Pluto Perplexes Planet Professionals

If you haven't been following the drama surrounding whether to boot Pluto from the official list of planets, Dava Sobel has a good wrap-up here. Most entertaining is this paragraph, which ends with a question that is an exact mix of funny, pathetic, and touching.

On one side were major-planet purists who felt that bodies smaller than 1,500 miles in diameter (a size calculated to eliminate Pluto) should be dropped from the planet list. On the other side were Plutophiles who objected to arbitrary size discrimination. One Pluto specialist asked pointedly, "Is a dachshund not a dog?"

I imagine the major-planet purists would answer, "Yes, but a cockroach is not."

(Via Critical Mass)