Congresswoman M.B. is the new Congresswoman M.B., or, the new way of saying “You lie!”

Step aside Michelle Bachmann, there’s a new piece of low hanging fruit in town.

It seems Obama recently said “Up at Camp David, we do skeet shooting all the time,” when he was asked if he’d ever fired a gun.

Oh yeah? A statement like that calls for serious congressional attention because it’s an important matter and we can’t just take the word of the President of the United States. Because it’s too important.

Meet Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn:

“If he is a skeet shooter, why have we not heard of this? Why have we not seen photos? Why hasn’t he referenced this at any point in time?” Blackburn said Monday on CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront.”

Sunday snork-snork

H/T to Susie for this.

 

Where is Dylan Ratigan?

Neither his website nor his Facebook page show any activity after June 2012.   Many of us remember his infamous “rant heard round the world” on his MSNBC show in  August of 2011, after which nervousness ensued in various quarters. It was full of ugly truths and made plutocracrats across the planet very very uncomfortable. And, I’m sure, angry. Shortly after, Ratigan abruptly announced he was ending the show and said he’d be launching some kind of collaborative activist entity. He put up a website, got on the Twitter and FB, sold his loft in NYC and went – where?

Here is a vid of the rant, and  his own follow-up post about it. The transcript itself is below the fold if you would rather read, but the passion in the video is powerful and I think it’s well worth the three plus minutes of your time.

I picked up most of this at a blog called The Golden Age of Gaia which is, unsurprisingly given the name, a very metaphysical place. (The post is here.)

Dylan Explains his rant:

I’m Mad As Hell. How About You?

August 10, 2011

Yesterday, on TV, I exploded. I spent two minutes giving a primal yell at our political system, demanding the extraction of our money and dignity end. It was my most heartfelt and emotional moment on television, ever.

And the emails poured in. I hit a chord, because it’s something we all feel. Take a look.

With the markets in turmoil and the global financial architecture groaning under the weight of fraud and corruption, it’s a good time to think about what leadership would look like. Believe it or not, we have had good leadership, purpose, integrity, and aligned interests in this country.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy faced a dilemma — how could he direct our intense competitive passion with the Soviet Union in a direction other than war? The answer was his call for America to beat the Soviets to the moon. Kennedy understood power; if he did not lead us towards peaceful productive competition, that same animus would have turned violent (see this key memo on the real rationale for the space race). So he took the passion and focus of our society, the technology of war and missiles, and turned it into a great mission to explore space. He gave us a shared goal.

But that’s not the full story. Kennedy also demanded we use the finest scientists and engineers to design the rockets, and made sure that the path to the moon was based on the best possible solution to get there. For large rocket boosters, he was open to chemical, nuclear, liquid fuels, or any combination. He did not put a commission of astrologers in charge, and he did not put political cronies with no scientific background in charge of designing the rockets.

Lucky us! Bad Lip Reading’s done the inauguration

Another Friday oldie cuz I really didn’t like that one

Is it possible I didn’t put this up earlier?

Friday oldie (wrong season, right generation)

Ouch, has there ever been worse dancing?

By the way, Whatever Works reader brucetheeconomist has begun been posting Monday Melodies. Check them out.

How very vulgar – and how typical – of Rupert Murdoch

He loves to peddle the tawdry and twist reality. His London papers, The Sun and the recently-deceased  criminal enterprise The News of the World, do and did regularly soil the streets of that city. Here, The New York Post carries the same tawdry gene. 

As is the case with the always-failing Moonie-owned Washington Times, the paper hasn’t earned a single dime in profit since Murdoch bought it in 1993. For a few years, he even dropped the price to 25 cents to prop up circulation (about 600,000). For comparison’s sake, The New York Times sells – in the City alone – about a million and a half papers every day and still makes a tidy profit.

That price by the way? The 25 cents? That was the cheapest single issue price in the country. (Have you noticed that keyboards no longer have a key for the cent sign.)

To support this rich man’s toy and to keep it on the streets so as to maintain a powerful voice advancing his own interests, both political and financial, costs Murdoch $70 million a year, almost a billion and a half dollars since ’93.

Calling Lou Dobbs . . .  your show on the FOX Business Channel might want to report on such an epic business fail.

