. . . because seven eight the ninth planet!

From: Fixhialtius V5, Chariman of the Council on American-Plutonic Relations

To: Earth Science Astronomy People

Dear Earth Science Astronomy People--

Pluto’s not a planet, huh? Who the fuck do you think you are, God’s gift to astronomy? Well, you got it wrong--God’s gift to astronomy is God. And only God can make a planet, assholes!

And only God can take one away.

How did you come to your little conclusion anyway? Have you been to Pluto? Do you know anything at all about the culture and peoples of Pluto? Or is this something you just assumed because you read it in some astronomy book that you probably wrote in the first place?

What do you think is going to happen now because of your little pronouncement? Is Pluto suddenly going to stop orbiting and disintigrate into dust because the big bad Earth scientists said it wasn’t a planet?

Fuck you. This doesn’t change anything! You gravely underestimate the long Plutonic tradition.

This is revisionist science at its worst. It is nothing more than human guilt. Yes, one time, many millions of years ago, there was slavery on Pluto. Yes, for a long time female Plutonian writers were omitted from the literary canon of great Plutonian masterpieces. Yes, Plutonians have used racial profiling to weed out Neptunian terrorists. So this is the collective universal punishment for our prior sins? To be stripped of our inherent planethood?

Let’s see how you like this, as long as we’re playing the flimsy game of random redefinition--EARTH isn’t a planet anymore either. What do you think of that?

I’m sure I could bring up quite a few “unique characteristcs” and “unorthodox elements” inherent in the planetary status of Earth that might throw everything into question.

To name a few--

1) Pine trees. No other planet has pine trees. Doesn’t that put YOU in the minority? Doesn’t that raise doubts about YOUR planetary status?

2) A Pacific Ocean. Name me one other fucking planet that has a Pacific Ocean! How about an Atlantic, Indian, or Arctic? Kind of difficult, isn’t it?

3) Burning Man. You charge people over two hundred dollars once a year to live out in the desert with a bunch of ravers? Jesus, I wonder how your neighbors Venus and Mars would feel if they knew they shared a solar system with such retards. . .

The list goes on and on. It’s easy to point the finger at something 2.7 billion miles away. It’s always harder to look at yourself. Find a mirror, assholes. Don’t they have them on earth? Oh, that’s right--you also invented narcissism!

Last night, I held my daughter Xarpanthima by her tentacle. She was crying. (Yes, we have emotions out here in Pluto) Xarpanthima goes to private school on Saturn. When it came time for science class and the teacher related the news of our “demotion” she had to endure endless taunts from her classmates. How is she supposed to hold her metallic-sheened orb high after this?

Even worse, this morning I awoke to see that somebody had spray-painted the word “Nigger” on the east side of our surface.

I hope you earthlings really do get melted away by the polar ice caps and bust a big fucking hole through your ozone layer. Personalliy, I thought Katrina was justified.

Until that glorious day comes, however, we’re going to look for a new sun. You’re not the only solar system in town. To be sure, we’ll probably be the last planet in that system as well. Not even the ninth, more like the 5,346,132th. But guess what? You’ll be even farther back than we are in that particular line-up. And whoever that solar system’s equivalent of Earth is--who knows, maybe some day down the road THEIR human scientists will start questioning the planetary status of the 5,346,138th planet. . .

Oh, I’m sorry--”icy dwarf”!

Respectfully,


Go fuck your mother.

The Independent Pollster

Sometimes I worry that there will be peace in the future. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a war-monger. I’m just a monger. There isn’t anything I won’t monge.

But I am scared of the potential for lasting peace.

My fear is that if all wars ended tomorrow and peace was established on earth, over time humans would evolve into Spielberg-esque aliens a la Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Our bodies would begin to glisten with a light watery sheen and our skin would turn gray. We’d all become very tall and thin, lose all evidence of body hair and discernible genitalia, our eyes would be devoid of irises and grow to encompass half of our face, our mouths would shrink to an expressionless “O” and our noses would be replaced by two slits for nostrils.

We would communicate with a series of unintelligible, but slightly adorable, coos and sighs and cock our heads slightly to the left when encountering something new.

Dogs would be scared of us at first, but when we touch them on the nose with our glowing, elongated finger, they would recognize we are their friends and mean them no harm.

The extent of our creative labors will be periodically humming along to a five note melody tapped out on a keyboard by a French scientist.

If men in suits try and take us away for research, children on bicycles will always be there to help us escape.

And the sadly ironic thing is, we will be regarded as the most intelligent and advanced civilization that ever lived.

MEANWHILE:

Over at The Independent Pollster

We asked over two hundred people over a period of twenty-four hours what time it was—and received some interesting results:

12% believed it was somewhere between 3:07 p.m. and 3:19 p.m.

45% believed it to be close to midnight or a little thereafter

17% believed it was between 4 and 5 in the morning and violently ejected us from their homes

19.33% stated that even though they believed it was currently 9:07 a.m., answers could vary given the time of day.

6% refused to answer, citing differentials such as time zones and current daylight savings time mandates—[if they’re so smart, why aren’t they asking the questions?—ed]

When asked the question “where are you?” the answers were even more varied.

0.00001% stated they were window shopping until it was time to pick up Barbara from her dentist’s appointment

0.00001% stated they were at the dentist

0.00001% stated they were working on a woman’s teeth

0.00003% were at home wondering when Daddy and Barbara (their step-mother, whom they’ve never really gotten along with, which is why they don’t call her “mommy”) were going to get back from the dentist and take them to Dairy Queen.

95% were on various street corners, providing answers to some asshole from a Gallup poll.

When asked the question “Do you think Gallup polls are causing a restrictive monopoly on polls and squeezing out independent salt-of-the earth working class middle-American pollsters?” the answers were quite telling.

72% said they didn’t have time to answer any more questions because they just got finished talking to the nice young man from the Gallup poll.

0.0004% said, “Face it, indie-boy, nobody cares about your little independent bullshit polls. The world is changing, my friend—either you’re part of the 21st century, or you’re little five and dime question-asking goes the way of the do-do bird.” And then they sneered and did one of those little James Spader-styled hair flips.

0.0001% said they would teach me karate if I waxed their cars.

These are all telling figures, but what do they mean? And what will they mean for future generations? Or will there be any future generations? What if that movie about melting was true?

But if our skin was slimy and we lost our genitalia and our body hair and our facial expressions—we could free the world from the slavery of opinions. . .

And I’d be out of a job.

I’m the Independent Pollster.

100% of me agrees with 100% of me.