White House Alters Transcript of Press Briefing.

So the White House wants history to show that Scott McClellen disagreed rather than agreed with a reporter's statement that Karl Rove was certainly involved in the CIA leak. They''ve altered their transcript, and have been lobbying other news orgs to do the same.

The fact that they're going so balls-out on this -- changing McClellen's statement 180-degrees in the face of video evidence clearly showing that he said "that's accurate" and certainly not "I don't think that's accurate" -- reflects a certain kind of desparation, I think.

Or maybe with things in such chaos over there, they've got second stringers running the show. I could imagine some junior-grade yes-men failing to realize that the rules are reverting back to "normal" and that Bush administration's Orwellian powers are on the wane.

I can't believe they'd honestly think this would work though. Weird. The sort of minor nature of the change they're pushing for seems to point to it being part of a strategy of legal defense. We'll see.

The beautiful freaks at Downhill Battle have a new campaign: Kill Bill's Browser - Switch to Firefox. This is raising the stakes. Backed by a $1/referral offer from Google, they're making a push to drive the next wave of adoption.

What's interesting is that the new browser wars are more likely to be fought over associated services. Right now the main thing in play is who gets to handle things from the "search" bar, but the future will see more refined and specialized services. This is what the Flockers want to do, though in the short term their revenue stream appears to be replacing Google search with Yahoo and suckling from that teat. I think we've got a ways to go before these services really break.

The interesting thing is that the break-out of these services will coincide with the maturation of today's teenagers. There are political implications here too; the 2008 election will see the largest potential youth vote in US history. The right candidate with the right online campaign could make serious waves.

Anyway, if you browse with IE, get ready to be annoyed coming here.

The beautiful freaks at Downhill Battle have a new campaign: Kill Bill's Browser - Switch to Firefox. This is raising the stakes. Backed by a $1/referral offer from Google, they're making a push to drive the next wave of adoption.

What's interesting is that the new browser wars are more likely to be fought over associated services. Right now the main thing in play is who gets to handle things from the "search" bar, but the future will see more refined and specialized services. This is what the Flockers want to do, though in the short term their revenue stream appears to be replacing Google search with Yahoo and suckling from that teat. I think we've got a ways to go before these services really break.

The interesting thing is that the break-out of these services will coincide with the maturation of today's teenagers. There are political implications here too; the 2008 election will see the largest potential youth vote in US history. The right candidate with the right online campaign could make serious waves.

Anyway, if you browse with IE, get ready to be annoyed coming here.

For those of you who aren't wild web-surfers on the political front, here's a quick wrap on things I've been watching:

As anticipated, Mayor Mike gets four more years, and downticket Democratic incumbants rule the day across the board. Lesson learned: heavily Democratic New York City is saddled with an aging and increasingly ineffective political machine which is highly vulnerable to high-profile attacks from maverick Republicans. The machine has to open up at some point, it's just a matter of whether or not this happens as a result of total system failure, or as part of a plan to revitalize city politics. Don't bet on the latter.

In California we approached flawless victory on the ballot initiatives. Big ups. My company worked this campaign and I think we even helped.

Lots of other points of light: Intelligent-design took a big hit in some school board elections; anti-gay ballot measure failed in Maine; Gubinatorial victory in NJ (nice work Stolls) and VA.

Electoral reform initiatives fail in Ohio. Hopefully they'll try again amidst the '06 electapalooza.

Slashdot | EA To Sell Game Music on iTunes

Those who doubt the hit potential of video game theme songs probably haven't seen Billboard's Hot Ringtones chart lately, where Koji Kondo has sat right near the top for 55 weeks. Who's Koji Kondo? He composed the theme for 'Super Mario Bros.,' which ranks this week right between the Black Eyed Peas and Bow Wow featuring Ciara.

I had a similar thought last night when my random iTunes shuffle put on one of the songs from Halo. Video games are an outlet for a type of creativity (musical composition) that's had its traditional showcases all dwindle in popularity -- the symphony, the musical comedy -- or else become crowded with pop music -- e.g. motion picture scores. Seems to me that as the gaming industry expands, it will provide more and more opportunities both to showcase and to subsidize creativity. That's cool.

I also got to thinking about how the intelligent interweaving of music into gameplay has a lot to do with the value of a game. Sunday I played a little of Rockstar's The Warriors with A-stock. A rockin' good time. The gameplay is fantastic, but very different from GTA. I see it as a logical extension of the Double Dragon, Final Fight side-scrolling beat-em up. Very well done, and it has context-sensitive music which is often used to clever/ironic effect.

Yeah, I think if I ever get rich, I'll invest in making video games. Not coding them, but directing. Get some smart people to do the nuts and bolts (or more likely license a kick-ass engine) and really run wild with the creativity aspect.

