A: I found a history of the Emergency Alert System (which replaced the Emergency Broadcast System in 1994) here:
http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache...roadcast&hl=en. Basically the test is to ensure that the technology developed for quickly disseminating emergency-related information is functioning correctly. They used to test it every week. Now they do the weekly test internally and do the test broadcast once a month instead.
Q: Landlords burn leftover Christmas trees? Isn't that illegal or something?