The news is just full of P

We took our weekly quiz tonight and decided to relax by reading some news on the internet. I read about the floods, and that Jamie Lynn Spears has apparently given birth to a girl (really, is that news? I think not), and that the Cubbies were swept by the Rays. I read about a multitude of interesting topics, but two of them really make me shake my head and ask, "WTF?"

First: Pluto. All through school (grade school, high school, college) I was taught that Pluto is the ninth planet. I memorized all the planets and know little facts about them, and their order in the solar system. Then, last year, the foundation of my knowledge was shattered when some asshole astronomers voted Pluto out of the International Federation of Planets and demoted it to some sort of nameless unplanetlike entity. This week they decided it's a plutoid, which makes me think that it took 'em a whole year to come up with a catchy name they thought would stick. Well, they're astronomers, so I should cut them some slack in that department. They're probably not real creative when it comes to naming celestial bodies.

Anyway, this whole plutoid thing is asinine, really. The damn thing has been known as a planet all these years, and if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Let sleeping dogs lie. Really, we're all just fine with Pluto being a planet and not a plutoid. Does classifying it as a plutoid somehow change our world in any way? Is there now a peace deal in the middle east? Is it helping us find bin Laden? Has the plutoid suddenly thrown its superdelegate votes to Hillary? No? Then leave it be and don't force textbook publishers all over the world to correct their otherwise solid resources, and parents to have to glumly tell their children that what they thought for all these years was a planet, isn't.

M agrees wholeheartedly, as every time this subject comes up he just endlessly repeats, "Pluto is a planet." The "dammit" on the end is implied. While an overt statement of denial, it also sounds a wee bit like he's trying to convince himself that yes, Pluto is still, indeed, a planet.

I have a feeling our daughter will be raised under the notion that Pluto is a planet, and will fail her 4th grade planet test because she'll insist there's no such thing as a plutoid. And she'll get suspended for writing "dammit" after that statement.

Second: Pregnancy Pacts. It appears that 17 dipshit high school girls in Massachusetts formed a pregnancy pact and are now all expecting babies together. The fathers are boys in their school and men in their twenties, including one who is suspected of being homeless. OMG. What in the hell is going on? Apparently there needs to be some sort of better health education curriculum in that school.

Or maybe they were just all consumed with the "is Pluto a planet or a plutoid" question to notice that their students were being stupid f-ing idiots.

I was not going to post today, as I've struggled all day with this damn wrist immobilizer (although I have to admit I am getting used to it), but after reading about former planet Pluto the plutoid and pregnancy pacts, I just couldn't keep my mouth shut. As I read snippets of the articles out loud to M and we laughed far too much (probably from relief that the homework, discussion questions and quiz are done for the week, in time for the weekend, wahoo!) we decided together that commentary on this information is indeed blog-worthy. So here I am, gamely typing away with my lame wrist, upon which I have a cyst (I'm calling it the wrist cyst, because it sounds rather catchy that way).

So much for my self-imposed blog hiatus to rest my wrist cyst. Sigh. Maybe tomorrow.