Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for February 10, 2025

I’m sorry, but I have to agree with Rat here.

In SEVEN YEARS IN TIBET Heinrich Harrer describes meeting some Tibetans who seriously believed the earth was flat…

No one has the ‘right’ to have their opinion respected. Everyone has the right to express their opinion, no matter how obtuse, ignorant, or unpleasant. However… everyone else has the right to express their opinion on that opinion.

Rat is correct. Alternative facts don’t cut it.

Pig is a member of the Flat Earth Society?

Well Pig, there’s the rub: that’s not an opinion. Opinions are subjectively held viewpoints and expressions that can’t be quantified as a factual statement.

Being a flat earther is just complete denial of physics, mathematics, geology, photographs, video, and reality itself. In other words, being really (EFF)ing stupid.

If the world was flat, cats would have knocked everything over the edge by now.

There’s one significant moron that I can think of these days…

In a very rare occurrence…I actually agree with Rat on this.

HE’S NUMBER 1! HE’S NUMBER 1!

I have basic categories for people I know. Most of them are in category B: Reasonable and reasonably intelligent / competent . Category A is Reasonable and highly intelligent / competent, and Category C is reasonable in a restricted area and competent. D is for folks I must work with but don’t have to converse with. E and F are “avoid” and “avoid assiduously”. Being retired means I can actually avoid E and F almost completely, which is mighty nice!

Morons Of The First Order are all storm troopers.

at least Rat was calm to Pig in Panels 1 and 3. I call that progress.

Where did Charlton Heston go?

I don’t get the condemnation of flat-earthers. You can spend a whole life believing that and be a completely functional person. Most people still believe that the atom is the smallest unit of matter and it makes no difference in their lives. Not to mention the millions who have no idea what an atom is. Billions of people mix vinegar and baking soda to create a “powerful compound” that solves all your household problems. All they do is Sodium Acetate and Carbon Dioxide, two compounds with no application in cleaning or unclogging. Nice bubbles, though :D Let them be.

There are opinions, and there are verifiable facts. They are not the same.

In their cartoon world, the earth may be flat.

Reading the first panel, I thought Rat might have been abducted by space aliens and replaced with an imposter; but the third panel demolished that idea.

Yes, flat-earthers. The people who make geocentrists seem sensible.

It’s a sphere. Generally. But flat is what it seems at times. Reminds me of my ex.

A pastor named Will Duffy has taken flat-earthers to Antarctica to observe the 24-hour sun, to see if it would convince them that they were wrong. It did convince some of them, but not others.

I do think we should respect other’s opinions.

That said, some opinions are…. more incorrect than others.

When I watch those commercials on the Super Bowl telling us all to git along, I think of right-wing populists saying stuff like this, spreading conspiracy theories, and enabling trumpster fire, and I’m like, “Nope, I have a stupid limit.”

Yeah… I’m with the rat on this one.

There are people who believe certain things and then there are people who choose to act like they believe certain things, even though they know they aren’t true. The actors are much better at arguing with you. They would never consider admitting they’re wrong.

There are definitely limits.

It’s just turtles all the way down.

I didn’t know that there are “levels” or “orders” of moronitity. IMHO it is either you are one or you aren’t.

Pancakes are flat, the earth is not a pancake. Although, maple syrup comes out of trees…

Hägar the Horrible once sailed around the world, proving it to be a cube. Rat and Pig wouldn’t want to pick a fight with him, would they?

You’re right, Pig. I just looked over the edge and saw one of the elephants. Couldn’t make out the turtle, though.

That’s no opinion. That’s just a load of bull.

BUT THE WORLD REALLY IS FLAT!

Flatter than day-old champagne. The bubbles are all gone. The dragons are all slain and the knights errant who seek them are all laughed at.

The late, deranged writer R A Lafferty had a character in one of his stories make an argument to that effect. If any of you trouble to look up his work, you will probably think him simple minded. He was not; he was a devious and deep thinker who could make you question everything you took for granted.

Rat may be from the outer limits but at least he has limits.

Well, in Terry Pratchett’s world, it is! Good enough for me.

