The Finite Times

Punxsutawney, PA (FiniteTimes.com) – The spokesman for perennial spring prognosticator Punxsutawney Phil is lashing out at the Bush administration, claiming that bureaucrats from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration approached him late last year and offered him a “grant” to skew this year’s Groundhog Day results. Punxsutawney Tourism and Travel Coordinator Roger Peterson’s claims appear in this month’s issue of Science Magazine.

“I was told that a verdict of six more weeks of winter would result in a grant of $10,000 for the town of Punxsutawney and possible front page real estate for Phil on the NOAA Website,” Peterson told Science. “They gave me suggestions for how I could artificially create a shadow using a flashlight and my hands, and even gave me a groundhog stencil, so I could spray paint gray ’shadows’ around Phil’s hole.”

As it was, Mr. Peterson rejected their offer and Punxsutawney Phil failed to see his shadow, signaling an early end to winter and adding more pressure to the Bush administration to do something, anything, about the growing threat of global warming.

Adding to the town’s problems, the Justice Department opened an investigation late Friday into possible ties between Phil and an Iranian group claiming to have a titmouse that can predict typhoons.

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