Groundhog Charges Dropped

Well, that was quick. After issuing an indictment last week against famous groundhog Punxsutawney Phil, Ohio County Prosecutor Mike Gmoser has dropped the charges - after the president of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club claimed that he had misinterpreted Phil's prediction of an early spring.

Bill Deeley, president of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club's Inner Circle, said Monday the furry prognosticator had actually predicted six more weeks of winter, but he mistakenly announced an early spring because he failed to correctly interpret Phil's "groundhog-ese."

"Now it turns out, Punxsutawney Phil is little more than a scapegoat," Gmoser wrote in the dismissal.

That's a sharp contrast to last week, when Gmoser had written: "Punxsutawney Phil did purposely, and with prior calculation and design, cause the people to believe that spring would come early."

This leaves me with two observations. First of all, if you're going to use any magical divination tool, be it a rodent or a deck of Tarot cards, in order to be accurate in your predictions you need to know how to interpret correctly. Second of all, this is an awfully convenient announcement to those like myself who have noted that Phil's accuracy is, shall we say, other than stellar. "Of course he's always right! We just don't always understand him."

You know, because he's a groundhog.