"Cape Breton's resident groundhog [Shubenacadie Sam]confidently asserted that winter is over at 11:22 this morning, even though his mainland cousin predicted another six weeks of winter."
A few years ago I heard the actual figures on Wiarton Willie's prognostications and found that he was wrong more often than right, but it seemed to be much higher than one would suspect from random chance. So here's my hypothesis: Wiarton Willie, and his late predecessor, are both albinos. Since the woodchuck (Marmota monax) is nominally a dark brown colour, this could be seen as a sort of inversion of the natural type, therefore the predictive abilities may also be reversed. If this factor is accounted for then the predictions are much more accurate. But I don't put away my thermal underwear until at least April.
Agreed, a comedy classic. I notice that cinemas are screening it today.
ReplyDeleteI must admit, it was only long after seeing it that I learned that Punxsutawney is a real place, and Phil the groundhog actually exists.
"Cape Breton's resident groundhog [Shubenacadie Sam]confidently asserted that winter is over at 11:22 this morning, even though his mainland cousin predicted another six weeks of winter."
ReplyDeletehttp://tinyurl.com/awm8zhw
A few years ago I heard the actual figures on Wiarton Willie's prognostications and found that he was wrong more often than right, but it seemed to be much higher than one would suspect from random chance. So here's my hypothesis: Wiarton Willie, and his late predecessor, are both albinos. Since the woodchuck (Marmota monax) is nominally a dark brown colour, this could be seen as a sort of inversion of the natural type, therefore the predictive abilities may also be reversed. If this factor is accounted for then the predictions are much more accurate. But I don't put away my thermal underwear until at least April.
ReplyDeleteDave Bailey
Wiarton Willie's no Paul the octopus.
ReplyDeleteThere is some similarity between Phil's situation and the xtian concept of an eternal afterlife.
ReplyDeleteI don't think your average xtian has thought the whole heaven concept through to it's logical conclusion.
As Christopher Hitchens put it, If Heaven is merely an eternal choir, it may as well be a Hell.