insert90

as a ucla student, the prospect of olympic athletes living in my small triple feels weird

I was suspecting that, but I wasn't sure; haven't paid as much attention to this cycle as ones past (even though I'm actually living in a bidding city this year...).

I go to UCLA and they've started to put up LA 2024 banners. Any reason for that to start happening now versus a couple months ago?

I believe that the LDP limits its leaders to only two three-year terms, so presumably, Abe would step down in 2018. (Unless he resigns earlier, which wouldn't be the most shocking thing considering this is Japan...)

From what I understand, having the subway to UCLA being built by 2024 isn't dependent on the Olympics. They first requested federal funds for 2024 completion way back in 2011, and have been trying since then. The Olympics are a nice incentive to speed it up, but the project has plenty of merit on its own, and is one of the more worthwhile mass transit projects in the entire country imo. If the November ballot measure gets passed, which I think has a decent shot of happening, the Purple Line's construction is going to be sped up, Olympics or not.

So since last December, LA has added light rail from the ocean to downtown and light rail to the eastern suburbs. In the next four years, there'll be a line connecting LAX to West LA and an underground line throughout downtown which should allow you to get from West LA to the USC area, where the Coliseum is, by light rail, and there will also be a subway extension in West LA. If a tax measure gets passed by LA voters in November (a similar measure passed in 2008 and almost passed in 2012), there's a decent chance there will also be a subway from the UCLA area to downtown LA. If LA were to pass the tax measure, and it got 2028, there'll be even more new stuff, which is why imo LA 2028 > LA 2024. On the political stuff, I think it's kind of a wash. The US is currently going through an embarrassing presidential election with a bunch of racial strife, mass shootings, etc. France has its issues with terrorism and also seems like it's about to have an uninspiring presidential election (the potential of Sarkozy-Le Pen-Hollande really doesn't inspire the most confidence). Still, both countries have shown the capability to host large sporting events without any attacks, and I think the IOC will notice that at the end of the day.

So, I don't really have that much to write on this, but my observations. The atmosphere and venues were decent enough. Like I said before, booing doesn't really bother me that much, though I guess I'm familiar with it from the sports I grew up watching. I really enjoyed the opening ceremony. Sure, it was on the more austere side, but that's not a bad thing by any means. The cauldron was also really cool, and I have high hopes for the closing. ...NBC's coverage could've been worse. The U.S. really did an amazing job. A lot of really memorable moments, and the best performance since LA '84. India, on the other hand, was kind of disappointing. After the 3 medals in Beijing, and 6 in London, I was really expecting that India would be able to get to at least 8, maybe even double-digits. Instead, only 2 medals... The medalists were really good though, and Dipa on the vault was really inspiring. Hopefully, there'll be more investment in the future.. The Lochte story has been pretty hilarious, imo, but the security othervise didn't sound like it was as good as it could have been. The operations also seemed to be a little messier than they should've been, but I'm not sure what I expected from Rio. We'll see what happens with the legacy, but I'm really looking forward to Tokyo, and I have some really high expectations for them, but regardless, 2016 is the first time I've followed the games from the bid to the actual games, and for the most part, they've been what I've expected them to be.

As someone who was raised on Philadelphia sports, the booing doesn't really sound much worse than what you get there...

...People can't seriously think that Garcetti's done more than Obama, right? Other than the $15 minimum wage, he hasn't particularly set the world on fire. He has some good ideas, and I'm hoping he can get another win with the Metro initiative in November, but so far, his administration has been fairly low-key. This is a good profile, if anyone's interested.

Random question that's probably been asked already (I'm a bit too tired to go through 125 pages...), but what are the chances of this being derailed by referendum?