Chomsky-ish

POSTED BY ORHAN

Applying some of the ideas in last week’s Chomsky post

First, take a look at this map:

Now, consider this hypothetical scenario:

1. Iran invades and occupies both Canada and Mexico.
2. Iranian aircraft carriers and destroyers are patrolling the waters ten miles off the coast of Northern Virginia (as today American warships patrol the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz) to “protect Iranian interests.”
3. The President of the United States announces that, if attacked, America will defend itself.
4. Iran, before the UN, and using the President’s declaration as proof of US aggression and bellicosity, demands the international community enact economic sanctions and threatens military action “to contain the American threat.”

As an American, what would you think? What would you feel? What would you say?

Oxfam says world’s rich could end poverty

POSTED BY ORHAN

From Al Jazeera:

The world’s 100 richest people earned enough money last year to end world extreme poverty four times over, according to a new report released by international rights group and charity Oxfam.

The $240 billion net income of the world’s 100 richest billionaires would have ended poverty four times over, according to the London-based group’s report released on Saturday.

The group has called on world leaders to commit to reducing inequality to the levels it was at in 1990, and to curb income extremes on both sides of the spectrum. […]

The group says that the world’s richest one percent have seen their income increase by 60 percent in the last 20 years, with the latest world financial crisis only serving to hasten, rather than hinder, the process.

Women in high heels

Michelle Obama and Jill Biden are Super Heroes. How else explain walking a mile plus on the street in pretty high heels, with nary a wince.

I’d have chosen different footwear.

We just did it again – 224 years of smooth presidential transitions

Give me a break. It’s not all about you moron.

Today, Americans celebrate the inauguration of our 45th president and 224 years of continuity of government – 224 year of bloodless constitutional transitions.

But not all Americans are happy.

According to Forbes, golfer Phil Mickelson may give up his career because he may have to pay higher taxes.

For starters, courtesy of President Obama’s re-election and the subsequent fiscal cliff negotiations, Mickelson will experience an increase in his top tax rate on ordinary income from 35% to 39.6%, and an increase in his top rate on long-term capital gains and qualified dividends from 15% to 20%. Clearly, when faced with tax hikes of that magnitude, it stops making economic sense for Mickelson to continue to swing a metal stick up to 70 times a day in exchange for the $48 million he earns on an annual basis.

Let’s repeat that last sentence:

Clearly, when faced with tax hikes of that magnitude, it stops making economic sense for Mickelson to continue to swing a metal stick up to 70 times a day in exchange for the $48 million he earns on an annual basis.

Either that is tongue-in-cheek or this is the most spoiled brat in sports.

Bits: Guns and Fox and meth and cross-dressing priests and CNN

Bit the first: Why do I turn on Fox News? Why?

Right now, they are covering:

1.  rallies at strip malls all around the country for Gun Appreciation Day and
2. threats on the life of the prez of NRA which, as reported by Fox, are  likely the fault of President Obama because he’s been mean and  demonizing the NRA. (Well, that’s obvious!)

Kind of nice how Gun Appreciation Day falls on the MLK Holiday weekend, isn’t it.

Bit the second: in news from my old backyard, a cross-dressing Monsignor in Bridgeport CT  has been arrested for dealing crystal meth. He had been pastor at the Catholic Cathedral there before he resigned last summer.

Since his resignation, he has been receiving a stipend from the Diocese and they had intended to keep paying it until:

 . . .  reading in the Connecticut Post that Wallin, 61, is accused by federal authorities of making so much money from selling the drug that he purchased an adult sex shop in North Haven named The Land of Oz to launder the money, Wallace said the diocese may stop the payments.

May stop paying him. May.

Sources with knowledge of the case told the Connecticut Post that while pastor, Wallin was observed dressing as a woman and was visited in his residence by men dressed as women who performed sex acts with him in the cathedral’s rectory. The sources said an assortment of sex toys was found in Wallin’s residence.

I guess Mother Church can be allowed a sigh of relief on that particular. It, at least, was consensual.

And bit the third: CNN has been covering the Inauguration since early this morning from a cold outdoor location facing the Capital. Because you can’t grab a seat too early. Or because they think it’s the Superbowl maybe?

