Into the Cincoverse - The Cinco de Mayo EU Thread and Wikibox Repository

[KingSweden24]

Amrail Cascades is an Amrail corridor route segment designation in the Pacific Northwest of the United States and Canada that operates both InterCity and Regions Rail class services, connecting Seattle to Vancouver, British Columbia and Portland, Oregon; it is the only trans-border route segment on the West Coast. Cascades operates as two distinct services - Cascades Salish between Vancouver and Seattle, and Cascades Columbia between Seattle and Eugene, Oregon, though only about half of all trains through-run past Portland. Amrail operates approximately 40 trains per day on this route. On the limited-stop InterCity (IC) service, the Vancouver-Seattle trip takes about 91 minutes, and the Portland-Seattle trip takes 94 minutes while the full extension to Eugene a further 55; a full IC service from Eugene to Vancouver takes four hours.

Cascades was an electric conventional rail service that launched in 1981 from Seattle to Portland utilizing the Point Defiance Bypass to speed up service past Tacoma and was extended to Eugene with the rebuilding of the Willamette West Rail Corridor by the USRA in 1984-85. Following the passage of the Surface Transportation Enhancement Act in 1989 and the Jacobs Act in 1993 which amended the National Transportation and Infrastructure Policy of 1974, billions in funding were set aside to help the corridor achieve high-speed and near-high-speed (defined by Amrail as in excess of 200kmh and between 150-199kmh, respectively) service on the Seattle-Portland corridor, which at that time could generally only attain maximum speeds of 140kmh. Thanks to significant investments by the state of Washington in piecemeal improvements throughout the late 1980s to improve the Soundrail commuter service on the USRA corridor between Seattle and Tacoma, upgrades to allow 150kmh travel between Seattle and Tacoma was launched in 1999, followed in 2002 by the full upgrade of a high-speed trackage that bypassed cities in the Chehalis Valley between Olympia and Monticello and allowed for a maximum speed of 250kmh; this allowed for the launch of a full high-speed service that same year using Amrail's InterCity branding. Significant upgrades to the Nisqually Bridge were completed in late 2006 which completed the upgrades in Washington state on the route, allowing travel at a maximum speed of 200kmh between Tacoma and Olympia.

With the achievement of travel between Seattle and Vancouver, WA in just over an hour, Oregon began making upgrades to their own line segment between Portland and Canby to link up to the Willamette West branch that was designed in the 1980s to initially support travel speeds of 200kmh and which in 2017 were finally upgraded sufficiently to support 250kmh service, with Eugene lacking train service for 18 months to allow work to be completed. The major chokepoint wound up being the old Central Pacific rail bridge over the Columbia River and slow trackage to Portland Union Station that was intermixed with freight rail on USRA right-of-way in Northwest Portland; between Vancouver, WA and Portland Union, trains often traveled as slowly as 90kmh. Upgrades completed in 2011 on the Oregon side allowed for 125kmh through the USRA overnight and switching yard, and the new AuCoin Bridge, named after Senator Les AuCoin (D-OR) who had championed the project, allowed faster travel over the river. With that, the Seattle-Portland-Eugene segment was complete.

The Salish segment was considerably more difficult; rail out of Seattle, unlike the consolidated and twin quadruple-tracked corridors south out of Seattle, there was a single-tracked freight corridor between Seattle and Edmonds onwards to Everett, and a double-tracked commuter rail corridor from Seattle around the north side of Lake Washington with substantial bends to Woodinville Junction Station, with no way for a bypass track, and then onwards to Snohomish, without a clear way to connect to Everett. While rail service to Vancouver had begun in 1994 with a bilateral agreement to allow Amrail to run six trains round trip per day to Vancouver's Pacific Central Station, the routing on either the Coastal Route or the Nooksack-Sumas Corridor route had proven controversial and both unideal for different reasons, the first for its frequent single-tracking and mudslide risk, the latter for its remoteness from major population centers. The United States, in 1993, coordinated between the state of Washington and the federal government to make substantial upgrades to the "Northward Bound" project, with the USRA investing four billion dollars between 1993 and 2004 in upgrades to the Soundrail corridor from King Street and Seattle Central north to Woodinville Junction and Snohomish beyond to allow both Amrail and Soundrail trains to travel at maximum speeds of 150kmh all the way to Snohomish, and built bypass tracks north of Woodinville to allow Amrail tracks to move faster in that corridor if necessary. Upgrades to the freight-light corridor from Snohomish to Sumas began in 2003, in parts with money from the federal stimulus package passed the year before in the face of the 2002 global financial crisis, which straightened segments, created bypasses and viaducts, and allowed for 250kmh service all the way to the Canadian border by 2010.

The sticking point was, as it had been for nearly two decades, both the federal and provincial governments in Canada and British Columbia. In 1993, a right-wing coalition government between the Ontario and Manitoba-based Conservatives and the Alberta-based Reform had formed in Canada, led by Mike Harris, which privatized Canadian rail operations later that year and made deep cuts to infrastructure investments which forced a center-right government in BC to cut commuter rail operations in that province. While the Canadian penchant for austerity would end by the late 1990s, it placed them substantially behind the United States in terms of creating a workable high-speed service, and as a result when the 2010 high-speed service was complete, it had to conclude in Abbotsford, just over the border from Sumas, where passengers went through passport control and then continued taking a diesel train all the way to Pacific Central Station. In 2007, however, the United States and the new, Commonwealth Co-operative Federation-led government of Murray Rankin struck an agreement partially financed by the CCF government of Jack Layton to extend electrified rail service from Abbotsford across a new Fort Langley Bridge to trackage that was already electrified that led into PCS. The new bridge was completed in 2018, and the service into PCS began in April 2020, with trains in British Columbia able to travel 150kmh the whole route and opening up Abbotsford to commuter rail services via West Coast Express trains. Due to rapid growth in South Mainland communities such as Delta and Surrey, there are some criticisms that this route bypasses them from the Fraser Valley.

The economic impact of the Cascades service has been considerable, especially since through-running between Vancouver and Portland or Eugene was introduced in late 2021, ending the need to switch trains at King Street Station in Seattle . The abolition of passport and customs controls between the United States and Canada under the provisions of the Free Association Agreement beginning on January 31, 2019 has been credited with sparking an economic boom in the BC Lower Mainland as it becomes more integrated economically with the Pacific Northwest, in part via 90 minute service to Seattle. Since 2006, air travel between Seattle and Portland has all but collapsed, going from nearly thirty flights per day in both directions to six, and Eugene has experienced a renaissance due to its proximity to Portland economically and with the economic benefit of the booming University of Oregon. It is Amrail's 5th-most profitable corridor segment as of 2023.

 

[KingSweden24]

Carreymania refers to a media and political phenomenon in the Canadian province of Ontario in the early 2010s surrounding the leader of the Provincial Commonwealth Co-operative Federation (CCF), Jim Carrey, to the point of being a specific cultural touchstone.

