J. Michael Andresen

2. Football The National Football League's Super Bowl is the most-watched television event each year. Will a top seed win it all this year or will an upstart prevail? Recent history has seen a proliferation of successful upstarts. In the NFL playoffs between 1995 to 2004, #1 seeds won 6 Super Bowls, #2 seeds won 2, and lower seeds won 2. In the NFL playoffs from 2005 to 2014, #1 seeds won only 2 Super Bowls, #2 seeds won 2, and lower seeds won an astonishing 6. What will happen this year? Regular season wins and losses are indicated in parentheses. Who will win the Super Bowl? a. #1 seed in the AFC (12-4 New England Patriots) b. #1 seed in the NFC (12-4 Seattle Seahawks) c. #2 seed in the AFC (12-4 Denver Broncos) d. #2 seed in the NFC (12-4 Green Bay Packers) e. another AFC team f. another NFC team Lower seeds may have been on a roll going in, but this year's Super Bowl turned out to be a face-off between the two top-seeded teams. The New England Patriot...

1. Freedom Freedom House is an international organization that studies democracy and freedom in the world, publishing an annual report on how many countries it calculates to be free, partly free, or not free. The 2014 report calculated that 88 of the world’s 195 nations were free in 2013. Will freedom advance, stay stagnant, or retreat in this year’s report, covering 2014? Note: the nine worst free countries (with the highest likelihood of being downgraded) are Botswana, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guyana, India, Jamaica, Lesotho, Montenegro, and Peru. The sixteen best partly free countries (with the highest likelihood of being upgraded) are Albania, Bolivia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Ecuador, Georgia, Indonesia, Macedonia, Mexico, Moldova, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Philippines, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, and Tanzania. The number of times each answer has occurred since the fall of the iron curtain is indicated in parentheses. How will the number of free countries c...