On February 2, it is customary in Canada and the United States to celebrate an annual tradition wherein we allow a chubby burrowing rodent to forecast the weather. This is an important ritual, but not for the reason that many people think.
Many believe this “holiday” can be traced back to an ancient pagan ritual called Imbolc, which was duly adopted by early Christians and turned into Candlemas. (This means Mass of the Candles, in which the clergy would perform ear candling on the most hairy-eared and disgusting member of each parish, in a metaphorical recreation of the time when Jesus performed the Ear Candling of Jergomethia, cleaning the aural canals of a score of waxy hermits, and curing them of their deafness.) Finally, this holiday or “holy day” was further perverted by the German-speaking populations of Pennsylvania, who fused the day with European folklore and a desire to celebrate fersommling, a kind of Pennsylvania Dutch orgy. (Obviously, these depravities are only celebrated by the Fancy Dutch, and eschewed by the more plain sects, such as the Amish, Dunkards and Mennonites.)
However, there live amongst some of the Elders in these plain sects of the Pennsylvania Dutch — or P-Dutch, as they are known on the streets of Philadelphia — the horrible, truthful truth.
Once, North America was largely ruled by these underground rodents of the family Sciuridae, and though they lived largely in peace with the native human populations, the arrival of the white man marked the end of their peaceful co-existence. For when the early settlers began tearing up the forests, and plowing the meadows where the groundhog, or woodchuck, lives, war between all men and the Tcuckbar (as the groundhogs call their own race) began.
Amongst the Elders of the Dunkards, this is known as the Grundschwein Zehekriege, or literally, “groundhog toe wars”; this name is taken from the favourite martial tactic of the Tcuckbar, which is to sever the large toe of a human being, and thus cause him to lose his balance, fall down, and then have his carotid artery savaged. Normally, groundhogs are peaceful herbivores, but when roused, they can eat up to twice their own weight in human flesh.
It is when they are thus engorged, looking almost like a bristly boar that they are most dangerous. Indeed, one of their other names is taken from this state: while in boar mode, the average groundhog will make a high-pitched sound, from whence their nickname, “whistle pig” derives.
During this dark period of the war, many humans took to fighting one another, or slaughtering local wolf populations, for no-one could believe such excessive butchery could be done by the lowly woodchuck — and the groundhog attackers were always disappearing into holes or climbing trees before humans could spot them. (You didn’t know they could climb trees, did you? Then you probably don’t know about their limited psychokinetic ability to move small objects such as golf balls, musket balls, and human eyes.)
Eventually, through an uncharacteristic adoption of empiric method the P-Dutch Fußführer (or “Foot Leader”), Johann Suppetrinker, figured out it was the groundhogs, and the war turned to the favour of the human forces. Unfortunately, most humans outside the P-Dutch Confederacy did not believe Suppetrinker’s explanation, and it took many years for the humans to gain control of the situation.
To this day crack forces of Amish and Mennonite Grundschweinmörders (Groundhog Killers) spend part of every winter season hunting down resistant forces of the dangerous Tcuckbar groundhog clans. Luckily, evolution has done the rest of the work for us, and the remaining non-sentient species is largely harmless, except to the occasional horse or golfer.
But this is why we celebrate Groundhog Day, and the annual humiliation ritual surrounding it. Otherwise, what other explanation could there be for the pomp and elaborate circumstance of this winter rite? Punxsutawney Phil and Wiarton Willie are not terrified by their own shadow, so much as the deep racial memory of seeing the figure of an Amish Grundschweinmörder, poised to spit him on a finely crafted spitzerstock. (Pointed stick.)
And they’ve only been slightly more accurate at predicting the end of winter than the Farmer’s Almanac, the P-Dutch edition included.
The first Europeans to arrive in Canada were the Vikings, in 1009, making this the 1000-year anniversary of this important (factual) historical event. Their leader, Leif The Abrasive, was told by several Irish monks that a “vast and rich land” lay across the Atlantic Ocean. Leif, who was torturing them at the time, took them at their word and immediately launched a massive invasion. Many of the longboats sank in the crossing, but the core band arrived in Newfoundland (which the Vikings hopefully called “Vinland”, as they expected to find many fine wines in this new world — a hope which would not be fulfilled until the early 1990s.) Initially, the Viking settlement was successful, winning several Juno Awards — a kind of Canadian Grammy — but soon they split because of “creative differences”. Little was heard of them afterwards, but one of the members later had an interesting show about the early days of Viking rock on CBC Radio.
The next massive invasion came from the French, who had an insatiable thirst for beaver. Eventually, the British invaded too, declaring that they too had a hunger for “beaver and other pelts”, but really they were just jealous of the French, who were so good at trapping and mating with the cute, industrious rodents. Throughout this period, the aboriginal populations of Canada (erroneously called “Indians” because of the navigationally challenged racist Christopher Columbus), tried to cope with their perverted new neighbors, though they never understood them.
