Elf: No, it's way cooler than that. It has been imperically proven in another thread that Shane is actually Michael Dorn from Star Trek: TNG. And (get this) MwRod is none other than Allen Greenspan. Greenspan probably felt that his plane was vastly overinflated given the current economic situation and decided to dump gobs to alt to compensate. Much like his interest rate cuts, it didn't work out right and he had to be sacrificed for the greater good.
And yeah, have a beer. I hear there's gonna be some nudie slides shown later that will practically guarantee us all being kicked out of here and consigned to Fighter Ace hell. You know Barry Manilow flies FA, right?