That’s kind of comforting actually.  Seeing CNN be CNN reminds me that some of the world’s silliness has survived the world’s madness.

Security guard forgets gun in school bathroom

POSTED BY ORHAN

Hired to protect a Michigan school following the Sandy Hook shootings, the new security guard, a retired firearms instructor, walked out of the school bathroom leaving his gum behind:

Just days after calling its newly hired armed security guard “a tremendous asset to the safety of our students,” a Michigan school released a statement saying the retired firearms instructor had caused a “breach in security protocol” by leaving his handgun unattended in the school’s bathroom. […]

The school, which serves grades K through 8, insists that no students were in danger, and vowed to “continue to work on improving school security.”

But of course, we do want to arm our students, don’t we?

Security Officer Hired by School in Response to Sandy Hook Shooting Forgets to Take Handgun With Him When Exiting Student Restroom

Friday night oldie

7 brilliant insights from Noam Chomsky on American empire

POSTED BY ORHAN

Reposted from AlterNet.  Note: I rearranged the entries in the article from shorter to longer.

by Laura Gottesdiener, AlterNet

Noam Chomsky is an expert on many matters — linguistics, how our economy functions and propaganda, among others. One area where his wisdom especially shines through is in articulating the structure and functioning of the American empire. Chomsky has been speaking and publishing on the topic since the ’60s. Below are seven powerful quotes on the evils, atrocities and ironies of the American empire taken from his personal site and from a fan-curated Web site dedicated to collecting Chomsky‘s observations.

1. “[The U.S. still names] military helicopter gunships after victims of genocide. Nobody bats an eyelash about that: Blackhawk. Apache. And Comanche. If the Luftwaffe named its military helicopters Jew and Gypsy, I suppose people would notice.” — Propaganda and the Public Mind: Conversations with Noam Chomsky and David Barsamian

2. “Suppose that, say, China established military bases in Colombia to carry out chemical warfare in Kentucky and North Carolina to destroy this lethal crop [tobacco] that is killing huge numbers of Chinese.” — Noam Chomsky on the irony of the drug war waged by the United States in Central and South America

3. “If something is right (or wrong) for us, it’s right (or wrong) for others. It follows that if it’s wrong for Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, and a long list of others to bomb Washington and New York, then it’s wrong for Rumsfeld to bomb Afghanistan (on much flimsier pretexts), and he should be brought before war crimes trials.” — “On Terrorism,”Noam Chomsky interviewed by John Bolender, Jump Arts Journal, January 2004

4. “Globalization is the result of powerful governments, especially that of the United States, pushing trade deals and other accords down the throats of the world’s people to make it easier for corporations and the wealthy to dominate the economies of nations around the world without having obligations to the peoples of those nations.” — Profit over People: Neoliberalism and the Global Order

The cleverest and most subversive thing the House GOP could do

(UPDATED BELOW)

Dear House GOP:

You may have noticed that America doesn’t like you anymore. And America now expects the worst from you.

I have an idea how you can change that – pass the debt ceiling increase quickly, without a lot of drama. You’ll leave the punditocracy speechless.

Ehhh, they’ll never do it.

UPDATE 1/19: Yikes, they did do it! Yesterday. For three months. And I’m guessing when it comes back in 90 days, they’ll pass it if the spotlight can be turned elsewhere.

The thing that wouldn’t die

POSTED BY ORHAN

Paul Ryan is at it again; he’s agreed to cosponsor the Sanctity of Human Life Act yet one more time. The bill asserts that life begins with fertilization, and permits states to ban abortion outright, even in the case of rape, incest, or danger to the life of the mother.

And besides outlawing many forms of in vitro fertilization, the bill goes on: if a woman is raped in an abortion-banning state, then goes to an abortion-permitting state intending to have an abortion, her rapist can sue to stop the abortion, and win.

The prior version of this way-over-the-top bill died in Congress, and it’s expected this one will too. But Ryan’s ongoing attempt to repeal women’s reproductive rights exemplifies conservative entitlement; politicians like Ryan, along with conservative employers and landlords, sanctimoniously believe their morality outweighs the rights of those they govern and control.

