Into the Cincoverse - The Cinco de Mayo EU Thread and Wikibox Repository
- Thread starter KingSweden24
- Start date
Def meant to be a blend of the three.
I’d say more similar to OTL Korean demographics on the question, maybe a hair below. So 25% or so? Still a significant demographic.
Hehe def inspired a bit by the latter…
Somehow I have this image where the four strongest Militaries in Asia are (in some order) Russia, China, India and a Poppy Growing operation.
Though, it does lead to the following thought, how likely in TTL's more chaotic China with less control over things like forest clearing for poppy growing... is the Panda likely to be extinct?
That’s definitely a dark thought! Maybe they’re extirpated in the wild? One thought I’d had for TTL randomly was that digital/information tech is a few years behind but medical tech is a few years ahead due to Germany shaking out better in the 20th century, and thus cloning and bringing extinct animals back is well ahead of where it is iOTL 2024Somehow I have this image where the four strongest Militaries in Asia are (in some order) Russia, China, India and a Poppy Growing operation.
Though, it does lead to the following thought, how likely in TTL's more chaotic China with less control over things like forest clearing for poppy growing... is the Panda likely to be extinct?
I think KingSweden tries to say that he is very controversial, and extravagant figure with a weird charisma like Berlusconi is, but pursues the policies of Macron I (or probably no one else) can properly put in ideological sceptrum with the only description I can give is that “business owners are happy, I guess?”
He sounds like he will let the Police get away with a lot while 'fighting crime'.
Unfortunately, the Panda is like the Elephant and Rhino. Very much, High-K (small number of offspring and put in a great deal of effort to get offspring to adulthood) makes them tough to bring back.
Though the standard thoughts about War helping with technological advancement apply and without a world war ii analog, at minimum Celiac disease might spend longer undiscovered, and as for whether Hypothermia treatments are different, that's another issue.
Chemistry is one place the world might be more advanced, Maybe semiconductors?
In my mind, the only question is "Arizona & New Mexico". Confederate Arizona Separate? Confederate Arizona merged into New Mexico? or (and there are valid transportation reasons for this) aligning them to OTL borders, though for maximum fun, the names could be reversed!
Well it is funny that lesser Hau managed to climbed to such high position TTL, OTL his political career basically went down the toilet after finished his term as mayor of Taipei.
Also if 71 is considered young, than I fully expect KMT nominated experienced politician Lien Chen in ‘28, only for him to died midway during campaign and is replaced by his son.
Also if 71 is considered young, than I fully expect KMT nominated experienced politician Lien Chen in ‘28, only for him to died midway during campaign and is replaced by his son.
Knew you'd appreciate that one!
My preference would be to not use Lien Chan if only because he pops up so often in KMT China scenarios. But yes, Hau the Lesser is young compared to, say, Soong Chu-yu, or Tang Fei... or Tung Chee-hwa...
And I'll leave it at that!
Amrail Cascades
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.
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.
Carreymania
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.
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.
You put Jim Carrey into Politics, there can be only *one* response...
The "Brothers Blue" was a 2005 Canadian Comedy starring the brothers Rob (Elwood) and Doug (Jake) Ford as the Brothers Blue. The Brothers frantic musical and comedic efforts in the film to save the Catholic Orphanage that they grew up in by paying off its tax debt has been compared to the Hunchback of Notre Dame in bringing attention to a new generation across North America of the anti-Catholic efforts of powerful forces in Ontario.
The film is heavily quoted across North America with lines such as
Elwood: "It's 170 Kilometers to Toronto, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarillos, it's dark... and we're wearing smoked glasses."
Jake: "Hit it."
and
Elwood: "Ontario Integralists"
Jake: "I hate Ontario Integralists"
This movie also brought Sarah Palin (as the Mystery Woman) to stardom with her famous rant about waiting at the altar for Jake.