My, my. All this fuss and bloodthirstiness over a harmless large rodent that eats a little grass... :-)

Okay. Fine. Let's get into the spirit of this. I suggest a ground level tactical nuclear strike. That should fry the groundhog right in his burrow. Very effective! Call up the Pentagon and see if you can convince them he's an Al Queda operative.

Another idea: Hire the Mafia to do the job. They don't charge all that much to hit a groundhog, because it involves little risk. None, in fact. It doesn't take much guts to shoot a groundhog.

Another idea: Pave over the entire area to a radius of 1/2 kilometre with sixteen inches of solid concrete. The groundhog will be trapped underground and die a slow and terrible death from starvation and thirst.

Another idea: Construct a special prognosticating chair outside the groudhog's hole, suitable for looking for shadows, and wire it up as an electric chair. When the groundhog emerges to check his shadow on next Feb 2nd, he will sit in the comfy chair. Then you throw the switch and fry him with 80,000 volts! He won't see his shadow, and we'll get an early spring in 2005.

After all, the VITAL thing here is getting RID of the groundhog, right? Who can bear living in proximity to a filthy groundhog? Who, I ask you????

- LH