Carrey had been a CCF MPP from 1995-99 before his defeat in the decisive wipeout of the CCF down to 9 seats in the 1999 Ontario provincial election; he had been elected to the Canadian Parliament in 2004 as a "Junior Jack" for the riding of Burlington, where he had worked his whole adult life as a steelworker, and served in a number of Cabinet roles including Minister of Defense for a few months in 2008 before resigning to run for leader of the Ontario CCF, to which he was resoundingly elected in June of 2008 thanks in part to an endorsement from Prime Minister Jack Layton, who made the rare move of intervening in a provincial leadership race.

In early 2009, Carrey began a media blitz to introduce himself to Ontario voters, focusing on his relative youth (he was 46 when elected leader), experience in the popular Layton's Cabinet, and his life story of former homelessness and "understanding what it means to struggle." After rolling out a boldly populist agenda whitepaper developed by a number of labor unions and advocacy groups called "The Ontario Promise", by the summer of 2010, the CCF was leading both the opposition Tories of Frank Klees as well as the unpopular governing Liberals of Gerard Kennedy, in power since October 2003, and Carrey was seen as having a real chance of forming government in a minority, or perhaps majority, government at the 2011 elections. The decline of popularity of Layton in early 2011 and then his death in August of 2011 helped bring Carreymania to a close, with Carrey's CCF doubling their seat count at the 2011 election but failing to be elected Leader of the Opposition, and having had some centrist voters siphoned off by a late ad blitz by the Kennedy Liberals. Having brought the CCF to the brink of opposition, he elected to stay on as leader, with many suspecting that Carrey was planning a return to federal politics eventually as an ideological successor to Layton.

Carrey would resign as CCF leader in May 2013 after a scandal erupted over an op-ed he had written in the early 2000s questioning the efficacy of medical vaccines and advocating in favor of exempting all Ontario students from vaccine mandates to attend schools, on the heels of revelations that he had spoken to advocacy groups accused of paramilitary apologism and investigative reporting into his ties to spiritual gurus accused of various money laundering and abuse allegations, thus ending Carreymania.

 

[KingSweden24]

2016 FIFA World Cup - Introduction

Host Selection

The 2016 FIFA World Cup was awarded to France on June 12th, 2005, at the FIFA Congress in Barbados, simultaneously with the 2012 edition's awarding to China.

France was the host of the 1916 inaugural World Cup but since then had not hosted it again, despite being one of Europe's major footballing nations; it hosted the 1950 Western European Championships, a precursor to the Euros, and then the 1966 and 1986 Euros thereafter, in addition to the 1978 Summer Olympics in Paris. France's ability to host a major sporting competition was not in doubt, especially after the transition to democracy in France between 1990-93, but previous efforts to host a World Cup had fallen short; France was denied in favor of Netherlands in 1976, Italy in 1992, and Germany in 2000, regarded as France's strongest bid. By the early 2000s, the idea of a "Coupe Centenniale" in France for the 100th anniversary of the inaugural cup was gaining steam, especially after the awarding of the 2008 World Cup to the United States meant that it would be at least twelve years before the next European Cup, a gap only previously matched due to the 1956 edition's cancellation due to [CENSORED]. However, following the "Oriental Chic" decade of the 1990s and China's remarkable economic growth during that decade, and assumptions that the severe debt and currency crises of the early 2000s would have resolved themselves by decade's end, built a substantial groundswell of support at FIFA for awarding the 2012 hosting duties to China (who had initially hoped for 2008 and lost out to the United States) and the romance of a centennial Cup in France four years later.

While Britain bid against China, Australia and Asian footballing power Korea for the 2012 Cup, France only faced Spain and Morocco for the 2016 edition after French Football Federation officials elected not to try against what would be more difficult competition following heartbreaks in 1992 and 2000. Morocco later switched their bid to the 2012 Cup, assuming (correctly) that they would have no chance against European competition if a country in Asia or Oceania hosted the 2012 event. Spain later cut a deal with France to support their bid for the 2016 World Cup if France would support Madrid's planned 2018 Olympic bid and, eventually, a Spanish Euros bid (which would be the 2022 Euros); this "Perpignan Pact" meant that France, by June of 2005, was the sole bidder for the 2016 World Cup left standing and would win be default just as it kicked off hosting the 2005 FIFA Women's World Cup and showing its infrastructural ability, much as the 1993 Rugby World Cup had been hoped to be the launchpad for hosting the 2000 World Cup finals. China and France were awarded hosting duties for 2012 and 2016 in the same ceremony shortly thereafter, and the centennial nature of France's hosting was a major theme of its planning and preparation as the World Cup returned to French soil after a hundred years, an agonizingly long wait for the French.

Infrastructure

France presented to FIFA a list of fourteen stadia that was, in 2008, narrowed down to twelve, with several remodels and three new-builds on the offing. The centerpiece would of course be the Stade de France in Saint-Denis immediately on the city limits of Paris, which would host the opening match and the final; the third-place game would be held in Marseille's Stade Velodrome. Additional stadia would include the Parc des Princes in Paris, new stadiums in Lyon, Lille and Bordeaux, and smaller stadia in Liege, Saint-Etienne, Lens, Montpelier, Toulouse, and Nantes.

Paris-Roissy would see a new satellite concourse added in addition to the one already planned as part of the eastwards expansion of Terminal 2's long haul capacity, while Marseille and Bordeaux would see entirely new airport terminals built in major expansions. France's high-speed rail network, which connected Paris to Lyon and Liege, would see additional lines opened up, with the extension to Marseille finally completed, the Tours line extended all the way to Bordeaux, and the extension of the Lille-Liege segment towards the Dutch border to allow international HSR trains. New commuter rail expansions were planned in Paris, as were metro station improvements, and a series of light-rail systems in Lille, Bordeaux and Lyon. Shortly after her election to the French Presidency in September 2005, Martine Aubry laid out the "Plan Centennial," in which France would build a thousand new hotel rooms per year for the next decade, two thousand new units of social housing, and invest billions in road infrastructure ahead of the tournament to absorb visitors, athletes, and construction workers over that period of time. With an unusually long time before the tournament to prepare, and with the Cup being seen as a potential stimulus for France's struggling economy in the mid-2000s, the transformative aspect of what the French sought out to accomplish was second to only China's grandiose plans for 2012.

 

[KingSweden24]

2016 FIFA World Cup - Group Stage

Unlike the previous two tournaments in the United States and China which utilized a "cluster" system in which group stage games were organized geographically to minimize travel, France spread matches all across the country with only small amounts of consideration given to travel, in part due to the country's considerably smaller size as compared to the previous hosts as well as its robust rail network.

Group A

The hosts and tournament co-favorites welcomed World Cup football back to French soil for the first time in a century at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, defeating Denmark 2-0 decisively in a match that wasn't as close as the scoreline would suggest before eighty thousand roaring fans. The next morning, Australia showed they had not lost their verve after their semifinal run four years earlier in clawing back from a one goal deficit to Iran with two scores by Massimo Luongo within six minutes near the end of the match to take the full points in Nantes. Les Bleus came down from their opening match high in Lyon, playing out a dire 0-0 slugfest with defensive maestros Iran until Antoine Griezmann's injury-time header gave them three points; Australia, for their part, clawed back again from a 1-0 deficit to Denmark in Toulouse, equalizing at 80' through the ageless Tim Cahill before Robbie Kruse took a penalty at 89' to negate Christian Eriksen's long strike from the first half.

