Feedback, 30 September 2006:

HAIL Eris! The mildly gravitationally challenged planet formerly known as 2003 UB313 now has an official name. It had previously, if unofficially, borne the seemingly quite adequate name Xena, after the feisty warrior princess
of fiction. So why the change? Feedback asked Eris's discoverer, Mike Brown, whether fictional deities had
been barred. "There were never clear International Astronomical Union guidelines," he told us, "but given that the naming of dwarf planets turns out to be the
most bureaucratic naming process for anything in all of astronomy, we figured there was no chance of some non-standard deity making it through." Not that
this really solves the issue of fact and fiction: "I'm pretty sure that all deities are fictional," he adds.

Be that as it may, Brown and his colleagues proposed the name Eris, and Eris's daughter Dysnomia for her satellite. Eris is a traditional Greek goddess of discord. She is, however, rather better known as a deity of Discordianism
- which is described variously as an elaborate joke disguised as a religion, or a religion disguised as an elaborate joke, and is much beloved, in an ironical sort of way, by computer geeks in particular. Consider this extract from its sort-of holy book, the Principia Discordia: "Is Eris true?" "Everything is true." "Even false things?" "Even false things are true." "How can that be?" "I don't know man, I didn't do it." Discordians can sometimes be spotted by their unaccountable fondness for the number 23.

?A sign that Bill Johns saw in a Hawaiian hotel made him worry that he might be thrown into jail any minute because he is a non-smoker. It said "No smoking
prohibited by law"?

Brown says the naming opportunity was "just too good to pass up". And Feedback can exclusively report his revelation that: "Of course, Dysnomia, being the
daimon spirit of lawlessness, is a tip of the hat to Lucy Lawless [the actress who played Xena in the eponymous TV series], who must be sad to no longer have a planet named after her character."

All hail Eris! All hail Dysnomia! All hail Discordia! Geeks everywhere shall rejoice (unless their interpretation of Discordianism mandates skulking in basements painting their nails purple and not rejoicing).

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=:-)
Credit to Dave Lee for digging this up (Thx, bro)!
Stay well and prosper!

See the page on Eris by the Baronesse on the Gran Culto's homepage: http://www.chaosmagick.org/culto/stories/88

gobchurinor fouija,
BlackPete