The guns, the doctors and the utter nonsense being repeated as fact

Snuggling with #4

As penance for some less than cordial behavior I exhibited over the weekend toward someone who was in the particular instance totally blameless, but had nevertheless been asking for it for a long time . . . as penance, this morning I exposed myself without any protection to a full five minutes of poisonous rant from the morbidly obese, four times married, indicted drug user, college dropout and all around moralist Mr. Rush Limbaugh, that arbiter of all things right and proper.

He had his size XXXXLLLL underwear in a knot – doctors! are! again! required! to! go! after! the! guns!  They must tell Obama. And name names. The ‘authorities’ said so. (the whole silly transcript is here under the headline “Regime deputizes gun-snitch doctors”).

Bet you didn’t know that long, long ago, doctors were required to inquire of their patients about whether there are firearms in the home. And to report. To the authorities. Whoever they are.

Who knew? Not me. Never heard of it. But there it was, hidden from us all until  Obamacare, which has now been revealed to be just a ploy to get our guns. Or something.

(Recently, some brave governors have gotten laws passed to put a stop to this outrage! The courts are slapping down the governors right and left but what else can we expect – they are, after all ‘in on it’.)

Writing about this stuff doesn’t capture the depth of the looney. But I must continue my penance to its logical conclusion and take words of Rush, from the mouth itself, and show them to be nothing but his brand of million-bucks-a-minute tonic for the rubes.

Sayeth the chubby one (after some cautiously phrased qualifiers):

So now doctors are being ordered  . . . to get information from them about gun ownership . . .   Doctors are now, quote, unquote, “permitted,” unquote, to do this. It makes ’em deputies, agents of the state. Look at the position this puts the doctors in  [if they don’t report].  The doctors are now under the thumb of Obamacare.  They had better comply.

And Rush gives us some history:

What’s happening here is this. For the longest time doctors have been required to ask parents and kids about this. I remember when this started, doctors were instructed to ask kids to rat out their parents on guns they had. That’s some years ago.

Total nonsense. The American Association of Pediatrics, as a policy (not a requirement) urges its practitioners to counsel parents of young children about the dangers of firearms in the home. There is no reporting requirement. The government is not involved in any way. The AAP guidelines are here.

On to where the ACLU is per FatBoy:

 Don’t ask me where the ACLU is.  I mean, anything to get rid of guns, the ACLU’s right there. Leftists are leftists, and that comes first with them.

Where the ACLU actually is, per their own website:

For seven decades, the Supreme Court’s 1939 decision in United States v. Miller was widely understood to have endorsed that view [guns are about militia, not about an individual right].

The Supreme Court has now ruled otherwise. In striking down Washington D.C.’s handgun ban by a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court’s 2008 decision in D.C. v. Heller held for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to keep and bear arms, whether or not associated with a state militia.

The ACLU disagrees . . . . We do not, however, take a position on gun control itself. In our view, neither the possession of guns nor the regulation of guns raises a civil liberties issue.

This doctor/guns/government nonsense has been circulating via mass emails from the fringe for some time now. (A related history here from Snopes.) I first heard of it a few weeks ago when a family member informed me that this has been going on and that doctors have been helping the guvmint build a database so they can – let’s say it together – get! the! guns!

Meh but I’m tired of this.

As good as it gets

POSTED BY ORHAN

California’s belt-tightening, tax increases, and subsequent projected budget surplus contrasts sharply with Gov. Chris Christie’s plan to cut New Jersey’s income tax, even though the state’s deficit grew again this year, as it has for almost a decade.

Christie believes that cutting taxes on the 1% will bring “job creators” into the state: according to Thinkprogress, “The tax cut plan that Christie unveiled in 2012 would have given 40 percent of its benefit to the richest 1 percent of New Jerseyans, while cutting taxes for middle-class families by just $80.”

Christie would cut state taxes even though it would dramatically lower revenue; meanwhile New Jersey desperately needs money to rebuild after Hurricane Sandy. And while Christie is smart, tough, personable, and appears to be one of the few non-crazies on the national Republicans scene,  he still clings to the market fundamentalism that brought the country to its present condition.

The best medical disclaimer evah!

Send the children from the room before you read this!

I notice that the pharmaceutical industry has invented itself a new medical condition called ‘low T’ for which they – remarkably – have cures at hand. And for sale.

