Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for September 13, 2020

The element of surprise has been removed.

Perfect description of the news.

Ya know it’s bad, it’s bad, ya know . . .

(Really really bad)

Ya know it’s bad, it’s bad, ya know it . . .

(Really really bad)

Oh yeah it’s bad, so bad, ya know it, ya know . . .

(Really really bad)

And the whole world knows it’s bad and it sucks,

Lemme tell ya once again—it’s bad!

Easiest scam Rat’s ever pulled.

so when is the good day, The Great Boobini? what, the day you took Pig’s $5 was the good day? you scoundrel!

Reminds me of Dana Carvey’s impression of George HW Bush :. “It’s bad! It’s bad!”

Tomorrow, Pig wins the casino jackpot; Rat gets a citation for operating a pop-up without a permit, fined $1100.

Next day, Pig wins the PCH sweepstakes; Rat gets cited for littering (abandoning his pop-up stand), fined $2500.

Next day, Pig wins lottery; Rat is indicted for tax evasion.

Rat’s power of predictions were genuine, but limited to his own future.

There is always somebody somewhere in the world who is having a bad day. On the other hand, the stock market is up since March, so some people are having a good day.

Depressed writer is depressed #1556

Can Boobini really keep abreast of the future?

And, that’s the way it is.

In Drumpf’s world every day will be bad and each day worse than the previous day!

And so on and so forth!!

He looks like The Great Carnac.

Unless you do not live in the US.

Boy, compared to Rat, Lucy Van Pelt is a bargain at 5 cents!

Those Debbie Downer pills work wonders ! …….. Croc Power !

Rat the perpetually pessimistic poppycock predictor.

The Great Boobini? Aptly named.

Boast not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.”

King James Version (KJV) Proverbs 27:1

Although I couldn’t run it down with Google just now, I think it was Robert Heinlein who wrote, “it does not pay a prophet to be too specific”. Rat has the vagueness down, but he needs to work a little on the presentation.

January 20th will be a good day depending on your choice

Carnac the Magnificent he’s not.

Can’t fix STUPID!

Boobini, can you tell me when all the long missed characters will return? I really dont understand their absence? Anyone?

All our wishes of HAPPY NEW YEAR on Jan 1st 2020 failed. This has been the unhappiest crappy year ever!

And all this wisdom for practically nothing.

Wild fires – September (wasn’t on my card); hurricanes – (October); asteroid (November) combined with civil war in the US; December the aliens mercifully step in and put us under the authority galactic equivalent of a mental incompetency protective order. Sigh. If we don’t get benevolent aliens it will be China and Russia in charge.

Tomorrow probably is gonna be bad.

Rat knows how to scam people

Guess it really is too easy to be a pessimist.

Pastis lives in California. Seriously.

The perfect comic for the depression I woke up with….

$60 Please.

He has the right name! ;-)

Can I send the future into time-out?

Hey, Stephan!! Shouldn’t Goat be in the booth so he can say: “Tomorrow’s outlook is Baaaaaad!”?

sorry, 2020 has been a hell of a year and it isn’t over yet…but some of us are getting tired of the doom and gloom. It to make things a bit better at the grass root level.

Climate Crisis has already gone over the tipping point – the rest of it all became moot

What sux about knowing the future it’s like deja vu no matter what you do you can’t change it

The great Boobini only has one answer to his patient’s – Bad

“I can tell you your fortune for five dollars.”

[receives payment]

“Your fortune has been reduced by five dollars.”

Predictions are all about interpertation. It’s up to those viewing the prediction to decide what it really says and if it’s come true or not. The 2000 edition of The Old Farmer’s Almanac had an article called How to Become a Prophet: In 24 Hours or Less. It gave six easy steps, though some really are just rehasing others. The steps are:

1. Predict the Past – Look to the past, at things that have happened before. Think about it, in the past there has been earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, assasinations, monarchs dieing, presidents dieing, horse races, full moons, presidential elections, monarchs being corinated, etc. All of these things will happen again in the future. If something has happened in the past it’s fairly likely to happen again in the future. Don’t just guess what might be, you know don’t say that in the future robots will give birth to eels.

2. Avoid Specifics – As I said, predictions are about interpertation. Don’t tell folks the five Ws (who, what, when, where, and why) when you make a prediction, that’s giving them too many specifics. You want to be fairly vauge. If you say “The Mayor of Berlin will drop dead of a heart attack at 4::15 PM October 23, 2022” then you’ve been too specific. But if you say something like “And it shall come to pass on the fifth day after the ides of the fifth month following the great blue moon that the leader shall no longer lead on the banks of the Spree”, you’ve left it more open to interpertation.

3. Predict the Obvious – This is basically rehashing step one. The Battle of Hastings and the Norman Conquest of England are unlikely to happen again. But we can expect things I mentioned in step one to take place in the future.

4. Leave Home – This doesn’t actually mean leave home, but rather become someone else for your prediction. If you’re Jacob Monroe and you’re telling folks around you your prediction as yourself, their likely able to say “Yeah, sure Jake. And I suppose you’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell me too.” But if you’re Jacob Monroe and you say you heard the prediction from some great eastern mystic, Swami Anhewa, they might be more likely to listen. Basically, find a way for people not to know it’s you makeing the prediction. Such as making the prediction over the net under an alias.

5. Leave Yourself an Out – This is basically rehasing step two. Be vauge in your prediction, don’t be so specific. Let your audience interpert the prediction. Go back to the two example predictions I gave in step 2. "The Mayor of Berlin will drop dead of a heart attack at 4:15 PM October 23, 2022”. As I said, that’s too specific. It tells the who, the what, the where, and the when. If I meant for it to be a true prediction, then if the Mayor of Berlin doesn’t die on that day of a heart attack then I’ve got no out. “And it shall come to pass on the fifth day after the ides of the fifth month following the great blue moon that the leader shall no longer lead on the banks of the Spree”. Okay, there are some specifics there, but not enough. All months have an ides, not just March. Most months that’s about the 13th of the month, March, May, July, and October the ides is the 15th. And the Banks of the Spree should be the Spree River in Germany, along the banks of which is Berlin. But what month? After all it’s the fifth month after a blue moon, And what year? And who is the leader? This prediction could mean anything from the Mayor of Berlin dieing, to them resigning from

office, to the leader of a band quiting the band while on tour in Belin. When your audience interperts your vague prediction and their interpertation of it proves wrong, you can point out you never said that was what was going to happen.

6. Predict Interesting Stuff – Predict things your audience wants to hear about. Basically know your audeince. If their folks interested in theater and the preforming arts, they may not want to hear about politics or the latest scientific discovery. Of course they might also be interested in politics and science. If you predict things folks in your audience are interested in hearing about, their going to pay your prediction more attention.

Pig is way too easy a mark for The Great Boobini. Let’s see some really challenging questions, like, when will things get better? Will things get better? Will we ever again experience domestic tranquillity?

Rat my dude change the name before we have ourselves a happy little accident

The Great Boobini? Something about that name just doesn’t fill me with confidence about your ability.