It’s amazing that in the 21st century there are so many posts on Instagram “proving” that the world is flat and outer space doesn’t exist!

I do believe in respecting people’s right to state their opinions. And if someone says they believe something that seems absurd to you, it should be possible to say so without attacking the person who said it. If you go right to the personal insults then maybe you haven’t thought your own opinions through carefully enough.

I’ll admit that I’ve never spoken to anyone who told me that they were a flat earther. If I did meet such a person, it might be interesting to let them talk, and get an insight into why they would believe such a thing. And it should be enough to tell them they’re wrong about this (and how we know) without saying “you moron”. It might be a challenge, but think of it as an exercise in self control.

Rat is obviously talking about the scabby knuckled mouth breathing Deluded and Delusional Liberal Democrats who post on here. We know who you are (and find your ignorance hysterical!). And we definitely know who you are! God Bless America!

Everything we haven’t personally experienced we believe or disbelieve according to how much we trust our sources. I believe that in 1492 Columbus crossed the Atlantic, but I wasn’t there to see it. Still, that’s what I was taught and I trust my teachers (who weren’t there either, but they trusted their own teachers, and so on).

Bertrand Russell told of a public debate somewhere in England (it wasn’t London) around the turn of the 20th Century on whether the earth was flat or round. Arguing for flatness was a skilled speaker from the Flat Earth movement; opposite him was a sea captain whose chief argument for a round earth was that he’d gone all the way around it. The audience found the Flat-Earther more convincing and he carried the day.

My everyday sensory experience tells me that the earth is flat and that the sun travels across the sky. That’s most people’s everyday experience, and that’s been the experience of sensory beings for millions if not billions of years; it’s an evolutionary memory, and it may be false but to argue the contrary is an “extraordinary claim” (since it contradicts sensory evidence), and Carl Sagan said extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Now, I haven’t been all the way around the earth, but I’ve crossed the equator and two oceans and have experienced differences that I understand are consistent with a round earth rotating on a tilted axis. This is also what I’ve been taught by sources I trust (more or less; those same teachers taught me other things I’ve since come to doubt). I’m acquainted with people who’ve traveled far more than I, and I trust their accounts. Still, I don’t “know” the earth is round, I believe the earth is round.

I hope there will still be term limits.

When Rat is right, he’s right.

“A man has got to know his limitations.” Dirty Harry

And that’s Rat’s opinion.

Well this definitely got the conversation started!

There are some excellent Youtube videos where flat-earthers are taken to Antarctica. You get to watch their brains break in the 24/7 sun, since that’s not possible in almost all flat-earth theories.

Just say, “Moscow,” stupid pigs make their wolf-proof homes out of straw.

Here I fully agree with rat.

Like a tweet once said, if the world had an edge Disney would have a theme park there.

Nonsense. Even people who lived 3000 years ago didn’t believe that

The earth is flat, and it is also mostly round. My home is on a flat piece of ground, that is part of a circle. I won’t make fun of what people believe. People can believe that Biden was a great president and that Harris would have been a greater president, but I know better and can laugh about it.

So having the opinion the earth is flat is much like having an opinion defending tRump.

I had lunch with a group of friends yesterday. One guy spent ten minutes explaining his stupid opinion on something. No one cared or listened. Some people can’t read the room.

Taking into account Pastis’ drawing capabilities, Pig may be right. But I don’t care.

What’s really odd is that Goat agrees with Rat’s insult.

I could see where Pig might consider the earth, i.e. the world, to be flat, i.e. lacking in zest, spice and interest, bland, the opposite of sparkling, tasteless and uninspiring. But I’m afraid that’s probably not what he meant.

Indeed there are.

Hey, Rat did not make fun of him! He very seriously described him.

I have seen allegations, with some evidence, that a good 95% or more of the members of the various supposed “Flat Earth Societies” are simply trolling the rest of society with their memberships, or even the society’s mere existence. Unfortunately, if they are, it seems to be working.

Rat is 100% correct.

Yeah? Well, you know, that’s just like your opinion, man.

- The Big Lebowski

I believe in Fiat earth, the planet is shaped like a small European car.