The annual British holiday of Guy Fawkes Day, represented by the Guy Fawkes mask made famous in the U.S. by the 2006 Natalie Portman film, V for Vendetta, and a catchy little rhyme beginning with the line, "Remember, remember the fifth of November …" not to mention an annual celebration in which a disgraced celebrity is burned in effigy in Edenbridge, Kent, was celebrated on Monday night when a cutout of Tour de France cyclist Lance Armstrong went up in flames.

The Armstrong effigy was holding a sign that said, "For Sale: Racing Bike, No Longer Required," referring to the recent scandal, which stripped Armstrong of his seven Tour de France titles after he refused to undergo tests for doping charges.

And the U.S. didn't go untouched by the British holiday, either. Several NBC sites were hacked on Sunday by an individual (or group) going under the name "Pyknic." The main NBC site was down for a few hours, replaced by a looping clip that repeated, "Remember, remember, the fifth of November, the gunpowder treason and plot. I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot."

The annual holiday calls to mind the English revolutionary who was involved in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in which a group of Catholics tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament under the rule of the staunchly Protestant King James I. After the plot was foiled and Fawkes was executed, drawn and quartered and displayed outside the very building he sought to destroy, King James declared that the anniversary of the plot's failure should always be remembered.

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