Japanese New Years

A couple foreigners in Japan blog about Japanese New Years: Tokyo Five in, strangely enough, Tokyo, and Eric in Sendai. Gotta love that mochi. 

Wishing a Happy 2009 to everybody!

(Name correction edit 12/31.)

Inauguration: Organizing committee with cautionary advice

The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies provides information and advice for those planning to attend the inaugural and parade on January 20. I think it strikes the right balance–frank and somewhat cautionary without discouraging people from coming.

50th Anniversary of Tokyo Tower

This New York Times piece marks the 50th anniversary of Tokyo Tower, describing the changing place of the Tower in the culture of the city. The article mentions Mothra.

A new tower, Tokyo Sky Tree, is under construction in Sumida-ku, to enable terrestrial digital broadcasting. Tokyo Tower isn’t tall enough. Tokyo Sky Tree will be 610 meters, nearly twice as tall as Tokyo Tower. 

The picture of Tokyo Tower below is by Ko Sasaki for The New York Times.

	.

Will lower mortgage rates lead to a new wave of defaults?

This blog entry by MrMortgage explains how lower mortgage rates may, paradoxically, hasten the spread of default and foreclosure problems from Subprime to Jumbo Prime and Prime sectors.

NBA player charities falling down on the job?

TaxProf Blog writes about a Salt Lake City Tribune investigation of the Form 990s of NBA player charities and foundations. The investigation found that, on average, only 51 cents of every dollar spent by the private foundations of NBA players actually goes to needy causes, “well below the 65 cents most philanthropic watchdog groups consider acceptable.”

Japanese Economy: Discouraging data to end 2008

On the Seeking Alpha site, Edward Hugh reviews recent data on the Japanese economy, and explores some of the implications for the future. Hugh’s outlook is pessimistic.

Inauguration: Changes in charter bus plans

From this WaPost article on Christmas Day, it appears that more realistic plans for some aspects of inaugural logistics are starting to take shape. 

The previous plan was to park only half of the 10,000 expected charter buses in the District, with many of the suburban locations not accessible to Metro. The inevitable result would have been to strand large numbers of people in suburban parking lots with few options to get downtown, and to overwhelm those Metro stations designated for bus parking.

The current plan is to reserve large areas of downtown Washington for charter bus street parking, and to restrict traffic in these areas to buses and official vehicles. 

The revised plan will put many more people within walking distance of the Mall and the parade route, freeing up space on Metro and in Metro parking lots.

Spam college groups on Facebook

Late last week, Brad Ward at Butler University uncovered a corporate effort to create hundreds of fake college “Class of 2013″ groups on Facebook. 

At this point, it appears that the company has confessed, the fake groups are unwinding, and the affected colleges and students are setting up real Class of 2013 pages.

The story not only illustrates the potential for underhanded use of Web 2.0, but, perhaps more importantly, the speed with which shady activity can be exposed and push back efforts launched by a determined individual. Via Stephen Downes.

Video: Steve Breaston feature on NFL Network

This has been up for a couple weeks, but I just got around to watching it. It’s nice to see Steve Breaston, who played at Michigan and graduated a few years back, succeed in the NFL.

Inauguration: Attendance estimates reduced by half

According to this Washington Post front pager, District officials are cutting the estimate of inauguration ceremony/parade attendance to about 2 million, based on how many people can be transported to the Mall by Metro, charter bus, and other means on January 20.  

The one element that planners don’t have a handle on is the number of people who might try to drive in on January 20, which will be highly weather dependent. Suppose someone in central NJ started off at 2AM, made it to DC by 7AM, parked in a residential neighborhood, and walked to the Mall? If there turn out to be large numbers of last-minute travelers, at what point would 95, 66, 270, etc. get gridlocked?

Update 1/21/2009: From various media reports, it looks like attendance for the ceremony and parade was in line with these revised projections, at around 2 million. Locals were scared off the roads, so gridlock on the inbound arteries did not materialize. Metro experienced some glitches, but performed amazingly well carrying record numbers.