Do the pronouncements of officials today strike anyone else as...

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

strange? Bannana-republic like?

Go on, enjoy the New Year Celebrations.... don't worry about all the tanks, anti-aircraft guns, snipers and such... just go about your business.

Yes, get used to the police state, for soon we shall make it permanent.

It is very ominious to me. I refuse to participate in such events. I do not want to normalize this sort of crap.

[Democrats unite]

1. I feel they are showing us just what they want...

which is a police state.

[greatauntoftriplets]

2. While we see them rolling out their heavy metal?

And heavy armor? Oh, you bet! Reminds me of being in Spain in the late 1970s, and there were heavily armed soldiers on the route from Madrid to the airport. Had never seen that before in my life.*

*Was in the Land of Cheeseheads during the 1968 Democratic convention.

[HereSince1628]

3. Like a bad rescreening of 7 Days in May

Tomorrow reporters for American newspapers can write...soldiers returned to their barracks...

[toodles_oduff]

4. Or "The Siege".

I think that if you travelled to Moscow or St. Petersburg right now even with their ongoing Chechen rebellion, you wouldn't see such an oppressive show of force as we have here in all too many places now. I heard that they might have helicopter gunships patrolling the Las Vegas Strip. Is that for real?

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

5. Yes, it is for real. Here in NYC too

It is very foreboding and depressing to me.

[ProudGerman]

6. Oh, the Israeli strategy

If a terrorist is spotted, the gunships can unload rockets and 30mm chain gun fire into the crowd, surely getting the terrorist.

Don't flame me too hard, Capt. Morgans is flammable.