-Caveat Lector- > Roofs in Times Square will be manned by crack teams of > police snipers with night vision scopes mounted on their > high-powered rifles. Every parked car in a mile long three > block wide strip of midtown will be towed to prevent the > deployment of car bombs. This is done every New Year in New York...for the past 20 years, midtown Manhattan's been closed to vehicular traffic on New Year's Eve, and cars are routinely towed that evening to make the streets clear not only for the revelers, but for security and emergency personnel to get thru. The fact that they are doing it again this year has nothing to do with Y2K, but SOP.... > The party-going public will be > herded cattle-like through an endless maze of police barricades > and metal detectors and treated to body searches in below zero > temperatures. None of the local media's mentioned metal detectors or body searches, neither did CNN in it's article on this on their website...but again, police barricades in Times Square on New Years Eve has been SOP for at least 20 years... > Many attendees are expected to be arrested on > the way to the event simply for possessing alcohol, a substance > zero-tolerance Giuliani believes often leads to terroristic > anti-social acts such as dancing, solicitation of prostitutes and > public urination. This is bullshit. If you've ever been in midtown on St. Patrick's Day for the parade, you'd know that the city's anti-open-container- on-the-streets law is routinely ignored and just as routinely not enforced by the cops. I was almosted brained by a flying beer bottle one year, while a cop stood right by me and did nothing. I and my companion also almost had our legs cut by revelers smashing vodka and whiskey bottles on the pavement, and once again police were right there and did nothing... I've also done the Times Square thing on New Years Eve, twice in fact, and neither time was the open-container ordinance enforced...I don't see why the cops would change their SOP this year, especially since active enforcement would encourage a riot... > Manhole covers will be welded shut. Already done. > Every garbage can in midtown will be removed. Not that New Year's revelers utilize them anyways... > Are the enormous expenses of this event and it's > unprecedented and ultimately futile security precautions worth > the economic and social cost to the taxpayers of New York > City? Perhaps not...but going to Times Square for New Years is a long standing tradition that won't be stopped, no matter what... And not that I'm any fan of Giuliani's, but he was quoted in the article that is obviously being misquoted here as saying to the effect that if 2 million people were expected to attend, and the city then cancelled it, then 4 million people would show up... And that is very true...New Yorkers are a tough breed, and laugh at the prospect of 'foreign terrorists'... > This is not a Presidential inauguration, the signing of an > international peace treaty or anything of genuine public value > that justifies either the cost or the risks involved. But all those Times Square revelers also spend quite a few dinaros in the city, which helps make up the cost...not to mention the public relations the city milks out of being almost the capital of New Years Eve celebrations... > Watching the ball drop on New Year's Eve was once an > authentic celebration by actual New Yorkers who traveled by > subway from ethnic neighborhoods in all five boroughs. Bullshit. Not that city dwellers don't attend, but it's always been a mecca for out-of-town revelers, going back generations. My parents talked about attending (1930s and 1940s), and the first year I went (out-of-towner that I am), I met a middle-aged couple from the midwest, who'd been coming to Times Square to celebrate New Years Eve for every year since they first got married, in the early 1950s... > No sane New Yorker would venture > anywhere near midtown as Giuliani pulls the lever on his > Police State 2000. Then you don't know New Yorkers... > As the ball drops in Times Square on New Year's Eve let's > hope we will be seeing the final curtain call in the career of > Mayor Rudy Crueliani. As I said, I'm no fan of Giuliani, but this piece sounds like it was written by a troll from Hillary's camp...after all, Giuliani is her main opponent... June DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
