Officers at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming could not communicate with or monitor the status of 50 Minuteman III nuclear missiles for a while on Saturday. That’s a comforting thing to know, right? Look: sometimes our nukes, like rebellious teenagers, get angry at their military officers and won’t talk to them or tell them where they are. But what trouble have rebellious teenagers ever gotten into? And what could possibly go wrong when you have no idea where 50 of your nukes are or what they’re doing? It’ll all be fine. We have to learn to just trust our nukes. They’ll make some mistakes, sure. But they’ll become responsible eventually, even if, granted, they almost destroy half of the country.
Backup security and communications systems, located elsewhere on the base, allowed the intercontinental ballistic missiles to be continually monitored. But the outage is considered serious enough that the very highest rungs on the chain of command — including the President — are being briefed on the incident today.
Well, it’s good he’s hearing about it, we guess. “Mr. President, this country is sitting on top of thousands of bombs that could go off at any second and could destroy us all. And you’re never gonna believe this, but not everything was perfectly fine with every single one of them at a point this weekend.”
After a series of mishaps — including nosecone fuses mistakenly sent to Taiwan, and warheads temporarily MIA — the Air Force has made restoring confidence in its nuclear enterprise a top priority. Officers have been fired and disciplined for nuclear lapses. The Air Force’s top general and civilian chief have been replaced. A new Global Strike Command has been put in place, to oversee all nuclear weapons. Nuclear Surety Inspections, once relatively lax, have become pressure cookers. These days, a few misfiled papers or a few out-of-place troops means the entire wing flunks the NSI.
Or, you know, we could just lay off most or all of our nuke people and get rid of most or all nukes — considering that keeping our nuke numbers in line with Russia’s for the retro hipness is sort of dangerous, and we are more likely to blow ourselves up than use them on another country at this point. Perhaps we can even sell some of our nukes to Russia to help pay down the deficit! They’re easier to deal with when they feel powerful anyway. [Wired]
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The were busy, communicating with Robo Sandra Day O'Connor, plotting our destruction.
Or phone sexing: "You saucy automaton, you. What kind of chassis you wearing tonight?"
She's got a USB 2.0 interface and they're a Centronics RS232. It would never work.
Their love is forbidden, you say? Oh, Serolf, you'll never understand this complex motherboard of emotion called The Heart.
The nukes weren't answering because they were on AIM.
I'm fine with imminent nuclear immolation as long as we are given a couple hours notice like they had in "Fail Safe" or "Dr. Strangelove." That way we at least get to have the giant no-holds barred orgies in the street that I've always longed for, and then no embarrassing small talk afterwards. Win-Win!
Hell, ya don't even have to worry about wrapping that rascal!
Oh shit, I think I'm leaking my precious bodily fluids.
Thief!
Ironic that a three-stage ballistic missile carries a premature ejaculation moniker.
Simple really – off load this function to the private sector.
How about Blackwater? They already run everything else that kills people for profit.
That was my comment. But dollars to dildos that'll be the new yelling point for the whole "Government is broke" crowd.
Well, yeah. Then they can lower costs by offshoring our nukes to a Chinese facility registered in the North Mariana Islands.
That makes sense: if the private companies do a bad job and blow up half the country and leave the rest to die of radiation poisoning/ nuclear winter then no one will hire them again. Have you liberals even HEARD of the Free Market?!
moment without snark: if you want an authentic freakout, see Hugh Gusterson's books. Dude does anthropological studies of nuclear scientists. It's a freaky fucking world, and unlike enthographies of freaky fucking goth kids or Pacific islanders or whatever, it's a freaky fucker that still has the capacity to blow us to smithereens out of a weird mix of curiosity and insecurity.
Eyes melt, skin explodes, everybody dead. It's so immoral working on it, it can drive you mad. That happened to a friend of mine, so he had a lobotomy. Now he's well again.
Yeah. I just spend all day on teh Wonkette instead of writing my shit up. Cheaper than a lobotomy, and… uh… less brain-on-an-icepicky.
I believe in the 1960s all of the launch codes were actually '00000000' or something like that. Seemed like a good idea at the time. The GOP will probably look into privatizing missile launches when they assume control again.
They had to use the letter 'o'.
Just send all the damn missiles to Taiwan instead of the fuses. They will come back as super iPhone/Androids that will robocall you in Mandarin while you try to sleep.