Something else they have is sublime confidence – confidence that their target customer will not be deterred. Confidence that even this disclaimer (for Axiron, a topical testosterone) won’t stop the rush to the pharmacy:

Signs of puberty that are not expected (for example, pubic hair) have happened in young children who were accidentally exposed to testosterone through skin to skin contact with men using topical testosterone products like AXIRON. Women and children should avoid contact with the unwashed or unclothed area where AXIRON has been applied. If a woman or child makes contact with the application area, the contact area on the woman or child should be washed well with soap and water right away.

Stop using AXIRON and call your healthcare provider right away if you see any signs and symptoms in a child or a woman that may have occurred through accidental exposure to AXIRON. Signs and symptoms in children may include enlarged penis or clitoris; early development of pubic hair; increased erections or sex drive; aggressive behavior. Signs and symptoms in women may include changes in body hair and a large increase in acne.

Women who are pregnant or who may become pregnant should avoid contact with the area of skin where AXIRON has been applied.

Other risks:

• Possible increased risk of prostate cancer.
•  In large doses AXIRON may lower your sperm count.
• Swelling of your ankles, feet, or body.
• Enlarged or painful breasts.
• Problems breathing while you sleep (sleep apnea).
• Blood clots in the legs. This can include pain, swelling or redness of your legs.

The most common adverse events include: headache, diarrhea, vomiting, and increase in blood level of Prostate Specific Antigen. Other side effects include more erections than are normal for you or erections that last a long time.

And the most amazing of all the side effect warnings is this one:

AXIRON is flammable until dry. Let AXIRON dry before smoking or going near an open flame.

How can this even be legal?

Friday night oldie

Not Eric Holder again! By the way, I thought corporations were people . . .

 . . . and don’t people go to jail when they commit crimes? Well, they don’t when  the head of the Federal justice system is Eric Holder who is NOT stepping down for the second term and who was head of Justice in the spring of this year when this was going on.

HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA)’s head of group compliance, David Bagley, told a Senate hearing he will step down amid claims the bank gave terrorists, drug cartels and criminals access to the U.S. financial system by failing to guard against money laundering.

Bagley was among at least six HSBC executives who testified before the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations today after the panel released a 335-page report describing a decade of compliance failures by Europe’s biggest bank. London-based HSBC enabled drug lords to launder money in Mexico, did business with firms linked to terrorism and concealed transactions that bypassed U.S. sanctions against Iran, Senate investigators said in the report.

So Mr. Bagley and his buddies said they were ever so sorry before heading back to the company ‘retreat’ at Cabo and after, of course, paying a fine in an amount that they can earn back in a week.

That’ll show ’em alright.

Obama’s Cabinet has included some really terrific, skilled and well-suited people. I don’t count Holder among them. I’ll admit to being ignorant regarding many of his policies and initiatives. Maybe they’re good. Maybe they’re great. But when it comes to punishing corporate ‘persons’, those whose crimes almost brought down the world economy? FAIL..

No investment bankers are in jail. No one from AIG is in jail. Not even anyone from Countrywide. Or Arthur Anderson. Or the other rating agencies. And how about LIBOR? Any US companies complicit in that?

By any  measurement, letting them off with fines is sufficient reason to judge him a failure. I suppose that only when they do it two more times will they, like the 20-year-old marijuana smoker down the street, head to the big house.

The five Senators who made up the Keating Five plus Mr. Keating (bottom right)

Anyone remember the Savings & Loan scandal in the Reagan years? It wasn’t as far-reaching as 2008, but it was pretty damn big. There were plenty of perp walks (but not for everyone, not for everyone – see below). A lot of people paid for their corporate crimes. But that’s s-o-o-o yesterday.

For you younger ones:

Savings and loan crisis in which 747 institutions failed and had to be rescued with $160 billion in taxpayer dollars.^[33] Reagan’s “elimination of loopholes” in the tax code included the elimination of the “passive loss” provisions that subsidized rental housing. Because this was removed retroactively, it bankrupted many real estate developments which used this tax break as a premise, which in turn bankrupted 747 Savings and Loans, many of whom were operating, more or less, as banks, thus requiring the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to cover their debts and losses with tax payer money. This with some other “deregulation” policies, ultimately led to the largest political and financial scandal in U.S. history to that date. The savings and Loan crisis. The ultimate cost of the crisis is estimated to have totaled around USD $150 billion, about $125 billion of which was directly subsidized by the U.S. government, which further increased the large budget deficits of the early 1990s. See Keating Five.

