Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for February 02, 2013

There never was a point other than the ones on top of people’s collective heads. A faux-Hallmark holiday.

Looks more like wombat day.

Climate change comes to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. Happy Grundsaudaag, Murmeltiertag !

And to think how odd, that “Groundhog day” just happens to be six weeks before the calendar end of winter.

because, some germans in pa enacted an ancient pagan rite. the weather prediction probably only applies to their neck of the woods, not anyone else’s.

Can’t call it global warming because that’s what Democrats call it! (An’ you know them – them heathens believe in science!)

dtroutma, Alms4, The Pharaohs in Egypt would "predict " the flooding of the Nile, right on time every year…Even if they were off a few days, they still got credit for the flood. I use that as an example of how knowledge gives you power….

All seriousness aside, that has to be the cutest ground hog I’ve ever seen…I should have known Wiley could draw a good ground hog….Cute as a little bear…I wonder if Miller has a wombat?

I was picking wild strawberries in the back woods of Mackinac Island..I was in the small meadow known as Soldier’s Garden. Down the trail came two riders on horses..I looked up just as the woman asked, “Did you see a wombat come by here?” I’m not sure why I wasn’t ready for that particular question, but it kinda caused a short circuit in my brain. I was pretty sure I hadn’t, but my right brain was going through the files and not coming up with anything…Let’s see…wombat…wombat…wombat..Geeze I really should answer these folks, (Seriously, they were really cute, maybe if I’d known what a wombat was, I’d have sent a letter to Penthouse…), So my manly response was…“um…a no?”….ah, a day in the life…

Sadly, we’ve been vacillating between the 50’s and the 20’s. every few days it goes from Spring to Winter, then back again. Can’t get any good ice on the lakes or river because it doesn’t stay cold long enough.

Tucci, I know you know that one of the forms humor takes is exaggeration…Miller’s pretty good at it…But, no, it was a beautiful early day in July (growing season is a little late up there..)…But of course my obvious next statement would be, “It won’t be long before I can pick wild strawberries in February”…(See what I did there with the exaggeration thingy?)

Um, actually, I did have crocuses pop up in the middle of March last year…Southwest Michigan…

For those keeping score at home there are four parts of Michigan…The UP, Northern Michigan, Mid Michigan and South West Michigan…There used to be a South East Michigan but it’s gone…Nobody knows for sure what happened, but it’s gone.. we don’t like to think about it, so nobody goes there except the poor bastards who live there…..

Forecast today for Punxsutawney, PA, where they have the annual event, is a high of 22 and a 90% chance of snow. At 5 a.m., it was 7. Probably not too many bathing suits and beach umbrellas there today.

We’ve admittedly had several years recently when winter was effectively over at this point, but this year seems not to be one of them. It’s 6am at the moment, and I don’t happen to be near a window, but the last time I checked it was quite white out.

The other thing is, where I live, most people would vote in favor of deliberately enacting global warming, if they could for one minute believe it would actually be possible to control like that.

Personally I actually like winter. It’s my favorite time of year. This is rare. I’m not shy about it, either. The reaction I get varies from disbelief to shock. A substantial percentage of the people who find out I actually like winter ask me if I was dropped on my head as a child.

Something like 98% of the population strongly prefers summer over winter and would be pleased as punch if the mean temperature went up five or ten degrees in their lifetime (which is FAR beyond anything even the most extreme global warming pundits are claiming). People are incredible wussies about cold, complaining that it’s “freezing” every time the temperature dips below sixty. Heaven forfend it should ever go below zero. If we had a winter now like the ones I remember from my childhood, where the temperature stays cold for two and a half months solid, I’m pretty sure the economy would shut down as half the population would refuse to leave their houses.

It seems that you are backing the wrong horse. I went to the British Meteorological Office web site and found that they are in agreement with all of the other scientists in the world. Here’s a quote from that site: “Climate scientists are confident that the climate is changing and agree on some of the ways it is changing, such as the increasing global average temperature.”

Dogsniff, any day you find a happy beaver..Good luck, buddy…

Few deny that the climate is changing. I has changed several times over the earth’s history, with temperatures swinging from periods of warming to cooling. Nature has a way of doing that — for reasons that we are collectively trying to understand (and place the blame, so as to benefit politically and economically). .What seems to be the point of disagreement is whether mankind’s actions, and especially the industrial age, are influencing what mother nature is doing on her own. Since climate change has swung in both directions since long before the industrial age, I see nothing but opportunists blaming the change on our industrial society.

We are now getting hundred-year storms every 2-3 years, but climate change is a liberal hoax? Yeah, right.

Happy Candlemas

Sad, so sad, but oh so true…

“Global warming stopped 16 years ago” headline from conservative British tabloid “Daily Mail”

“Misleading” Sunday’s response from British Met Office

It still beats grandparents day for a holiday. I’d send my wife a groundhog but it is our anniversary tomorrow, so she just gets a gold necklace.

StelBel, yeah, my dad used to describe downtown Detroit (In the twenties and thirties,) as the coolest place in the world…. jazz clubs every where, all kinds of people mixin’ and dancin’…But, things happen…. It’s a shame really, but what can you do?…They still make great music over there, though….Poor bastards….

not to change the subject, but answering two questions will tell me how you arrived at your theories.1. did saddam hussein have nuclear weapons?2. do you believe in god?

Varnes: All seriousness aside…I see that you listened to Brother Dave too.

In case anyone hasn’t heard yet, the groundhog did NOT see it’s shadow, this morning…which supposedly means an early spring. But the FNC weather guy pointed out that the groundhog has only a 39% accuracy rate.

