So NORAD is pretty much the scariest thing in the world. And let us remind you that this is the same world that includes honey badgers, the candiru, and the existence of a career for Piers Morgan. They provide aerospace warning, air sovereignty, and defense for North America, which basically amounts to keeping an eye on any potential attacks or airspace incursions into US territory, as well as having the ability to launch a suitable counter-attack. By which we mean they have a buttload of nukes. And if we've learnt anything from this history lesson so far, it's that America should not be allowed any nukes, because they will probably mess it up and potentially doom all of humanity. Especially during the Cold War. The Cold War was not a fun time for anyone, which is probably why the called it the Cold War and not That Fun Time Everyone Was Friends Forever (Feat. Rainbows And Cookie Dough Ice Cream). Everyone was always worried that everyone was going to nuke each other, which was handily summarised in the phrase Mutually Assured Destruction, which has a deceptively fun acronym. NORAD were particularly anxious about attacks from Russia, so at 2 AM in the morning on June 3, 1980 when their computers picked up "220 incoming missiles", they had no reason not to believe it. Nukes were prepped, bombers with atomic payloads were sent up into the sky, and everyone was generally freaking the hell out. World War III was on the cards, because the computers told them so - and why would the computers lie? Well, because they ran on old, cheap-ass microchips which had malfunctioned. In fact there were no missiles headed to mainland USA, and it was only by noticing this glitch that we avoided armageddon. Yeesh.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