Hopefully, when this is all sorted out and we get the facts straight, we will learn that mankind was once again saved by the inability of machines to win at tic-tac-toe.
An employee in Sector 7G was said to be at fault.
What's that guy's name again?
Mr Uh-Clem
Those missiles just wanted to be free from intrusive government control. Why do you think they're called Minutemen?
Why do we keep having these nuclear problems? Is it because the nuke programs are dead-end jobs for those poor military saps that get stuck into them? Is it because the military has been taken over by religious zealot end-timers who are practicing the final solution? Is it because we have installed Chinese controls in our missiles and they're taking a bit of time out to send target plans back home? Is it because our government is inherently incompetent and can't do anything right and should be outsourced to Xe/Blackwater? Or maybe it's because they were a stupid idea to begin with, insanely complicated, touchy, and deadly, and anyone working with them is simultaneously confused, frightened, and bored?
Yes.
If these missiles are teenagers, Is it time to take away their keys?
Sullen teenagers my ass. Those Minuteman II missiles are in their mid-40s. Maybe they're having a mid-life crisis. It's not like they can go out and buy a Miata or a Z4 or a Harley, now, is it?
Couldn't they just have a fling with a younger Pershing II or something?
Couldn't they just have a fling with a younger Pershing II or something?
Not in this country. Two missiles getting it on? Gay war sex in the US? I think not!
It's not gay if your warheads don't touch.
Actually, my misread, those are Minuteman III's which are a bit younger; they'd probably go in for one of them more exotic Korean No-dong missiles, although the name is a little bit discouraging and off-putting.
No-dong = lesbian = HAWT!!
Our they can be none-too-bright, angry, scared, teabaggish missiles in their seventies, who can only listen to FoxNews.
I can't believe you're talking about this, when Charlie Sheen got arrested a couple days ago.
What's more worrisome is thinking about how tight is Kim Jong-il's "Nuclear Surety Inspections" program is…
Kim's nuclear arsenal is tiny, like he can count the missiles on one hand. Keeping an eye on them is as easy as keeping an eye on a six-pack. I'm not too scared of their missile control program, just the controllers. Just like I don't trust our controllers.
“Mr. President, this country is sitting on top of thousands of bombs that could go off at any second and could destroy us all. And you’re never gonna believe this, but not everything was perfectly fine with every single one of them at a point this weekend.”
"On the plus side, though, most of them are in Wyoming and North Dakota. So, feh."
So, if they *do* go off, there's a small possibility that that region of the country will become somewhat interesting!
Three hours offline vs. the visible and agonizing threat of thirteen long days of the Cuban Missile Crisis just doesn't compare. Meh.
But if you told me the Tea Party somehow had gotten on site, then I'd be worried.
Hilariously, this is actually only the second or third most worrisome episode in America's nuclear arsenal history.
For example, Strategic Air Command decided that it would be a good idea for 15 years to keep the luggage combination on our nukes all set to 00000000. You know, so we wouldn't waste any time if we thought we needed to start nuking commies. Oh, and then, they said "Hey, we should probably keep that posted somewhere, also, in case we forget it." So then they posted it all over the silos.
So yeah, 50 nukes going quiet for a day or so is actually not super-disturbing, all things considered.
Time for Jayne Loader and the Rafferty's to add an extra twenty-five minutes to "The Atomic Cafe":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOUtZOqgSG8
As anyone with a teenager in the house knows, the ONLY way a rebellious teenage missile will communicate is via text or XBox Live. So get the missiles a Razr each and a copy of Call of Duty Modern Warfare II, and good luck. Don't even TRY to be a missile's Facebook friend.
A Razr?? All the other missiles have iPhones! I hate my life and I hate YOU!!
Given these nukes have probably been around for a while, I hope they're not still using dial-up and those free AOL CDs to keep in touch. But they probably are.
Those missiles have been in place since the mid-60s. Probably still on rotary-phone technology.
Vacuum tubes. Less susceptible to high-energy electromagnetic pulse.
Plus you'd get some kick ass tone
Uh, has anyone checked on Skynet lately?
Skynet is too busy trying to drive humans insane by making prank calls as Sandra Day O'Conner at 1 AM to ask if they have Captain Crunch in a box.
It seems the President accidentally (his words) de-friended the missiles on Facebook, and that is what initiated the hubbub.
