Fact Checker Position Open At Details Magazine

RTC is a big supporter of the free press. But when you start taking 3 bucks from us in exchange for disinformation, it's time we start free-pressing our foot up your ass.

In the October issue of Details, some genius decided to recycle the old Entertainment Weekly bit of listing what they've "learned" from the movies. Besides citing feudal law garnered from Braveheart and the power of tetrodotoxin as taught by Wes Craven, they also boast of their knowledge of NORAD defense conditions thanks to the creators of the movie War Games (pictured right).

It's one thing to learn from art. It's another not to bother to see if what you are "learning" has any accuracy whatsoever. As any monkey with a DVD player can tell you, the actual scale of defense conditions goes from, Defcom 1 (peace-time condition) to Defcon 5 (kiss your ass goodbye). This comes courtesy of the filmmakers' (Lawrence Lasker, Walter E. Parkes, John Badham) mouths. Here is the reasoning.

Parkes: You know, we had to guess about the Defcons and we guessed wrong.

Lasker: We initially went the wrong direction.

Parkes: No, uh. The way the movies shows it goes five to one is actually contrary to the fact. It goes from one to five.

Badham: Oops. Ha ha.

Lasker. Sorry.

Badham: Oop, how embarrassing. It goes from one to five. We got it backwards.

Parkes: A countdown made sense to me.