Will the Real Punxsutawney Phil Please Stand Up?

I like Groundhog Day. I don't buy in to any of it - groundhogs can predict the weather about as well as your average local weatherperson (and the groundhogs don't even have Doppler). But it's a fun little event that a small town in Pennsylvania gets to celebrate once a year. It puts them on the map, brings in revenue, and all that jazz.

However PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) wants the little town of Punxsutawney to replace the real Phil with a robotic groundhog.

I realize that I recently wrote about how stupid that Rent a Tiger idea is - not so nice to the tigers, or the renters that they will inevitably eat. And I also think that PETA does a relatively decent job letting people know about animal cruelty, even though I think they're mostly pretty radical. I'm not at all a fan of beating animals, pouring acid into the eyes of little bunnies to see what kind of reaction it's going to have (not a science major but acid + eyes = pain), and I think Michael Vick was a total d*ck for doing what he did to those dogs. But really, PETA? A robot Punxsutawney Phil? (Here's a link to the full story, with a copy of the letter from PETA to Punxsutawney: http://tinyurl.com/yh6s643)

WOO! What a friggin' party that will be with the new, robotic groundhog! The local groundhog council can get all spruced up in their fancy tuxes and top hats and then tote around Robot Phil who can pop out of his faux tree stump to predict when winter will end.

I envision one of two scenarios with Robot Phil:

1) Robot Phil is equipped with the highest end weather predicting technology money can buy. His amazing accuracy will be what keeps people coming back to Punxsutawney year after year. That is, of course, until he replaces Al Roker on The Today Show.

2) Robot Phil seriously malfunctions on his debut. He slays the town, the council, the tourists. Then he moves south, ravaging the landscape, until he reaches Washington, DC and takes over the Free Nation. Then ... (pause for dramatic effect) ... the World.

I understand that people have a lot of causes that they are very enthused about, and I don't want to stop people from thinking what they think or believing in what they want to believe in. But that groundhog has his own climate controlled environment. He is checked in on by some sort of state agency more than once a year. If PETA wants to draw attention to animal cruelty, they should probably try to pick an animal that really gets tortured. Keep after those dog fighting rings, keep educating people. Let's just let Phil enjoy his day a year in the limelight, shall we?

- The Incident