US buying town to train for terrorism response

[gatorboy]

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20040926/ts_alt_afp/us_attacks_town_040926230151
<snip>
NEW YORK (AFP) - The US Department of Homeland Security is buying a tiny town in the western state of New Mexico to turn it into a lab for terrorism response training.

A small New Mexico engineering school will buy Playas, population 50, from a mining company with five million dollars provided by Washington, The New York Times reported Sunday.

The town, located in empty desert plains just north of the Mexican border, was built by a mining company in the 1970s and had a peak population of 1,000 before the copper smelter was shut down.

Though now practically deserted, it "has all the characteristics of a contemporary American community: the churches, the bank, the health clinic, even the baseball diamonds," said Van Romero, vice president for research at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology.
<snip>

Hmmmm. Are they getting ready to play a little "martial law war games"?

[crickets]

1. Buying a town?

A department of the government is, through a school, buying a town. That alone...

Another school, Texas A and M, operates Disaster City, a facility in College Station, Texas, where high-rise buildings can be collapsed in mock-disaster scenarios for training purposes, it said.

Uh-huh. Do they have mock poison dust clouds and debris too, as well as a mock Dubya action figure, megaphone batteries included?

[gatorboy]

2. Probably getting ready for warfare

When Dubya steals his second election....