« Macho Men Rejoice as Wimpy Pluto is De-Planetified! »

Macho men around the world today rejoiced as the International Astronomical Union dramatically announced that Pluto was stripped of its status as a planet today. Pluto, beloved by wimpy men across the world but scorned by astronomers and macho men as not manly enough, was downgraded during the release of historic new galactic guidelines.

"The word 'planet' and the idea of planets can be emotional because they're something we learn as children," said Richard Binzel in an interview with the Associated Press. Binzel, a professor of planetary science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, helped hammer out the new planet definition.

"This is all about science and manliness, which is all about focusing on the facts," Binzel said. "Machismo has marched on while many more wimpy and uninteresting Plutos wait to be discovered."

Pluto, a planet since 1930, got the boot because it didn't meet the new rules, which say a planet not only must orbit the sun and be large enough to assume a nearly round shape, but must "clear the neighborhood around its orbit." That disqualifies Pluto, whose oblong orbit overlaps Neptune's, downsizing the solar system to eight planets from the traditional nine.

"This is a great day for the scientific community and for all the macho men around the world that petitioned for Pluto's status change," said an ecstatic and exhausted Herman Cathedral, Mas Macho board member and leader of the worldwide Pluto protests. "Everyday we fought and fought and never gave up, that is what we macho men do!"