Three weeks to go until Inauguration Day, and organizers of the corresponding pomp and ceremony are keeping their fingers crossed that any frigid temperatures keep glued to the north. Time will tell.

”The coldest weather of the winter season should be around the early to mid-January time frame,” predicts Harris-Mann Climatology in its long-range forecast for the Northeastern United States, including the nation's capital.

Noses and toes won't ever forget Jan. 21, 1985 (Jan. 20 fell Sunday, so the president privately took the oath of office that day at the White House), when sub-freezing temperatures ushered Ronald Reagan's public Inauguration into the Capitol Rotunda and rendered his parade trombones and the lips that blow into them inoperable.

It would become the coldest Inauguration Day on record, with a noon temperature of 7 degrees.

BLAGO TO GO

Crime and politics often go hand in hand, thus Washington malpractice lawyer Jack Olender's annual Top 10 Legal Predictions for the coming year always includes a well-known politician or two. His 2009 list does not disappoint:

”Blago will go. Embattled Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich will leave office either after his upcoming impeachment by the Illinois legislature or even before the actual impeachment vote when he begins to read the writing on the wall that shows he will lose the impeachment vote. It is even odds that at some point in the process, he is likely to cop a plea to the 'pay-to-play' federal charges against him.”

Also of note, Mr. Olender predicts an increased workload for regulatory lawyers as newly-elected President Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress “reverse the current deregulation of business and start enforcing strict safety standards.”

In addition, he sees appointments to federal courts taking “a swing to the left with more centrist judges being appointed and confirmed. Civil rights will be in fashion again.”

Mr. Olender's past predictions have a better than 90 percent success rate.

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New Year's resolution for investors, as recommended by the investment management firm Darrell & King: “Turn your TV off!”

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