World leaders plan to build 'Death Star' in Nevada desert

In the pink deserts of Nevada, something is stirring. As the dusts and sands of time sweep across the earth's majestic planes, a coyote howls beneath the pale moonlight. There is change in the air, something that our coyote friend is able to sense but can't quite understand or articulate. Perhaps it's because he's just a coyote.

Regardless, he raises his snout to the air and lets the cool night winds of the desert flow through his respiratory tract. Yet something doesn't feel quite right. Something strange is coming. And it doesn't smell too pretty.

Unbeknownst to our canine chum, his olfactory confusion is caused not by the natural forces of the desert but by the more mundane odour of an in-the-post building development. You see, the site on which our protagonist stands confused has been designated as the lucky location for a gigantic globed-shaped building which is to act as a retreat for the leaders of our fine planet. It is to be known as 'The Universities Leadership Sanctuary'. It is the future.

Imagine now, if you will, that you are perhaps Gordon Brown, George Bush, or some other fat cat with the initials 'GB'. It has been a hard week of shaking hands with people and posing for photographs. The telephone has been ringing non-stop and your secretary has been bugging you about this or that or some other crap that you don't really care about. You're tired and you need to get away from it all, put your feet up and finish that copy of 'War and Peace' that you started. Maybe you'd like to skip through an allotment of communal cabbage patches with one of your other leader friends....

What would you do?

Well, if plans for the £150m development of the The Universities Leadership Sanctuary prove themselves fruitful you could piss of to Nevada for the weekend. At the Vassar Education Dynasty development leaders will be able to read, contemplate or even do a spot of gardening. And, according to today's Guardian, the monastic environment will even provide world leaders with the opportunity to "reconnect with their unique purpose in life". Whatever that means.

It all sounds very nice. The only thing that we're a little concerned about is the projects resemblance to the planet-destroying Death Star as seen in the Star Wars movies. Or the similarities between the project and the secret community inhabited by the rich in Ayn Rand's novel, Atlas Shrugged. Does this mark the beginning of the end? The start of an evil empire?

Westmonster certainly hopes not. But if it does, may the force be with you.

Photo sourced from The Guardian, provided by Chetwood Associates.

Written by Oli Anderson on 11 Apr 2008 10:17 AM. Permalink