Slashdot | EA To Sell Game Music on iTunes

Those who doubt the hit potential of video game theme songs probably haven't seen Billboard's Hot Ringtones chart lately, where Koji Kondo has sat right near the top for 55 weeks. Who's Koji Kondo? He composed the theme for 'Super Mario Bros.,' which ranks this week right between the Black Eyed Peas and Bow Wow featuring Ciara.

I had a similar thought last night when my random iTunes shuffle put on one of the songs from Halo. Video games are an outlet for a type of creativity (musical composition) that's had its traditional showcases all dwindle in popularity -- the symphony, the musical comedy -- or else become crowded with pop music -- e.g. motion picture scores. Seems to me that as the gaming industry expands, it will provide more and more opportunities both to showcase and to subsidize creativity. That's cool.

I also got to thinking about how the intelligent interweaving of music into gameplay has a lot to do with the value of a game. Sunday I played a little of Rockstar's The Warriors with A-stock. A rockin' good time. The gameplay is fantastic, but very different from GTA. I see it as a logical extension of the Double Dragon, Final Fight side-scrolling beat-em up. Very well done, and it has context-sensitive music which is often used to clever/ironic effect.

Yeah, I think if I ever get rich, I'll invest in making video games. Not coding them, but directing. Get some smart people to do the nuts and bolts (or more likely license a kick-ass engine) and really run wild with the creativity aspect.

Capitol Hill Blue: White House keeps dossiers on more than 10,000 'political enemies'

“If you want to know who’s sleeping with whom, who drinks too much or has a fondness for nose candy, this is the place to find it,” says another White House aide. “Karl (Rove) operates under the rule that if you fuck with us, we’ll fuck you over.”

Now, Capitol Hill Blue is not an extremely reliable source, but I still think it would be cool if there were a Bush enemies list. It would be a badge of distinction to be on it. Plus, with a blog like this, it would make their oppo-research easy. Come on, guys, put me on the list!

If you live in NYC or CA -- or Virginia or New Jersey, and probably a few other places with local races -- you should probably vote today.

Just sayin'.

John Robb -- no flaming lefty, just a real smart guy -- has another post on the ongoing rioting in France. If you're interested in this sort of thing, you should be reading his blog, Global Guerrillas. Here's the nut:

As the state loses its ability to monopolize the provision of economic opportunity, it will soon lose its monopoly on violence.

This has deeply frightening implication for the rest of us. Essentially, if we don't open-source our existing economic and political structures to increase equality and opportunity, we will face a networked revolution (the ugly violent kind that I don't advocate) which we will be unable to defeat without going in the totalitarian direction.

How France resolves this crisis will have crucial implications for the future.

As unhappy populations and governments realize that the contemporary democratic state is totally fucking powerless to stop a network bent on propogating entropy, things could go downhill rather rapidly. This isn't new news, by the way. Thomas Jefferson got it, which is why he was all for running the natives off some land and giving it away to former peasants after the American Revolution. Without a moral stake, there's no reason to play by the rules, especially if those rules are screwing you and your family over. If people don't play by the rules, civilization breaks down. In the modern context, it's not as easy as giving away land. We'll need something more innovative to re-invest much of the worlds population.

The alternative is trying to force people to abide by the existing status-quo. This would be bad, because what we'll get is something like this:

I don't relish the thought of living in a country that deploys stormtroopers, but if you've ever seen a major metro police department gear up for a "public demonstration," it's impossible not to draw the paralells. The state won't give up its monopoly on violence without a fight, but if it comes to that, we've all already lost.

John Robb -- no flaming lefty, just a real smart guy -- has another post on the ongoing rioting in France. If you're interested in this sort of thing, you should be reading his blog, Global Guerrillas. Here's the nut:

As the state loses its ability to monopolize the provision of economic opportunity, it will soon lose its monopoly on violence.

This has deeply frightening implication for the rest of us. Essentially, if we don't open-source our existing economic and political structures to increase equality and opportunity, we will face a networked revolution (the ugly violent kind that I don't advocate) which we will be unable to defeat without going in the totalitarian direction.

How France resolves this crisis will have crucial implications for the future.

As unhappy populations and governments realize that the contemporary democratic state is totally fucking powerless to stop a network bent on propogating entropy, things could go downhill rather rapidly. This isn't new news, by the way. Thomas Jefferson got it, which is why he was all for running the natives off some land and giving it away to former peasants after the American Revolution. Without a moral stake, there's no reason to play by the rules, especially if those rules are screwing you and your family over. If people don't play by the rules, civilization breaks down. In the modern context, it's not as easy as giving away land. We'll need something more innovative to re-invest much of the worlds population.

The alternative is trying to force people to abide by the existing status-quo. This would be bad, because what we'll get is something like this:

I don't relish the thought of living in a country that deploys stormtroopers, but if you've ever seen a major metro police department gear up for a "public demonstration," it's impossible not to draw the paralells. The state won't give up its monopoly on violence without a fight, but if it comes to that, we've all already lost.