These results placed both France and Australia at six points and assurance of advancement into the knockout round as they faced off in Marseille in a rematch of the 2015 Confederations Cup final in that same stadium a year earlier; France was unable to entirely avenge that 2-1 loss to Australia, with the game ending on a 0-0 draw that nonetheless saw France go top of the group on goal difference. Denmark, meanwhile, triumphed over a ten-man Iran after falling behind in the first half, taking three points in a 2-1 victory.

France 7
Australia 7
Denmark 3
Iran 0

Group B

Regarded as remarkably open, Group B kicked off in Lille, with a highly-anticipated match between a "new-look" USA side with an intriguing mix of veteran and fresh talent nicknamed "the Redeem Team" after the humiliation of its 2012 title defense. Hungary gave no quarter, however, cruising to a comfortable 2-0 result in which they scored twice in eight minutes in the first half and then kept their opponents out of chances for the whole second half, suggesting a much more intriguing Hungary group than thought coming into the tournament. In Montpellier, meanwhile, Ecuador faced off against World Cup debutants Kuwait, and the game was an upset result for the Gulf state, ending on a 1-1 draw with both teams reduced to ten men on red cards after Ecuador was heavily favored entering the match.

Perhaps still high on their decisive win in Lille, Hungary dropped an early goal to Enner Valencia at 11' and suffered another blow with an own goal by Adam Szalai at 55' to drop points and thrust Ecuador into the front of the group; the United States, seeking redemption, were meanwhile forced to console themselves with an ugly 1-1 draw to Kuwait in Paris with captain Reggie Bush scoring at 34' but putting two excellent chances in the second half off the crossbar. The group thus came down to the final matchday, with all four participants credibly able to move on to the next stage, and Ecuador liking their odds to go through particularly. It was not to be - in Liege, the United States put three goals past Ecuador in the space of eleven minutes in the first half and despite a Valencia penalty at 70' suggesting the start of a furious comeback, held on to go through as Hungary blasted Kuwait 3-0 to go top of the group.

Hungary 6
USA 4
Ecuador 4
Kuwait 2

Group C

A talented Portugal side entered an extremely difficult group, with the health of star and captain Cristiano Ronaldo a question mark. It was a question for a reason, as in the first match, to be played in Bordeaux - conspicuously close to the Pyrenees - they would face off with Spain, the defending World Cup champions. These were very much not the Spain of five or six years earlier, however, with mainstays of those great sides out of the lineup, and instead depended on young Alvaro Morata to set up Fernando Torres' 80' strike to overcome Portugal in a game where Ronaldo had to be sent off with pain in his long-injured knee. In the other match, debutants Vietnam jumped out to a surprising two-goal lead over Paraguay, only for it all to collapse in the back half as Paraguay roared back to close it out with an injury time dagger to win the match.

This, somehow, did not fluster Vietnam, as just days later at Saint Denis they pulled off one of the greatest upsets in the history of the sport, defeating Spain 1-0, setting off nationwide celebrations back in Asia. Portugal redeemed themselves, too, eking out a 1-0 win over Paraguay to take back control of their tournament even while missing their biggest star; they would advance into the knockouts with an identical scoreline over Vietnam in the final match. Spain, for its part, failed to capitalize on numerous chances and had a Morata goal disallowed to great controversy, and Paraguay extended their lead late to take it 3-1 and go top of the group, the only South American side to win their group and even on points with Argentina and Colombia.

Paraguay 6
Portugal 6
Vietnam 3
Spain 3

Group D

Much like eyebrows were raised over Spain playing their first match in Bordeaux, Italy's first and third group matches being assigned to Marseille and Montpellier, with a short jaunt up to Saint-Etienne in the middle, drew some raised eyebrows for geographical advantage; Russia certainly had reason to protest, as Marseille was crawling with Azzurri fans and the 1-1 draw between Italy and Russia that saw youngster Daniele Paolini announce himself to the world for the first time was famous more for the massive brawl outside the stadium between ultras of the two European nations than the tactical defensive wizardry inside. Away from that cloud of violence, defending silver medalists Japan squared off in Toulouse with a side favored to go far in Argentina, and Sergio Aguero and Lionel Messi showed why in defeating Japan 2-0 with both goals coming safely in the first half. Italy would add to Blue Samurai grief in a scrappy 1-0 victory, while Argentina dug Russia a hole and topped the group by defeating them 3-2, meeting both Russian equalizers with a fresh goal of their own. Argentina's reign atop Group D did not last; needing at least a draw, Italy instead blasted Argentina 3-0 in a surprisingly dominant performance that was taken to augur well for the knockout rounds ahead, and Japan avenged its poor showing so far in collecting three points in a 2-1 takedown of Russia that allowed it at least some pride after failing to advance to the knockouts for the first time since 2004.

Italy 7
Argentina 6
Japan 3
Russia 1

 

[KingSweden24]

2016 FIFA World Cup - Group Stage (cont)

Group E

The European champions entered as one of the favorites of the tournament and quickly proved why in dispatching a talented Austria side 2-0 right out of the gate in the opening match in Liege, near the German border, further raising questions of UEFA meddling in the draw. Costa Rica, coming off its dazzling quartefinal run in China four years earlier, showed some of that same verve in taking down South Africa 2-1 in the corresponding opener. Germany quickly showed why it was the top-ranked side in the World mere days later as it ran roughshod over South Africa, 5-0, with all of her goals scored in the first forty minutes of play. Austria and Costa Rica met in sunny Montpellier to fight to a draw, 1-1, setting up a critical closer for both sides with Germany already guarnateed passage into the next stage.

Austria met the moment behind a David Hoffman goal at 11' to open scoring against South Africa and later gifted an Erich Forsythe own goal at 80', which wound up being the crucial goal of the group; Costa Rica was blown out 4-0 by Germany as four different German players scored, including a brace by Julian Draxler, and on goal difference the Austrians advanced.

Germany 9
Austria 4
Costa Rica 4
South Africa 0

Group F

Seldom a favorite outside of South America, Brazil nonetheless entered as a Top Five side somewhat unexpectedly and seemed confident to at least advance to the knockouts on what was regarded as the tournament's weakest group, featuring a below-strength Ireland missing stalwarts like captain Robbie Keane, Nigeria and debutants Iceland. Suffice to say Brazil was left shocked that their opening result was a mere draw to Ireland in Nantes; even more surprising was that the group stage opened with Iceland at the top, as they won their first-ever World Cup match over Nigeria 2-0.

With the group now suggesting a great deal more intrigue than expected, Brazil resolved to press on, only to be fought to an excruciating (to watch) 0-0, card-riddled draw with Nigeria, and Ireland took command of their own destiny 1-0 against Iceland with a well-placed Shane Long penalty at 80' to avoid another draw and take most points in the group heading into the final matchday. Nonetheless, Brazil had every reason to expected that they would beat Iceland and advance as the second-placed team; in one of the sport's great upsets, more impactful even than the victory over Spain notched by Vietnam, Iceland came back from an early deficit to defeat Brazil 2-1, a shockwave felt throughout the sporting world and giving them the six points needed to punch a ticket to the knockouts, albeit in second; Ireland took care of business, overcoming a slow start and early Nigeria goal to win 4-2 with all of their goals scored in the second half, including a brace by Long.