Who were the Keating Five you may ask? And why are they relevant?

The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The five senators – Alan Cranston (Democrat of California), Dennis DeConcini (Democrat of Arizona), John Glenn (Democrat of Ohio), John McCain (Republican of Arizona), and Donald W. Riegle, Jr. (Democrat of Michigan) – were accused of improperly intervening in 1987 on behalf of Charles H. Keating, Jr., Chairman of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, which was the target of a regulatory investigation by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB). The FHLBB subsequently backed off taking action against Lincoln.

Lincoln Savings and Loan collapsed in 1989, at a cost of over $3 billion to the federal government. Some 23,000 Lincoln bondholders were defrauded and many investors lost their life savings. The substantial political contributions Keating had made to each of the senators, totaling $1.3 million, attracted considerable public and media attention. After a lengthy investigation, the Senate Ethics Committee determined in 1991 that Cranston, DeConcini, and Riegle had substantially and improperly interfered with the FHLBB’s investigation of Lincoln Savings, with Cranston receiving a formal reprimand. Senators Glenn and McCain were cleared of having acted improperly but were criticized for having exercised “poor judgment”.

All five senators served out their terms. Only Glenn and McCain ran for re-election, and they both retained their seats. McCain would go on to run for President of the United States twice, including being the Republican Party nominee in 2008.

Like I said, it wasn’t all perp walks. A number of hands were slapped. And for them, that was that. (Another of the big players was GHW Bush’s son Neil Bush. Big play-ah.)

But no one smoked any weed, so . . .

Another birthday – Nixon at 100

Yes, I know. Dead.

For all his darkness – and that ran deep – Richard Nixon was an intriguing president. I think I’ve read half a dozen biographies (ssshhhh, don’t tell anyone); hell, I’ve even read a few of his own books. He was a fine writer and that, in my little book of life, forgives many other sins.

Mr. William Shakespeare would have loved the guy but they didn’t share a timeline. For anyone interested, the best Nixon book I ever read – in fact one of the best contemporary histories – is Nixonland by Rick Perlstein. Simply terrific book. Highly recommended, if you have a free weekend.

Breathless headlines – threat alert off the charts!

Drudge makes his editorial contribution again to the important issues of our day. Well played, Matt. That ought to get the page views up nicely .. . .

Elvis would have been 78 today

Another slap upside the face for the people we keep electing

Public Policy Polling has again asked America how we’re feeling about our Congress Critters. I know you already know, but just for fun . . .

Our newest national poll finds that Congress only has a 9% favorability rating with 85% of voters viewing it in a negative light. We’ve seen poll after poll after poll over the last year talking about how unpopular Congress is but really, what’s the difference between an 11% or a 9% or a 7% favorability rating? So we decided to take a different approach and test Congress’ popularity against 26 different things. And what we found is that Congress is less popular than cockroaches, traffic jams, and even Nickelback.

What’s it going to take? (The whole embarrassment is here.)

And what’s Nickelback?

Makes every bit as much sense as . . . well, you know

I do so love my ancestral people

Libertarian comrades

POSTED BY ORHAN

Via Corey Robin:

In the wake of the Newtown killings, writers on the right have suggested we should teach children to turn on their assailants, rushing them en masse. Here’s Megan McArdle writing in The Daily Beast:

I’d also like us to encourage people to gang rush shooters, rather than following their instincts to hide; if we drilled it into young people that the correct thing to do is for everyone to instantly run at the guy with the gun, these sorts of mass shootings would be less deadly, because even a guy with a very powerful weapon can be brought down by 8-12 unarmed bodies piling on him at once.

McArdle is a libertarian. You know, the type who believes you can’t derive Rawlsian-style social justice from self-interested premises—that shit would never work—but that you can adduce from those very same premises a mass death instinct of the sort that powered the Red Army to victory against the Nazis. When it comes to public goods, libertarians think we’re all free riders; in the face of crazed killers, we’re all comrades.