Many people believe the name Canada is based on the Iroquois word “kanata” or “village.” The sad truth is Canada is named after Lord Alfred O. Canada, the first Twit Plenipotentiary sent by the British Crown to rule over the beaver-addled country with an iron fist (he’d lost his original hand in the Battle of Ipswich — fought between the Dutch, the French and the British over who was going to pick up the check at the annual Let’s Rape the New World Convention and BeaverFest) and his laser-beam-firing eyes. (He is a ancestor of 
Despite the victory over Lord Alfred O. Canada, the British Crown continued to make decisions for thepeoples of Canada — they just stopped sending the twits here, and made their determinations in the UK; this is why the capital of the country is in Ottawa. Sitting on the south bank of the Ottawa River, the city is the fourth-coldest capital within parsecs. The only colder capitals are Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia), Moscow (Russia) and Pakit! (Hoth). What many people do not realize is that it is also a) one of the most humid capitals in the world (in the months of June-August) and b) the center of an underground civilization populated by Morlocks. The Morlocks, as you know, see human beings as a food source, but they are quite conservative in their culling practices, which incorporate a model of sustainability and eugenics rarely seen. The Morlocks have found that it is most efficient to eat only the most intelligent males in the National Capital Region. This explains the predominance of women in the civil service (one of Ottawa’s major industries). One supposes the Morlocks do not cull the intelligent females, because they are confident that the remaining male population will be of little interest to them. In fact, Queen Victoria’s twits actually knew about this, which is why they built Canada’s parliament in this region, ensuring the safety of Canada’s politicians for generations to come. (At this point in history, they still held out hopes that they might return to Canada and rule in person.) Note: Many textbooks will tell you that Ottawa was not made the capital until 1867, but this is, in fact, a typo. It was 1847.
Despite their alleged abhorrence of violence, Canadians have traditionally been fierce warriors. During the War of 1812, for example, Canada was defended from US invaders not by the British Army, nor our own irregular troops (they were all engaged in a real war with Napoleon Bonaparte), but by a cadre of little schoolgirls and one-legged lumberjacks. (Thus explaining the draw, or if you’re a student of American history, the “victory”.) No warrior was more fierce than the Scottish-born firebrand John Alexander “The Madman” Macdonald. He rose to prominence during the first Zombie War, 1837, and was elected to Parliament. (It is worth noting that The Madman is one of the few intelligent politicians to survive Morlock culling practices; while he was still young and hale, The Madman would spend many an evening in the underground world, doing a little culling of his own. (He led a group of Morlock-hunters called the Association of Really Ripped Gentlemen (ARRG) in his off-hours.) As he aged, The Madman discovered that he was able to feign stupidity by keeping himself “well-medicated” with scotch. Despite this impediment, he was still able to convince the British crown to allow Canada to govern itself, forming a “Confederation” under the Beaver Not Actually needed Act. (BNA Act.) This forms, essentially, the constitution of Canada. After achieving Confederation, Macdonald went on to enlist the help of the Association of Really Ripped Gentlemen (ARRG) in building a railroad across Canada, eliminating all the vampires from the Northwest Territories, and inventing the game of hockey.
Anaxagoras of Ionia presents “Hot metal, man” (circa 450 BC) –>slide 6
Sir Thomas More presents “The Religions of Utopia” (circa 1515) –> slide three
The Lady’s Flatus Inhibitor, circa 1864
Starting with the original “plug” design from the Flatus Inhibitor [
In fact, several gentle souls sitting in the row behind her were knocked off their chairs.
FitzWeezepuddle. Near penniless, Michael had a new plan for his dysfunctional family. He’d heard about land being given away in the far western reaches of British North America and he dreamed of making a fresh start. “Surely,” he wrote in the opening entry of a diary dated October 13, 1869, “there must be some demand for locationists. I can only hope and pray.”
1. Scholars are divided on when Emily and her family actually arrived in North America. Whether the event occurred in 1869 or 1870, however, one could only arrive in at Ellis Island, under “Lady Liberty’s fulsome shadow”, after 1884. Also, Ellis Island was not in use until the 1890s. However it is true that nearby on the deck of the Travesty was one Libby Learty, a butcher’s wife from Galway whose six-foot 300-pound frame was said to cast quite a fulsome shadow. This too could be a source of scholarly confusion over accounts of Emily’s arrival in New York City.
Friar Parsnip was also the master of the region’s only school, which met every morning after mass for two hours in the 13th century Ennis Friary. It was there that Emily learned to read and love speculative fiction. [3] But while not immersed in the fairy tales told by the Friar or sitting in her uncle’s laboratory while he tinkered, Emily was an unhappy child. Emily was prone at a very early age to outbursts,” as Molly called them; expressed through a twisted combination of violence and creativity, they quite often involved small animals and vaguely satanic rituals. Friar Parsnip tried to control the child, through blandishments of Mary’s love, and warnings that she would drink hellfire. Emily thought of these bribes and threats as mere story telling, and would pat the good-natured Friar on the cheek while she smeared lark’s vomit on the neighbor’s poodle, Yumyum.
nouveau riche of Westminster. In fact, the “party brat” (by which the device was affectionately known) became so ubiquitous that it was considered one of the primary factors responsible for a dramatic increase in cannabis use witnessed throughout Ireland during the late 1850s and early 1860s. [1]
Prostitution was rampant in 1850s London and the spirochete treponema was having a class-blind field day. Flannigan’s Phanerogam Rendering Tube was the answer to every English gent’s problem with syphilis. [3]