Ireland 7
Iceland 6
Brazil 2
Nigeria 1

Group G

The Britain that entered France '16 carried the weight of every British team - high expectations, a demanding press that indulged ugly rumors about the team, and boundless talent that did not always gel well as a group - but started out creditably, drawing a dogged, defense-oriented Sweden 1-1 in their opener. In Lens, meanwhile, Liberia flashed potential in racing out to a 3-0 lead against Texas in the first 55 minutes of play that they never relented, even after going down to ten men. Clint Dempsey, Robert Griffin and the Blue Stars were not lifeless, though, shocking a favored Sweden in another 1-1 draw to make the last matchday potentially interesting, while Britain went down early to Liberia but recovered thanks to a Wayne Rooney penalty and a long Harry Kane goal at 89' to take full points and a commanding advantage.

Sweden and Liberia thus entered their last matchday with a good sense that they were playing for second, and Texas with an outside chance of scraping their way in on the off-chance of a strange set of results. Texas could not take care of business against Britain in Paris, however, dropping 3-1 in a match whose scoreline looked closer than it was, while Sweden scored twice early in the game and held on against a furious Liberia comeback to advance to the knockouts.

Britain 7
Sweden 5
Liberia 3
Texas 1

Group H

One of only two sides to take full points in their group, Bohemia did not even enter the tournament as a favorite or a top seed; indeed, they had only narrowly qualified at all, having to defeat Switzerland in the conclusion of qualifying to punch their ticket to France. They quickly showed they belonged, however, knocking out perennial powerhouse Mexico 3-0 in a stunning result at Saint-Denis. Colombia, for its part, stared down Asian powerhouse Korea in Bordeaux and played daring football, with young star James Rodriguez netting two goals and 2012 star Radamel Falco nearly adding a third as Korea went down 2-1. Smelling blood in the water, Korea - captained now by Son Heung-min - headed south to Marseille to take out Mexico and put themselves back in position to return to the knockouts. That was not to be; in a game titled "Massacre in Marseille" or the "Disaster of Marseille," Korea was run out of the stadium by Mexico's talent, with Andres Guardado notching two goals in the space of five minutes and making it a hat trick late, abetted by Chicharito and Hirving Lozano adding to the scoresheet while Guillermo Ochoa kept Korea out of net all afternoon. Colombia and Bohemia squared off in an anticipated match with three points apiece in Lyon, and despite a 1-1 score at the half, Bohemia took two goals in quick shrift near the end of the game as Colombia seemed to run out of gas to secure a guaranteed knockout place.

Thus Korea was left only to play spoiler for Bohemia's final placement, and that was not a position the Red Tigers found much enjoyment in, slouching into a 2-1 loss with the second goal coming in an absurd nine minutes of injury time. Colombia and Mexico faced off in a battle for the knockouts on three points each, meanwhile, in a tight rematch of the 1996 World Cup final; this time, it was Colombia that persevered, with Falco scoring the winner at 82' to send Colombia once again to the round of 16 as Mexico was eliminated in the group stage for the second consecutive tournament and third time in the last four.

Bohemia 9
Colombia 6
Mexico 3
Korea 0

 

[KingSweden24]

Round of 16

The hosts welcomed the United States to the Parc des Princes, where they easily dispatched a quickly and clearly overwhelmed American side 2-0, scoring both goals before the 40th minute and then leisurely parking the bus for the remainder of the match. Group A's runner-up in Australia, for its own part, put on a clinic in Saint-Etienne, demolishing Hungary by a 4-1 scoreline aided by a Chris Wood brace that was nowhere near as close as the result would otherwise indicate, shockingly putting an end to what had otherwise been a budding hope of a decent run by long-suffering Mighty Magyar supporters.

Paraguay had looked, potentially, like the best South American team in France in its group stage, defeating Spain and topping its group after a fine performance in a 1-0 loss to a desperate Portugal; Argentina, meanwhile, looked to be punching below her weight in a World Cup yet again. But on a balmy, humid night in Bordeaux, these longstanding South American rivals fought to a draw in regular time, in part due to Gonzalo Higuain's penalty at 72' going off the sidebar, and though Albiceleste supporters were then convinced that the heartbreak endured every four years since 1988 was striking yet again, Argentina would live to fight another day, as both normal and added time ended on the same nil-nil scoreline, and Argentina advanced 4-3 on penalties. Their groupmates would see a similar result; Italy and Portugal met at Saint-Denis in a showdown of two of the highest-ranked teams in the world in what had been thought was a potential final, and the favored Azzurri showed verve in fighting back to a 1-1 draw against Os Azules Reales as Graziano Pelle at 84' rescued Italy's Cup hopes in offsetting Nani's goal from the first half, and advanced 6-5 after Portugal failed to unlock Italy's veteran, famously stout defense for the thirty minutes of added time that followed.

Robert Brady and Wes Hoolahan enjoyed early chances against a Germany that looked rather mortal in Lyon, but failed to convert them and would come to regret that dearly, as Thomas Muller and Bastian Schweinsteiger scored quickly at 23' and 28' to take command of the match, with Mario Gotze adding a late penalty for good measure. While famed "giant-slayers" Ireland went down to defeat, however, Iceland stunned the world in Liege as they came back from a one goal deficit to dispatch Austria 2-1 [1], keeping their improbable fairy-tale run at the World Cup alive to become one of the great stories of not just the 2016 finals but of all time.

Britain had a long and sorry history of knockout round debacles, especially via way of penalty kicks, with such a method of loss having occurred now in the past four consecutive World Cups, with the most heartbreaking of the losses in 2008 when they had blown a 3-0 lead at the half in the World Cup Final. Old demons were exorcised in Marseille, however, as Britain defeated Colombia - who had knocked them out on penalties in the 2004 quarterfinals - after a 1-1 draw in which James Rodriguez had helped Colombia come back late and had nearly added a game-winner in added time. The Lions had held on, and would survive and advance out of penalty kicks for the first time since 1984, when they took silver in Russia. Groupmates Sweden and Bohemia also saw their match end on a 0-0 draw, a shock as Bohemia's tear through their group had made them overnight surprise favorites to finally take World Cup silverware home; that was alas not to be, as they were dispatched on penalty kicks 4-3 thanks in part to Sweden's stubborn, aggressive defense and what Bohemia supporters would for years afterwards maintain was shoddy refereeing.