As of 8:53 a.m. in Punxsutawney it’s 12 degrees, feels like -2, there’s a winter weather advisory out until 7 p.m. on Sunday, and they’re expecting 1 to 2 inches by 2:30 p.m. today.

At least when James Hansen made his famous testimony to Congress warning about global warming he had enough brains to wait for a hot day to do it — and to arrange to have the a/c turned down so he could been seen sweating dramatically as he did it.

@Tucci:

Move to Traverse City. They employ lots of cherry pickers up there.

How much ground can a groundhog hog if a groundhog could hog ground?

God bless you Dogsniff. Or in my case; dog bless you.

Media promotion of climate change has come to the comics page. Isn’t anything sacred? ;-)

I wish people would read. It say comment on the strip not write a book. Don’t worry in 10 ,thousand years people will be sitting there in thier overcoats and saying only 365 more days of winter

Sorry, cant not remember……

Oh No the climate changed AGAIN! What will we ever do?

Dude, you are sipping on a rum drink outside in the sun with your friends while a sign floats mysteriously behind you and you are watching a rodent wake up and try to figure out WTF is going on. What could be better than that?

If Punxutawney Phil sees his shadow at sunrise on February 2, it means six more weeks of winter. But if he doesn’t see his shadow, well then it means six more weeks till springtime.Technically, either one is correct; sort of like the conundrum of the glass being half-empty or half-full.

For the record, Punxutawney Phil did NOT see his shadow this morning; that means only six more weeks till springtime!

What’s winter?Say, these groundhogs look pretty slow.

Groundhog Day should help us remember that climate has always been volatile. Some winters are mild while others are harsh; some seem to last forever, while others are “short and sweet.”

Keep drinking the Kool-Aid, and it better be a tall one. Conspiracy theories won’t keep you chilled.

Tucci, as a Biologist, your aggressive ignorance frightens me. That is all.

The cartoon has me chuckling, but, where are to top hats and tails?

Those funny clothes are one of the best parts of the holiday. Bet they would look great with shorts.

I wonder what people plan on doing about the plate tectonics that did and still are reshaping the continents and whether anyone wants a NYC that is covered in glacial ice like it was during the previous ice age?

@ Tucci…………….it’s only a comic strip, mister; don’t get your knickers in a twist.

@VarnesYou mentioned SE Michigan as a disappearing location. I lived in that area in the late 70’s. I was told that Detroit was the rectum of theworld and Flint was 70 miles up it.

Ask us in N.E. Ohio what the point of it is. It’s 9 degrees with blowing snow.

It’s amazing to me how people who believe that one woman eating a piece of fruit 6000 years ago was responsible for bringing death into the world also believe that 150 years of pumping chemicals into the air, clear-cutting the rainforests, and killing the oceanic algae can’t possibly affect Earth’s thermostat.

We still have Groundhog’s day so we have an excuse to watch the classic Bill Murray movie “Groundhog’s day”

But the grants!! What about the grants to study global warming? Excuse me, Climate change?

Never seems to matter how much technology is introduced into weather forcasting…One day a year we always gravitate back to a simpler time when a rodent could tell us when the spring thaw would occur…..by now he also has the same tecnology we have ….he just knows how to use it….like certain dogs that go nuts a half hour before a thunderstorm. Amazing!

High temperature here in Delaware has varied between 60 and 25 in the past 10 days… I hope the groundhog gets one on the higher side…

Groupies.

Denying climate change, at this point, is like saying the sky is Green. Say it all you want, but you look like a fool anyway. Why it’s happening is the only thing open to debate. Since 1998, we’ve had the 10 warmest world wide winters on record. Every year, the overall global temp is going up. It’s not by much, but it’s every year. Politicians and wannabes try to spin this however they can, and they sucker people into their lies all the time. The lying has happened for centuries. It’s only the topic that changes.

Phil has retired people to the rarely wintery state of Florida, Hawaii, (or Los Angeles CA).

That is a cute groundhog.

Happy holiday to you too Mr. Wiley.

Nice thought but that will never happen. Winter is not so bad if it stays above 30 and tere is no ice on roadway. Air quality is good to in winter

I’ve always admired the people in Punxsutawney that have made so much money off this silly German folklore.

Oy, this would be funny if the entire Midwest weren’t freezing its collective a** off right now.

Let’s free the hog!!

I guess it’s a convenient logic to assume that introducing 5 billion parasites and billions of tons of emissions caused by those self-same parasites into the atmosphere could not possibly affect a delicately balanced ecosystem… Same logic applied by the NRA… “Guns killing people are not the problem! People without guns who could kill the people with the guns, are the problem…” Hope you have your khaki shorts and 100 sun block stocked up in your bunker…

Well, the snowdrops have been up here north of Detroit for about 2 weeks and the pansies are still blooming. It’s been really cold, but not for long enough to stop those plants.

Left a partial response to your query yesterday; will find a way to get the rest to you asap. Thanks!

Who is right on the climate change question remains to be seen, although I am a firm believer, but what annoys me is people who still say global warming is a myth “because it is extra cold here”. Global Warming means all weather patterns become more severe, not that the world will become a temperate paradise. And tell people in low-lying areas whose front door now opens onto the ocean that sea levels are not rising. And no, the cause is not erosion. The land is still there, it is just under water.

I don’t get it? is this after global warming? if so it should have said the date on the banner

The future.

I realize one shouldn’t feed the trolls, but:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=seven-answers-to-climate-contrarian-nonsense