Starstuff and Iron

Dragons on the wing are vulnerable to being mobbed by smaller, more agile flyers, particularly in your large rear blind spot, like a bird of prey being mobbed by crows. Having a human armed with a long spear perched on your back helps to dissuade anyone from getting any funny ideas.

Breath weapons are impressive enough on the ground, but in flight they're really only good for strafing stationary targets; trying to use your breath weapon in an aerial dogfight is a good way to get fire up your nose. A real fight calls for sterner measures – and, concomitantly, a crew to aim and reload the cannons.

In today's competitive world, it's not enough to devour a flock of sheep and call it a day if you want to keep your edge. You're accompanied at all times by a qualified personal alchemist tasked with carefully regulating your internal furnace to ensure peak performance, and sometimes you even listen to them.

Like. This is a fucking game. Two boxers fighting one another in a ring are two gamers playing a game together. I cannot stress the extent to which boxing, MMA, et al are games created and pursued primarily for idle amusement. Just because the game is happening in a ring as opposed to on a pitch doesn't make it less of a game. We are Playing Toys when we glove up and clobber each other. It is For Fun. They're dangerous games, to be sure, but the danger is the chief source of amusement for the participants and the audience. The boxers wouldn't be boxing if they hated boxing.

"If we did co-ed boxing there would be Men Beating Up Women 😡" Last time I checked a fight requires at least 2 active participants unless you're just beating up on yourself alone like Edward Norton in that movie. And as I said above, I presume nobody would pursue a career in boxing if they didn't like doing the boxing.

[JERRY STARES AT GEORGE FROM ACROSS THE TABLE IN CONFUSION AND DISBELIEF FOR SEVERAL SECONDS]

JERRY: “You understand trans people?”

GEORGE: “Is that so hard to believe?”

JERRY: “I find it hard to believe you understand yourself.”

GEORGE: “But that’s kind of my point, see. When one life isn’t working out, you can just try to find one that does. You’re doing your best as Danny, things aren’t going great… [GEORGE CLAPS HIS HANDS FOR EMPHASIS]… give it a second go as a Deborah.”

JERRY: “Like a do-over.”

GEORGE: “A do-over.”

JERRY: [PICKS UP COFFEE CUP] “I don’t think that’s what’s going on.” [DRINKS COFFEE]

GEORGE: [COMPLETELY IGNORING THIS] “And I get that. I really do. Because things have never worked out for George. George has never been able to stick the landing. But Georgina? [HE CHUCKLES CONFIDENTLY] Georgina’s going places.”

JERRY: “Georgina.”

GEORGE: “It’s a work in progress.”

JERRY: “Ya know, I think that the trans community is facing enough challenges without you being in the mix.”

GEORGE: “What, are you implying they’re too good for me?”

Apparently juries in Texas are now issuing life sentences for possessing information ?? There was no terrorism involved, no assassination plot; the couple mentioned in the article did not do or plan to do any violence. They literally just got sentenced to life in prison for being associated with anti-fascism (aka... a pro-democracy movement).

So just to be clear:

Attack the US government and attempt a coup = Pardoned and free to go!

Be present at a protest or in possession of leftist information = Life sentence.

Last year on the Fourth of July, a small group from Dallas-Fort Worth held a night-time noise demonstration, setting off fireworks outside the Prairieland Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility south of the cities, in solidarity with the detainees. A few protesters broke away and spray-painted graffiti on employees’ cars and a security post, slashed the tires on a government van, and broke a security camera. The facility’s guards ordered the protesters to disperse, and most of them did. When a police officer arrived at the scene, drawing his gun, an armed protester shot her rifle, hitting the officer in the shoulder. The officer survived.

After a three-week trial, a jury found eight of nine protesters guilty of “providing material support to terrorists”, among other crimes.

For the Sotos, this “material support” included owning a “printing press” used to print anarchist zines and being part of a leftist book club, the federal government argued. The couple had already left the scene by the time guns were drawn. All eight of the defendants sentenced so far have received unusually harsh sentences – 30 to 100 years – essentially life in prison.

Their attorneys announced their intention to appeal, but many supporters are doubtful that anything short of a presidential pardon from a future administration would free them.

The Prairieland case was the first tried and convicted under the Trump Department of Justice’s “counter-terrorism” initiatives targeting “antifa” – short for antifascist – a decentralized movement the administration has officially categorized as a “domestic terrorist organization”. The federal government argued the Prairieland defendants, what they called a “North Texas Antifa cell”, had planned the demonstration as an assassination attempt against a law enforcement officer. The government alleged this conspiracy even though the defendants were loosely connected, and some who attended the protest did not even know each other.

So being anti-fascist is llegal and worthy of going to prison for life in the United States.