Quarterfinals

Despite seeming mediocre for much of the tournament, Argentina found new fire at Saint-Denis as they faced off with France, taking the lead at the 50th minute and the hosts needing a late header from Raymond Balard to take the game to added time, where Olivier Giroud scored on a massive penalty at 116' to take France to the semifinals for the first time since 2004. Britain proved a stiff test for a Germany that had sliced through its competition so far, becoming the only team the entire tournament to prevent a single German goal all game; a Lions side not known for its tough defense managed to frustrate and infuriate Jurgen Klopp's Gegenpresse offense for ninety minutes in a remarkable tactical display by manager Gareth Southgate. On the flipside, Britain failed to find a goal for herself in all of this, with a crucial Harry Kane chance going wide and Wayne Rooney's header deflected out of danger by Manuel Neuer late; and in a grim reminder of World Cups past, Britain found itself staring down the barrel of another penalty kick, where Germany clinically and coolly advanced. German players later admitted that they thought Britain the toughest opponent of the tournament, and in their view the second or third best squad.

Australia, hoping to build off the moment of their 2012 miracle run and 2015 Confederations Cup championship, ran into the brick wall of Azzurri defense, and saw an early lead erased by young phenom Daniele Paolini and their penalty kick efforts snuffed out quickly by goalkeeper Gigi Buffon, with not a single Kickaroo penalty converting. The final quarterfinal, held in Marseille, pitted two Nordic sides against one another in an unlikely matchup of Iceland and Sweden, with the former in the midst of a true miracle run and the latter enjoying possibly her best tournament since the 1992 bronze medal performance. The game ended the only way it could have, becoming the fourth quarterfinal to go to added minutes and the third to head to penalties as two defensively-minded, offensively-challenged sides slugged it out without a goal for two hours, and Sweden returned to their fifth semifinal and first in a quarter-century, ending Iceland's dream run through a slice into the upper right of the net off the foot of captain Andreas Granqvist.

Semi-finals

One of the most famed footballing rivalries of all time is that of France and Germany, and they would connect for a semifinal match to mark the next chapter of said rivalry at Lyon for the semifinal turn. Germany had beaten France in Berlin in the final sixteen years earlier, off the head of Michael Ballack, and France hungered for their own glory on home soil as their archrivals had earned then. It was not to be - Germany jumped out to an early 2-0 lead they never relinquished, and by the end of the match the scoreline was 4-0. It was one of the most humiliating defeats in French sporting history, and ended an otherwise excellent run for the hosts to the point one could hear the silence in the stadium as the game concluded.

Italy and Sweden, for their part, met in their first faceoff at a major tournament since the group stages of Euro 2006 and their first match of real import since the 1992 semifinals, in which they had also met, then in Naples. In a strange twist of fate, the 2016 semifinal match in Saint-Denis between the Azzurri and the Tre Kronor ended on the exact same scoreline - a nil-nil draw at the end of one hundred and twenty minutes, Sweden's third such identical result and the first time that both sides in a semifinal were going to penalties for a third straight time - and, even more eerie, that Italy prevailed on penalties 6-5, just as they had in 1992. They their hopes for an improbable run to the Final were dashed, Sweden took the results as a good omen that they could take bronze off France in Marseille in the third-place game, while Italy dared to hope - in their time advancing not just to the Final but the last four since 1992 - that perhaps history was about to repeat itself as an excellent Germany awaited.

Third Place

Despite hopes that the magic of '92 was repeating itself, Sweden came staggering into the semifinals in Marseille having played a three hundred and sixty minutes of football over the course of the knockout round, compared to merely three hundred for France, and had gone through the psychologically-taxing gruel of two penalty wins and a penalty loss. The team looked clearly gassed even before taking the considerable talent differential into account, and then there was the matter of France, despite having just been run out of their own field in Lyon a few days earlier by their archrivals, being angry and eager to salvage something on home soil on behalf of their loyal fans.

As such, in a rematch of the Euro 2006 final, Sweden was obliterated from the get-go, giving up a goal in the fourth minute and France never looked back, scoring two more later in the game in what can best be described as a lazy but dominant performance. The hosts walked away with bronze medals and their last game was a win - just not the win they had wanted, even as they would be greeted the following week by a parade on the Champs d'Elysees as they brought home their first silverware in a decade.

[1] Assume my figures for the Group Stage were wrong, and Iceland was the group winner

 

[KingSweden24]

The 2016 FIFA World Cup Final was held on July 10, 2016 in Saint-Denis, France and featured Germany and Italy facing off against one another; it was the 44th meeting of these two national sides, and their first meeting in a World Cup since the 1972 semifinal. Italy had, in four previous matches against Germany at the World Cup, never lost. The sides entered as the No.1 and No.3 sides in the world FIFA rankings, and Germany was the defending European Champions, having won at Euro 2014 in Turkey. Italy had previously won World Cup titles in 1972 and 1992; Germany had previously won in 2000, as hosts.

Germany advanced to the final having not allowed a single goal in any game throughout the entire tournament, and was one of two sides to take the full 9 points in its group stage; it thereafter defeated Ireland 3-0, advanced past Britain on penalty kicks after a 0-0 regulation result, and then defeated hosts France (the No.2 team in World rankings) 4-0 in the semifinal, and entered the match as nominal betting favorites. Italy, for its part, had arguably faced a more difficult path, with talented Argentina and Japan sides in its group and fighting to a 1-1 draw against a good Russia in her first match, and then advancing through three tough matches against Portugal, Australia and Sweden in the knockouts, with the 1-1, 0-0, and 0-0 matches all going to penalties. Thus Italy was thought to be at a slight disadvantage due to fitness after having played the equivalent of a whole full extra match coming in.

The match nonetheless started well for Italy, with them scoring the first goal allowed by Germany all tournament thanks to Lorenzo Insigne at 17'. German efforts to break through the tough Italian defense anchored by a number of tenured stalwarts failed, repeatedly, but Manuel Neuer saved a potential second goal from Ciro Immobile at 60' to preserve Germany's chances. The break came late, at 77', when Toni Kroos caught a cross from Marco Reus, passed it to Thomas Muller who immediately passed it straight back and he slid it in behind Italian keeper Gigi Buffon. That would prove to be the last major chance in regular time. In added minutes, Insigne looked ready to transcend into Italian myth with a long cross from Giorgio Chiellini taken, set up, and blasted past Neuer - only for it to be waved offsides, controversially, and video review suggesting it being a marginal call. This failure at 110' was compounded by Immobile's shot over the crossbar minutes later, and the game headed to penalty kicks, in which all five Germans sank their shots perfectly, and Italy's Graziano Pelle, in his last game for Italy, saw his shot to keep pace barely go off Neuer's fingers and thus off the bar and out of goal by mere centimeters. With Bastian Schweinsteiger completing the fifth penalty moments later, Germany had won their second World Cup in history, and made them simultaneous defending European and World champions, only the fourth side to hold that distinction (Britain '64 World Cup, '66 Euro; Italy '70 Euro, '72 World Cup; Spain '10 Euro, '12 World Cup). For his tying goal and play in the midfield throughout the match, Kroos was named Man of the Match.

The German team was greeted with a parade in Berlin that drew close to two million onlookers on July 12th upon their return from France, while Italy was celebrated for their first appearance in a Final since 1992 with a celebration in Rome; after the match, Italian football officials and players continued criticizing the officiating for the match, especially the disallowed goal which video review called into question. Italy and Germany would meet again two years later in the final of Euro 2018 in Berlin, where Germany once again triumphed, this time by a 3-1 scoreline.

