Shaq Said The Earth Is Flat [PS: He Was Joking]

Some of the leading thinkers of Western civilization over the past two and a half thousand years, and their opinions about the shape of the Earth.

Shaquille O'Neal has a podcast. Apparently it doesn't have a huge following, but all of a sudden it's getting a lot of attention, because someone noticed that back on the 27th of February, on his podcast, Shaq said:

“It’s true. The Earth is flat. The Earth is flat. Yes, it is. Listen, there are three ways to manipulate the mind — what you read, what you see and what you hear. In school, first thing they teach us is, ‘Oh, Columbus discovered America,’ but when he got there, there were some fair-skinned people with the long hair smoking on the peace pipes. So, what does that tell you? Columbus didn’t discover America. So, listen, I drive from coast to coast, and this s*** is flat to me. I’m just saying. I drive from Florida to California all the time, and it’s flat to me. I do not go up and down at a 360-degree angle, and all that stuff about gravity, have you looked outside Atlanta lately and seen all these buildings? You mean to tell me that China is under us? China is under us? It’s not. The world is flat.”

Some are assuming he's serious, some wonder whether he's joking. Earlier in February, Cleveland Cavaliers All-Star Kyrie Irving publicly announced that he believes the Earth is flat. As with Shaq, opinion is divided over whether Irving is serious or if he's just messing with people's heads.

Given the magnitude of Shaq's fame and his prominence on TV as a basketball analyst, I'm assuming that either we're going to be hearing a lot more about this or we're going to be seeing a lot less of Shaq. He has a BA from LSU, an MBA from Phoenix University and a Doctorate in Human Resource Development from Barry University. Will any of those 3 institutions have anything to say about this?

[PS, 23. June 2017: Shaq was joking]

"Wait -- Batman Cured His Broken Back By Doing Push-Ups?"

No, Ragu, Batman isn't doing all those pushups to cure his broken back, he's just not letting a broken back get in the way of him doing his pushups. The way I don't let chronic tendonitis in my left elbow stop me from doing my pushups. The same way that... (Okay, start playing "Pomp & Circumstance" in the background, softly at first, and gradually crescendo until it's loud when I finish. Okay.) The same way that Kobe plays basketball on a broken foot and grimaces and complains, and the way Shaq would play basketball on a broken foot without grimacing or complaining, and the way that Barry Bonds...

Okay, h8ers, let's talk about Barry.



He may be a cheater and an asshole, but you know why he wore that armor on his right arm, you know why MLB let him keep wearing that armor? It's not because he and Bud Selig were pals. Selig never liked him any better than you do. It's not because Bonds paid somebody off. There was a perfectly legitimate reason why he was allowed to continue to wear those pads: it's because his arm was broken.

That's right, Amurrka: Barry hit his last 300 dingers on roids, but he hit his last 500 with a broken right arm. He broke it in the mid-90's, and 2 weeks later he was playing ball, and it never healed. MLB let him wear the armor because 1 fastball to his forearm would've shattered it into 100 pieces.

We do what we have to do. Because we're men. Even those of us who shave every day. And yr darn right I'm talking about shaving more than just my face! I'M A MAN!