No no. I imagine it was when the nukes found out that Barry had chosen Team Jacob over Team Edward and that he liked Kanye's new album better than the one from Taylor Swift. QED, and chaos ensued.
Back in the mid-70s, my old man was with the Air Force Inspector General. They did an inspection at Whiteman AFB in Missouri, where there were a bunch of missile silos. They found shit like "Hello Ivan" and "Moscow Express" written in grease pencil on the nose cones of some of the missiles. That'd be enough to fuck up the targeting telemetry; the base commander was relieved of his command that afternoon. Like everyone else here that's been associated with the armed forces, I got a million of 'em.
American Nukes No Longer Want To Talk To Us
Yes, and who can blame them, really?
They're probably all, "Look…we can destroy whole cities…but torturing a kid for 10 years…that's just immoral."
Good evening, Professor. How about a nice game of Global Thermal Nuclear War?
I was hoping someone would come up with a "Wargames" reference. Yay!
"Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere…"
"Nope, no weapons over there…maybe under here?"
So what? Some missiles go off base for a little while, knock back some brewskies, maybe take in a flick on a Saturday night, and everyone goes apeshit. Jeesh.
Let's face it, keyturning jobs are not going to go to the Air Force's best and brightest.
Silo duty is about as stultifying as it gets. That said, those guys (and gals) are off the hook when their shifts are done; some of the wildest nights I've ever had were at the Malmstrom AFB Officer's Club.
You reminded me of the beginning of "War Games", when John Spencer tells the other silo officer about how he spent his weekend stoned out of his mind. That scene did have a ring of truth about it.
Diebold is now making launch control systems?
Sometime around 1983 NATO thought it would fun to mix up their war games a bit with some new maneuvers. No one told the Soviets however who were convinced they were about to be attacked and were seriously debating shooting first for about a day or two. Ah, the 80s. Glad we didn't hear about that till decades latter.
Time to roll out those Cold War Black Humor jokes, I see.
SAC pilots do it last.
Minuteman delivery: Anywhere on the planet in 30 minutes or less or your next missile is free.
Seriously, I remember when Nuclear Surety and Human Reliability were serious ball-busters. Anything you did could get your clearance pulled and access lost. (Disclosure: I never worked on nukes, but handled "certain" targeting functions for the tactical ones. You know, the ones we thought were safe to use on Soviet armored breakthroughs…)
"… a former U.S. Air Force missile launch officer who first tweeted word of the issue."
No, the incident is not that scary, but the fact that it was first reported via Twitter is.
We should not deny our Nuclear Caretakers the right to multitask.
We can only hope that we've taught our nukes to use a condom every time.
Wouldn't this be exactly where the military could use a little of that much ballyhooed gay predilection for tidiness and organization?
"Is that a thermo-nuclear warhead in your pants. Or are you just happy to see me."
six billion crazy apes, some of them armed with exploding stars they sometimes lose track of. what part of "we are so fucked" remains in question?
Why is every other post broken? This makes me very, very angry. I've now decided to become a Teabagger. Thanks a fucking lot Wonkette, this is your fault.
Soooo, what happened is they all launched and we didn't survice and this is what the afterlife after total nuclear annihilation…is like.
Oh shit!!! Remind me to pick up dog food on my way "home".
"Nuclear Surety" sounds a lot like nothing more than putting adult diapers on them.
Other mistakes:
Detonators accidentally placed on Ebay, bombs mistakenly labeled and used as props in USO shows, missile assemblies donated to a local boy scout troop and modified into homecoming parade floats…
Why not just let BP run the Global Strike Command? What could go wrong?
How bad do you have to fuck up to be sent to a silo in Wyoming? Even Cheney wouldn't stay there.
Remember the old saying, "If you love something set it free, if it comes back its yours, if not it was never meant to be"? Well the Air Force brass loves their nukes, and are sitting there with a tear their eyes hoping to find their love is requited.
Quick, someone call Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy!
There's a black guy in the white house. Coincidence?
"I know how it is, baby. Tell you what you do. You just start your countdown, and old Bucky will be back here before you can say 'blast off!'"
Obviously the Minutemen came first and then went to sleep.
The silos crossed their arms, tapped their toes impatiently and held their lips in a thin angry line.
Another reason to be glad the Shrub is gone, he wanted to make new nukler weapons.
president bush lost his warheads
president clinton lost his codes
president obama lost his silos
Who are the Puppeteers?
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