 

[KingSweden24]

The 2016 FIFA World Cup was the 24th FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial international football tournament organized by FIFA and hosted by France between 9 June and 10 July 2016, after it was awarded the hosting rights at the 2005 FIFA World Congress. It was the second time France had hosted the World Cup, having previously hosted the inaugural 1916 edition of the tournament; it was thus also the centennial World Cup, referred to as the Coupe Centennaire in some marketing materials for the event.

The World Cup saw a record 12 previous winners of the World Cup appear in the tournament, all with the exception of 1976 champions Netherlands, as well as 20 other teams; 31 teams from 6 confederations advanced into the finals tournament via way of continental qualifiers and, if necessary, play-offs, and France qualified automatically as hosts. Three teams, two from the AFC (Vietnam, Kuwait) and one from UEFA (Iceland) made their World Cup debuts. 64 matches were played at 12 stadia in 11 different cities, with Saint-Denis (a suburb of France) hosting both the opening and closing games at the monumental national stadium, the Stade de France. The defending champions, Spain, were the fourth consecutive holder to fail to advance to the knockout rounds; previous winners Mexico and Brazil also failed to advance out of the group stage, as did 2012 runner-up Japan. Previous champions such as USA, Hungary, and Austria were eliminated in the Round of 16, while Britain and Argentina would go hope at the quarterfinals; it was the third time in which an all-European semifinal was formed with Germany, Italy, France and Sweden advancing, and the first time a semifinal featured all previous winners. Defending European champions Germany defeated Italy for their second World Cup title after a 1-1 game ended on penalties, while France took bronze over Sweden after having been defeated by Germany in their semifinal faceoff. With their win, Germany became the fourth team to concurrently hold the European and World championships, and by virtue of their victory were entitled to participate in the 2019 FIFA Confederations Cup.

The first World Cup to feature video-assisted refereeing, it was noted for a relatively high level of goals throughout play but was also cited as a mediocre tournament by many fans and pundits for a high number of red cards, bizarre offsides calls, and the frequency of games in the knockouts which ended on penalties after scoreless draws. The behavior of many ultras supporters organizations at the tournament also came under harsh criticism, both for the behavior of the fans themselves - in particular a massive brawl between Italian and Russian supporters in Marseille in their first group stage match - as well as the response of the French police as being arbitrarily and inconsistently harsh and lenient depending on the day. It was nonetheless a financial success and the most-watched television event in history, a major recovery from the financially disappointing 2012 World Cup in China four years earlier that had some of the worst viewership figures in history.

 

[KingSweden24]

Dannemyer v. California was a landmark 1996 United States Supreme Court case that held that state recall elections cannot be used against federal officials, with the case in question involving the ability of California citizens to recall Senator William Dannemyer.

Dannemyer was a former Liberal California Congressman from Orange County who had unsuccessfully conducted a primary campaign against Senator Ed Zschau from the right after his district was dramatically altered in the 1991-92 redistricting process, and was considered a darling of the California conservative movement in the early 1990s. A vehement opponent of then-California Governor Robert Redford at that time, upon Redford's election as President of the United States in 1992, Dannemyer became a leader of grassroots opposition, particularly in the Los Angeles suburbs, to the new administration but was largely ignored by Democratic and establishment Liberal officialdom. Dannemyer had declined to join the Independent Conservative Party in October 1991 upon its formation and thought himself proven correct when it only returned six Congressmen (out of twelve who had defected the Liberals and three from the Democrats upon its formation, and thirty-seven total ICP candidates in that fall's elections) and instead continued his long focus of continuing to act as a leader of discontented right-wing Liberals in California. In 1994, he successfully defeated two-term moderate Senator Bob Lagomarsino in the Liberal primary, and was simultaneously granted the ICP's line by a vote of the ICP nominating convention, and he was narrowly elected Senator in the 1994 midterm elections, with many Liberals angry that he nearly cost them a seat in a midterm in which they were already struggling against the ICP threat on the right, with the ICP winning 39 seats in the House and being regarded as partly responsible for splitting the vote to prevent larger Liberal gains (though even combining Liberal and ICP seats would not have given them a plurality or majority of seats, and the Democratic House Caucus had an organizational support agreement in place with the Socialists as a contingency plan for a plurality or hung House, which did not materialize).

However, a month later, on December 2, 1994, he announced that he would not caucus with the Senate Liberals and would instead become the second Independent Conservative Senator, outraging many moderate and mainstream conservative Liberals who had voted for him. Shortly after his inauguration in 1995, voters of all parties began circulating recall petitions against "Bill-trayal" and in May 1995, the newly-elected Secretary of State, Bill Jones, certified that there were more than enough signatures for a recall election. Dannemyer sued the state of California, first in California courts and then in federal court, arguing that the recall of a federal official was unconstitutional; the District Court of Southern California agreed, but this was narrowly overturned on appeal, and so the case wound up before the United States Supreme Court and was argued in December 1995, with the state of California supporting its recall law. In a unanimous decision in judgement penned by Chief Justice Robert Morgenthau, the Supreme Court rejected California's arguments, agreeing that while Dannemyer switching parties immediately after being elected was perhaps "an unseemly choice" it was in the end between himself and the voters, and that a recall election under a state constitution was an unconstitutional "qualification" upon a federal office. However, the reasoning against California was only 6-3; concurrences in the judgement from Justices Robert F. Kennedy and Sylvia Bacon agreed with the judgement, but disagreed with its reasoning as overbroad, and would have found against California because its recall election mechanism was a violation of the 15th Amendment's Senatorial appointment clauses, while Justice Mildred Lillie went the other direction and penned a concurrence suggesting that recall elections themselves, in any capacity and not just for federal officials, were constitutionally suspect.

In terms of real-world impact, Dannemyer v. California ended attempts to recall Congressmen and Senators entirely, a phenomenon that had been gradually gaining steam since the backlash to the Bribesville scandals of the era, but alongside ranked-choice voting and term-limits, federal recall was proposed as another constitutional amendment or part of an amendment in the context of the broader Redford Reforms of the mid-1990s. However, recall campaigns remained a staple of California politics in the late 1990s and early 2000s, eventually culminating in a stretch of late 2003 and early 2004 in which there were two to three recall elections for a variety of ballot positions every Tuesday for seventeen weeks, culminating in a 2004 referendum that dramatically overhauled the practice. Dannemyer, persona non grata amongst the two mainstream parties in California, earned a reputation as one of the Senate's most erratic, controversial figures in the late 1990s, doing much to damage the ICP with voters but also introducing conspiracy theories and aggressive populist rhetoric to a broader audience. Aware that he was unlikely to be elected, he chose not to seek a second term in 2000, when his seat was successfully carried by Democrat John Garamendi in a landslide to become the first Democrat in thirty years to hold the seat.

