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Prosecutors call for inaccurate groundhog's death

Rob Beschizza at 11:41 am Fri, Mar 22, 2013

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After an unexpectedly cold start to March, authorities in Ohio have called for the indictment and execution of the groundhog whose report promised an early end to winter.

"Punxsutawney Phil did purposely, and with prior calculation and design, cause the people to believe that spring would come early," Mike Gmoser, the prosecutor in southwestern Ohio's Butler County, wrote in an official-looking indictment.

Funny! But only because he's not in Italy.

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MORE:  groundhog • law • Weird

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  • nachoproblem

    If Thomas Edison were still around, I’m sure he’d volunteer to electrocute the groundhog.

  • http://twitter.com/cosmicrob cosmicrob

    Yeah. It was funny in the Onion too.. http://www.theonion.com/articles/punxsutawney-phil-beheaded-for-inaccurate-predicti,31712/

  • http://www.youtube.com/user/Freethinkersanon Christopher

    Somebody should probably warn the prosecutors that even if you kidnap Phil, steal a pickup truck, and drive it off a cliff into a quarry you absolutely will not wake up the next morning completely unharmed in a nice warm B&B bed to the sounds of Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You Babe”.

    Trust me on this. Won’t make that mistake again.

  • http://newnumber6.livejournal.com Peter

    Look… I’m just going to say it. 

    If you put the responsibility for correct weather forecasting in the hands of a small rodent…
    perhaps he’s not the one who needs executing when it turns out wrong.  Perhaps it’s the official who made that appointment. 

  • Grahamers2002

    Why go through a trial?  He is obviously sponsoring terrorist weather-based attacks on the U.S. in which many of our citizens have died?  Send a drone after him!

  • videobored

    “Groundhog Day used to mean something in this town. They used to pull the hog out, and they used to eat it.” – Phil Conners

  • orwell

    politicians and meteorologists…  the only professions in which you can be wrong most of the time, and still keep your job…  off with their heads!

    • DevinC

      I’d make an awesome meteorologist.  I’d just say ‘there’s a 50% chance of rain tomorrow’ every day.  And I’d be right!    

      • Antinous / Moderator

        We’ve only had two inches of rain per year for the last few years.

        • nachoproblem

          So, either it rains or it doesn’t. Every day is an independent probability, which means 50%. (except it’s not really an independent probability, we just don’t know any better)

          • Antinous / Moderator

            You can’t apply that principle to complex systems like weather like you can to a coin toss.

          • nachoproblem

            You can if you’re being deliberately absurd.

          • Antinous / Moderator

            THANKS OBAMA!

  • http://www.disoriented.net/ angusm

    First they came for the groundhogs, and I did not speak up because I was not a groundhog. Then they came for the weather forecasters, and I did not speak up because I was not a weather forecaster. Then they came for the politicians, and I said “Awesome! Give me a moment, and I’ll run and fetch some gasoline and matches.”

  • SomeGuyNamedMark

    Ohio prosecutors also read The Onion it seems