Groundhog sees his shadow. Six more weeks of winter!

[soothsayer]

PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa. — Brace yourself for more wintry weather. Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow Saturday, leading the groundhog to forecast six more weeks of winter.

The rodent was pulled from his stump by members of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club Inner Circle, top-hat- and tuxedo-wearing businessmen who carry out the tradition.

Each Feb. 2, thousands of people descend on Punxsutawney, a town of about 6,100 people some 65 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, to celebrate what had essentially been a German superstition.

more here
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/nation/5508086.html

[rateyes]

1. Damn that groundhog to hell....

I'm ready for spring. :evilgrin:

[originalpckelly]

6. He's lucky he doesn't live in the south.

He'd be fried, with gravy and mashed potatoes by now.

[tekisui]

2. Six more weeks of a Primary Race!!!

[melody]

3. The weather rat has a pretty crappy record for getting it right

Why we continue to do this year after year, I'm not sure. It did give us a great Bill Murray movie, though. lol

[tekisui]

4. It is a great movie!

I think it is a metaphor for attaining Enlightenment.

[melody]

8. Definitely - one of my favorites n/t

[TahitiNut]

15. Indeed. It's one of my favorite movies ... and far more than a superficial farce.

I think the performance by Bill Murray is one of the most overlooked excellent performances of many years. His 'journey' is evident in so many ways in his face, tone, posture, and all the elements of his acting. Excellent. Truly excellent, imho.

[TahitiNut]

19. It's no accident that Phil is a weatherman ... and his 'shadow' is his 'dark side' ...

... cynicism. As long as EVERYONE sees his Dark Side, he continues to experience the Winter (of his discontent). It's about CHOICES .. and he tries a bunch of them. Every time I watch it, I'm reminded of the following:

The Rules for Being Human
by Cherie Carter-Scott

You will receive a body.
You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours the entire period of this time around.
You will learn lessons.
You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called Life. Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons.
You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid.
There are no mistakes, only lessons.
Growth is a process of trial and error: Experimentation.
The 'failed' experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately 'works'.
A lesson is repeated until learned.
A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. You can then go on to the next lesson.
Learning lessons does not end.
There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.
'There' is no better than 'here'.
When your 'there' has become a 'here', you will simply obtain another 'there' that will again look better than 'here'.
Others are merely mirrors of you.
You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects something you love or hate about yourself.
What you make of your life is up to you.
You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.
Your answers lie inside you.
The answers to life's questions lie inside you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.
You will forget all this.

[ConcernedCanuk]

22. I disagree with the "wisdom" of this

.
.
.

For example, the statement:

"You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects something you love or hate about yourself"

I hate the murderous actions of the United States President.

I can not contemplate me taking a life of another human,

Yet Bush and his electorate seem to be able to live with it.

[originalpckelly]

5. OPCKelly predicts 6 more weeks of superstitious bullshit.

[soothsayer]

11. It's an offshoot of a cross-quarter holiday called Candlemas. Rhyme goes like this:

If Candlemas Day be fair and bright,

Winter will have another flight,

If Candlemas Day be clouds and rain,

Winter be gone and will not come again.

[HereSince1628]

7. Honestly, the end of winter is about Skunk sex

Depending on where in the frozen north you live that will likely be sometime February.

How will you know when the polecats boink??

As the harlequin love kittens wander about in their post coital stupor they get run-over. Even if you don't see them you will be impressed by the presence of their bewitching perfume.

[ConcernedCanuk]

14. "post coital stupor" - could that be the President's problem?

.
.
.

nahhhhh

The first lady don't look that hot

but you never know . . .

she does smile a lot

hmmmmm

[bluestdogest]

9. Well, that just about takes us to March 20th, the first day of spring...

[soothsayer]

10. That's astrogical spring, not necessarily meteorological spring

[LiberalEsto]

12. When was the last time we had an early spring?

I really can't remember one in recent years.

[OnionPatch]

13. Does that apply to every place or just Pennsylvania?

No one would see their shadow outside in my yard today. Does that mean spring is coming? :shrug:

[soothsayer]

18. yep!

[OnionPatch]

21. I'll take it from you, then.

:)

[NeedleCast]

16. Weak

Punxsutawney Phil screws me again!

[GliderGuider]

17. Beware the invading hordes from the south!

Up here, north of the 49th parallel, Wiarton Willie tells a different story. The town crier rang his bell and proclaimed:

Dignitaries, me lads and ladies,
Get your shorts and T-shirts too,
Wiarton Willie's annual task is through.
Now the town crier proudly rings,
Willie predicts it's an early spring.

[shadowknows69]

20. I was nowhere near that rodent and that's what I'm sticking to.

[MilesColtrane]

23. Hasn't global warming killed off those little bastards yet?

It's going to be close to 80 degrees were I live tomorrow...in the first week of February.

Time to outsource the gig to a tropical rodent.

[doc03]

24. Young groundhogs are very tasty critters

when cooked right. My dad would bake groundhog sort of Swiss steak style that would fall of the bone and it was delicious.