Reflecting on the case in his book Recall Wars, California political historian Dwight Darnold commented, "Dannemyer may have won the battle in 1996 but Robert Redford carried California eight months later by the widest margin a Democrat enjoyed since 1920 and over twenty years later the Liberals have still not recaptured the California Assembly; the conservative faction of the Liberals were effectively routed in both primary and general elections, and the power in the party shifted permanently to the Bill Joneses, Rick Riordans, and eventually Brian Sandovals of the world; the powers that be were never, ever going to get "Bill-trayed" again."
-------

(Lot going on here with some heavy Easter eggs; really just trying to capture the vibe of the OTL 1990s a bit, between the Redford-as-progressive-Reagan, California being California, and introducing the populist party of the right that has emerged to harass the Liberals)

 

[KingSweden24]

East

1. Royals against 8. Warriors

After a heartbreaking defeat in their first finals in club history, the Royals are back with a vengeance, taking the first seed this year and ready to begin their revenge tour to earn their long-coveted title. The first roadblock is potentially Philadelphia, which looked excellent in taking out a good Baltimore Bullets team last night. We’re not quite ready to predict a rematch of last year’s Finals, but we’d still rather be the Royals here.
Prediction: Royals in five

2. Stags against 7. Monarchs

Chicago has looked sharp, very sharp, in taking care of business here at the end of the season. They have not been swept in a game since New Years Eve, and only the Griz have had a better scoring differential since the beginning of March. As such, Stags fans are starting to allow themselves to believe. In their path stands Montreal, who has been a notoriously tough out for the last 2-3 seasons even if they have not made it far in the playoffs. Monarchs enjoy exactly the kind of height in their pins that has frustrated Chicago repeatedly in the past, so this could be a well-balanced series.
Prediction: Stags in six

3. Express against 6. Knicks

The great bete noire of the Celtics for years are back in the playoffs after last season’s inexplicable back half collapse - Charlotte is back, and ready to get that elusive title. The Knicks did well to come out of the league’s toughest division, and will prove a tough test for whether the Express indeed are back.
Prediction: Express in seven

4. Huskies against 5. Celtics

Toronto won a very difficult Northern, only taking the top spot off Montreal in the last game of the season. Their reward? A hungry, angry Celtics, with local boy Sean MacKenzie playing his first-ever playoff series on native Canadian soil. Proud as Ontarians are and should be of one of the best players in the history of the game, Magic Mac should not expect much love from this homecoming, and two great teams will slug this out, but we’d take Boston’s experience here.
Prediction: Celtics in six

West

1. Grizzlies against 9. Lakers

Minnesota looked sharp against St. Louis last night in punching their ticket to the first round of the playoffs, but things are about to get much, much tougher. It’s hard to think of any more superlatives for the defending champions in Vancouver - they are now one of five teams to ever finish a year with a 64-8 record, falling one game shy of the best regular season in history, but made up for it by breaking the previous record of most sweeps - 43, set by the 1987-88 Warriors - by three games, and had the best average scoring differential per set in league history. It is not an exaggeration to say that this group may be the best in history and at least certainly belongs in that conversation, especially with a rare repeat championship.
Prediction: Grizzlies in four

2. Aces against 7. Magic

The 2021 champs square off against Los Angeles in the first game of the playoffs on Saturday and look ready to run back to the Western Conference Finals after winning their last eight games of the season, including three sweeps. This Magic group is no joke, however, getting hot late in the year to play their way out of a play-in, and Kyle Porter at libero could cause serious problems for the Aces.
Prediction: Aces in five

3. Nuggets against 6. Jaguars

It’s hard to know exactly what to make of the Nugs and the Jags. Denver had the hottest start besides Vancouver only to fall off their clip in late December, while the Jaguars were hot and cold in the midtable until early February where they went on a consistent tear and leapt ahead of when the Magic. We’d like to think Denver has the advantage over a Mexico City team that has never won a best-in-seven playoff series, but if this is the year the Jags finally make a splash, don’t tell us we didn’t warn you.
Prediction: Nuggets in seven

4. Rockets against 5. Sonics

It’s almost unfair to be a Sonics fan this year; you have the best group of players since the 1990s, you are the only club to beat the Grizzlies more than once (three wins, including one of two losses suffered by the first seed in Vancouver), and you hit 60 wins for the first time in club history with the second-best record in the NAVL - and yet there you are at the five spot, starting your playoffs on the road in San Diego. The Rockets for their part did what they had to do to emerge at the head of the West’s weakest division but, while James Harden is still pretty damn great, it’s hard to see them stacking up well against this Sonics roster
Prediction: Sonics in four

 

[KingSweden24]

Philadelphia Federals Dream Season Comes Together
sportsnet.us - April 19, 2024

The confetti will be cleaned out of SquarePay Park by the end of the weekend, but long-suffering fans of the Philadelphia Federals will never forget last night, when the "Pheds" clinched one of the top two spots in the Second Division and remain the favorite in the season finale next weekend to place first. With that, the Pheds are headed back to the Championship for the first time since they were relegated in 1995 - a nearly thirty-year hiatus for a team that, in her fifty-seven year history, has only spent six cumulative seasons in the top level.

An anonymous sportswriter in the nation's capital once commented, "There is something sadistic and self-loathing about being a Pheds fan," and one wonders if that isn't true. Since 1967, the Pheds have been a PRA punchline. Unlike clubs like the Chicago Cardinals or New York Titans, they do not merely exist in the shadow of bigger, more successful rivals - their rivals barely even notice they are there, and barely even consider them rivals. Being an Eagles fan is so integral to Philadelphian identity that it is almost a civic religion; it is the one thing that brings lifelong Philadelphians and the frequent churn of newcomers streaming through the government sector in the Delaware Valley together for thirty weekends a year, more if there's a playoff included. And unlike the Cards or Titans, the Pheds couldn't rely on class connotations or intra-metropolitan geographic resentment to drum up support; South Chicago and Queens take great pride in their working class identity and not being caught dead wearing Bears or Metropolitan gear, but you'll see South Philly plumbers and truck drivers at Philadelphia National Stadium just as soon as you'll see Senate staffers, lobbyists and $300-an-hour attorneys.

The Pheds then have been a curiosity, a team existing on the fringes of Philly sports culture, the team that lobbied the PRA to schedule as many home games as possible on Mondays so they could lean into their "Manic Monday" persona where tickets were $5 apiece and they sold similarly priced hot dog and beer packages. It was this marketing gimmick, launched in 2003 when they were hovering on the edge of relegation to the Third Division and the Eagles were in the heady days of their three-peat dynasty, that something clicked - the Pheds might not ever be Championship material, and they were never going to be the Eagles in the hearts of the Philly faithful, but they could make their matches something else; they could make them a spectacle.

The Pheds have thus, for the last twenty years, leaned into their loveable loser persona, being the rugby team you come to watch, have cheap beer and hotdogs, and have a great time. Local music acts open and close their matches, and with the move across the river to Camden, Monday nights have become almost a religious experience even if the Pheds are playing on the road. This decision to base themselves in South Jersey has been integral to reviving a new identity for the team, being not just a Philadelphia team but a team for the "bridge crowd," many of whom never even cross the river these days what with the explosion in office, residential and entertainment in South Jersey with Philadelphia's booming growth.

