Chris Crawford (previously) has released the beta version of his Storytron engine. The first demo? Balance of Power: 21st Century. [more inside]
Chris Crawford puts up videos of some of his earlier talks and interviews. So far, there are four pieces but he says there will be more to come. These are the direct links to Quicktime movies that are also in his forum post which is the initial link. An Interview in 1982 about his nuclear power plant simulation Scram (52 MB), 1990 interview on Balance of Power (62 MB), half-hour interview with 30 seconds of Crawford about Excalibur (331 MB), lecture at the 1990 Computer Game Developers' Conference entitled "The Mystique of the Loop" (657 MB).
The Credibility of Power. Daryl Press, author of Calculating Credibility: How Leaders Assess Military Threats, argues that in a crisis, the credibility of threats is primarily determined by the balance of power and the interests of stake; past history is relatively unimportant. As case studies, he examines the decision-making of Hitler and his generals during the crises over Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. "To this day, U.S. leaders ... are loath to reevaluate existing commitments for fear that doing so would signal irresolution. These fears, however, are greatly overblown." An example of US rigidity: Gideon Rose on the end of the Vietnam War.
It's a split Senate. Democrat Maria Cantwell has been confirmed as the winner of the close Washington Senate race, thus bringing the Senate count to an even 50-50 split. And for 17 days, the Democrats will have a majority of sorts.