoric right now. Seriously, weird smile on my face. Love for humanity in general.