And over time, the Pheds have actually become something else - what started as a gimmick became something genuine. Eagles fanatics began attending Pheds games on weekends when their favorite club was out of town. The club has an actual, hardened, committed fanbase rather than serving as a backup option for the bigger, more credentialed, wealthier club. That's what makes the Pheds arrival starting in September in the Championship fascinating - they have not played at the same division as the Eagles in three decades, and nobody knows quite yet what to make of that. Is Philadelphia on the verge of having a city divided, such as Chicago, New York, or Los Angeles and the Bay Area? Probably not; too many Philadelphians bleed Eagle green. But the games at Philly National and at SquarePay this upcoming campaign will be a new era, turning the relationship between the two clubs on their head, and all we can do is hope that the Pheds get to do what they do best - host their big brother on a Monday, maybe even as something approximating an actual rivalry.

 

[KingSweden24]

It is the first weekend of May, which means it is now the PRA postseason. As such, it is time to preview the Championship Finals Playoff, the Championship Play-In, and Sunday night's US Open Cup Final.

US Open Cup Final - Buffalo Bison v. Chicago Bears

For the first time since 2013, no Playoff team is appearing in the Open Cup Final, making this year's edition much more than just a potential landmine game for a team needing to heal up before the meat of May. Bears, having narrowly missed the sixth position, now get a chance at silverware as they face off against Buffalo, the first Second Division club to appear in the Open Final since 2011. We'd rather be Bears in this matchup - the Bison didn't make it into the Play-In, after all, and Bears looked sound all throughout the fall - as the winningest club in PRA history adds yet another Open Cup to their trophy case.

Play-In

Friday night also sees the first Play-In game, with Chargers RFC - who took the 14th position in the table for the second consecutive year - will hope that Pete Carroll, brought onboard in the winter break, can keep them up out of the Second Division through the Play-In once again. They will face off in the first Play-In match against fourth-placed Second Division Los Angeles Aztecs, making a short trip down the highway; while we'd probably rather be Chargers after they escaped the guaranteed drop, Aztecs are no slouch.

Saturday afternoon's matchup will be a very different affair, as Seattle heads out east to Boston in a rematch of the 2015 Championship Final. Redskins narrowly evaded the permanent drop and bid adieu thus to Green Bay, but if we're being honest, we'd probably rather be Seattle here. The Redskins look tired, old, and gassed, and a thirty-year run in the top division for a storied club looks to be drawing to a (hopefully for them, brief) end; Seattle supporters, meanwhile, will be ecstatic at a chance to face off against West Coast rivals Chargers the following weekend for a chance to return to the first flight after the humiliation of "First to Worst" two years ago.

 

[KingSweden24]

The 1984 Clanton incident was a Level 5 nuclear accident in Clanton, Alabama, Confederate States that occurred on August 11, 1984. The Clanton Site was the largest power plant in the Confederate States, built between 1978 and 1984 for the Alabama Power Company (APC) by a consortium led by Deutsche Atom AG, the main German atomic energy contractor. The site was home to three operational reactors with a nameplate capacity two hundred megawatts above the Westinghouse Base, and the fourth reactor was meant to come online that November. At 7:44 AM, due to an improperly-maintained valve in Unit Two, a fire broke out in the reactor control cabling and destroyed most of it, thus raising the question of whether the reactor could be turned off and as smoke billowed out of the reactor house, there were further fears of major radioactive leakage in an area halfway between Birmingham and Montgomery. A thirty kilometer radius around the plant was evacuated on August 12, a day after the fire had been put out, and engineers from Deutsche Atom were able to manually repair and turn off the reactor.

The incident was a huge public relations disaster for Deutsche Atom specifically and the nuclear industry generally, which until then had been on an exponential growth path in the 1970s and early 1980s. The pace of reactor construction slowed dramatically in the second half of the 1980s, only to pick up against starting in the early 1990s after the 1988-89 oil crisis. The standardized "base designs" offered by Westinghouse, the chief American competitor to Deutsche Atom, became increasingly popular, and designs incorporating better containment safeguards and firestopping proliferated not just in nuclear construction but also in other construction.

The incident also became a major political affair in the Confederacy, where APC and the Alabama government were accused in a series of mounting scandals of a cover-up of how severe the incident actually was and suppressing reports suggesting that more radioactive dust and ash had been released than previously thought; it was a major factor in the electoral victory in 1986 of political outsider and former rugby player Bart Starr as Governor. The fire was also a major factor into investigations of bribery by Deutsche Atom and other German firms of Confederate political officials, which eventually spread beyond the state level to Richmond and was one of the raft of allegations in the successful impeachment and conviction of President Edwin W. Edwards in late 1986; as such, the Clanton fire was both a major factor in the domestic politics of the mid-1980s Confederacy already roiled by the violence of the racial conflict known as the Problems, and a major break in the deepening economic ties between Dixie and Germany.

The incident was ranked as Level 5 on the Nuclear Scale Event, only one of two incidents to ever rank that high, the other being the 1999 Blayais nuclear accident in France; about two hundred cancer deaths in central Alabama between 1986 and 1996 are thought to be linked to the Clanton fire.

 

[KingSweden24]

The Blix Fix (Swedish: Blixfixet) was the colloquial and sarcastic name for a package of economic reforms and bailout provisions launched by the liberal-conservative government of Sweden's Prime Minister, Hans Blix, in June 1990 to arrest the continued collapse of the Swedish property markets and economy during the early 1990s Swedish financial crisis. The country had been struck in 1989 by the twin headwinds of the oil crisis following the 1988 Persian Gulf conflict and, exacerbating that, the deflating of a major property bubble that had begun building in 1984 and was accelerated by the deregulatory policies of the Blix government. While unemployment had crept up gradually in 1988, starting in January of the following year the Swedish economy began to enter a severe period of deflation with hundreds of businesses closing.

Blix, in office since the 1984 elections, introduced a program which would create a state-owned entity to absorb bad bank loans and underwrite new mortgages at a higher, fixed rate (Swedish home lending had tended to previously be on one or two-year variable rate mortgages, and the spike of global interest rates in the face of the oil crisis and high early 1990s inflation devastated Swedish homeowners). However, to pay for this, Blix also pursued a program of strict austerity, placing the Swedish economy in what became known as a "doom spiral" that ended with a run on the krona in November 1990 and Blix's resignation on December 11, following massive protests in Stockholm and Gothenburg that called into question the survival of the monarchy.

The Blix Fix's name was regarded as an example of dark humor as it did little to fix the underlying structural problems of the Swedish economy, which did not regain its 1988 GDP per capita level until 1995 nor its 1987 unemployment rate until 2000. The austerity programs introduced in the budget and only partially reversed in 1991 are thought to have contributed to a 70% rise in the crime rate over the next several years and the chronic youth unemployment of the decade that the Social Democratic government elected for the first time in Swedish history in 1992 was unable to entirely solve; it is also thought to have contributed to a general decline in Sweden's standard of living for most of the 1990s and a rise in its emigration rate for the first time in fifty years, particularly and disproportionately among educated professionals.