Gene E. Bloch wrote:

Also, Clyde Tombaugh, from all I've read, was a really nice guy, and
reasonably modest. He deserves a planet :-)

I think that someone being a nice guy is about the worst reason
considered so far for calling Pluto a planet. OTOH, what is to be done
for all the conceited buffoons intent on taking me to task for having
one or two opinions that they can't get their heads around?

Un name them? Disenfranchise their spheres?

In truth, I don't think it matters much what the Pluto-sized objects, Pluto included,
get called, and I suspect that the IAU might end up with a classification scheme
that is a bit fuzzy in that size range.

Quite so. They are a long way from home. Even our great, great, grand
children will hold that opinion, no doubt.

Conservative thinking will rule: Pluto's already a planet, but the other ones are far
away, cold, and dark, and they're just parvenus anyway.

One major problem is that Christendom has run out of western pagan gods
to name them. Which begs the question: How international is the IAU?

Since the Kuiper belt seems to occupy the abode that Bode's law would
indicate holds the next planetary orbit after Uranus, would that put
Neptune in the spot as the largest asteroid so far known?

And what is the next distance out that fits in the law? Is there
anything at that (what is the term?) orbital distance?