The remix culture of the early 2000s left an indelible impression on me, an enduring delight in the power of whimsy, juxtaposition, virtuosity and ingenuity - and the ability of strangers all over the world to collaborate without any explicit coordination.

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As the Qanon prophecies fail and the cult-members struggle to resolve their cognitive dissonance, it's a good time to revisit the history of paranoid, conspiratorial political movements in American history - the "paranoid style" that has dominated since the Revolution.

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After all, the very first skirmishes of the US war of independence were based on a conspiracy theory: that the levy on tea was a prelude to a sellout of the colonists to transnational mercantalist interests. US politics have always been conspiratorial.

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I found @zacharykarabell's @politico history of the Know Nothing party especially useful, as it tells the story of what happens when surging, paranoid, fractious political movements

The American Party was a secret 19th century organization founded on a conspiracy theory: that Irish immigrants were secretly planning a takeover of the US on behalf of the Pope.

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One of the arguments for permitting monopolies is that they are "efficient." That's the logic under which Universal was allowed to acquire Comcast and NBC - the "vertical integration" would make all three companies better and we'd all reap the benefit.

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It turns out that there are DISeconomies of scale, what Brandeis called "the curse of bigness" and really, the Universal-NBC-Comcast octopus is a poster child for that

Comcast has just informed its subscribers that they are at risk of losing access to "Bravo, CNBC, E!, Golf Channel, MSNBC, Olympic Channel, Oxygen, Syfy, Telemundo, Universal Kids, NBC Universo, USA Network and NBC Sports

That is, Comcast has warned its customers that Comcast might not license its channels to Comcast anymore.

This is a "carriage dispute" - a dispute over how much the cable operator will pay the broadcaster. It's a common dispute to have.

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But in this case, Comcast's dispute is over the accounting fiction of how much one division of a vertical monopolist will nominally charge another to access its products.

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There is no shortage of takes about what's going on with Gamestop (and other surging stocks), Robinhood and Reddit's r/wallstreetbets, many of them contradictory - at least on the face of them. But I think it's possible for most of these takes to be right. Here's how.

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First you need to understand the underlying mechanics of the story. Stock markets are fundamentally a way of making bets, including bets on the outcome of other peoples' bets, and bets on the outcomes of THOSE bets.

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All this complexity creates lots of exploitable opportunities. Some of these opportunities are considered legitimate and are given respectable names like "arbitrage." Others are considered illegitimate, and are called disreputable things like "stock manipulation."

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A hypothetical Martian observing all this through a telescope could not tell you which kinds of bets were honest and which were dishonest, because the difference isn't about any objective standard, but rather, about power.

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The strategies of powerful people are legit, while the strategies of their would-be dethroners are not legit. Sometimes, even outright frauds are OK if they're done by people with enough power.

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PHOTOS: Pibbles with presents.

We wrap Christmas presents for our dogs each year for them to open.

Our pitbulls, Dorothy and Dru, got to open their presents first when we all sat down to open gifts this morning.

In true little sister fashion, Dru can't stand for her big sister Dorothy to get something she doesn't have—even if it's the exact same thing.

As Dorothy was opening her gift, Dru realized Dorothy had one and quickly dropped her unopened gift.

I held Dru back to allow Dorothy to open hers (see Dru's feet).

After successfully unwrapping her gift, Dorothy held onto it, but you can see the look of concern on her face...

An appropriately concerned Dorothy knows that her little sister (who still hasn't opened her gift) is about to come try to take her new toy away...

“What do you despise? By this are you truly known. Let me tell you about how much I fukken hate worms." - Frank 'I Hate Worms' Herbert

It's Friday. Normally I'd be swilling some cheap rotgut in a fancy glass, but the holiday has waged war on my insides.

#HouseCiderino

As you might recall, we're playing the Dune boardgame. Originally published in 1979 by Avalon Hill, recently republished by Gale Force 9.

Originally designed as part of the Project MKUltra to teach nightcrawlers how to have anxiety, it has since become a classic of the genre.

I am playing Padishah-Emperor Shaddam IV of House Corrino as I attempt to fistfight my enemies for control of a very large spice rack. Those enemies are:

- House Harkonen, baddies
- House Atreides, baddies with good PR
- Spacing Guild, Uber w/ LSD and gun
- Fremen, ??? sand

I didn't put the Bene Gesserit on there as an enemy because a) I ran out of characters and b) they're like a combination of Catholic nuns and Народный комиссариат внутренних дел. Keeping their name out of your mouth is safer.

Last session we saw some interesting developments. With the arrival of Shai Hulud (Bless the Maker and His Water. Bless the Coming and going of Him. May His passage cleanse the world. May He keep the world for His people), we were allowed to ally!

You can't

"Cancel culture" but pronounced like a pasta: "can-chel-le cul-choor-ay"

Imagine, if you will, a Rigoletto in which the antagonist is cleverly renamed "Canucile Culture"

So, a little story about conspiracies, conspiracists and America. I'm typing this as I go, so no idea how long this thread is going to be. Just over a decade ago, me and the family went on holiday - to a ranch in Texas.

It my son's choice - he was going through a Westerns phase, thought he was too old to be going on holiday with us, so we let him choose the destination, and just went with it.

The ranch was a lovely old place, run by a guy in his sixties or seventies, though most of the actual running was done by a fantastic Mexican couple who lived there.

The old guy was very Texan - beautiful manners, larger than life, full of stories. The other memory I have is that there were guns *everywhere*. In just about every room.

He spent his evenings online, but not in the way you'd expect these days. He spent his time on networked multiplayer war games, fighting imaginary enemies while talking to his fellow players.