Training 284/P90X 53.

2.5L water, 2 big meals [Detour Whey Protein Chocolate Creamy Peanut Bars are like crack cocaine, I swear], P90X X Stretch wkout - the only P90X routine I actually wish was longer. Good stuff.

Calling Freud, Jung, Jesus...

The Agitator » Blog Archive » Morning Links:

"I am shocked, shocked!, to learn that evangelical gay-basher Ted Haggard was not only patronizing a beefy gay masseuse, but was also seeing an 18-year-old boy, and that his church tried to cover it all up by paying for the kid’s college tuition. The number of moral crusaders who in private engage in the very practices they condemn is well beyond the point of laughable hypocrisy now. It seems downright pathological. There seems to be a real correlation between the vehemence and vociferousness with which a public figure rails against “sexual deviants,” and the likelihood that that person is himself engaged in the same behavior. Someone should write their dissertation on this."

James Gunn's PG Porn - "Roadside Ass-sistance."

Roadside Ass-sistance
Via TunaFlix » Blog Archive » Now Sasha Grey Is Doing PG Porn Too…

Gotta try this - "Bacon and Cheese Roll."

Sounds/looks glorious.

The Age of Reason follows the Age of Caffeine.

Indeed.

Yeah we are.

Training 283/P90X 52.

3L water, 2 meals, P90X Kempo X wkout.

Inspiration - 54 freaking years old... Awesome - Who is Mark? | Mark's Daily Apple:

"In a nutshell:
- fresh, organic, unprocessed food - no junk!
- daily activity - whether it’s the gym or a walk along the beach, it all counts
- plenty of quality sleep
- plenty of water, no soda or sweetened drinks
- antioxidants galore - the key to limiting stress
- a good fish-oil supplement
- essential fats, reckless amounts of vegetables, and lean, clean protein
- time for fun - don’t take anything too seriously - ethical behavior - because what goes around comes around
- taking responsibility for yourself and your life - openness to new things and ideas

What is your bottom line?

Easy! I am nothing short of outraged by the mass-marketing of deadly drugs, surgery, and lifestyles that do nothing more than destroy people’s lives. I believe humans have a right to something better - if we demand it."

For JM - "Cops at night."

Overheard Comedy.

Overheard in New York | Wednesday Bloodliners:

"Guido, getting his hair cut, in a thick Staten Island accent: Show me where it says in the Holy Bible that you can't bang your stepsister.

--Staten Island Barber Shop

Overheard by: Snewsboy

Girl to guy: And then he cheated on me with his male and female cousin.

--9th & 21st, Chelsea

Guy on phone: You should tell him next time he should keep his dick in his sister.

--72nd & Central Park West"

Overheard in New York | Wednesday One-Linered...With Children:

"Old Jewish woman to very nervous Asian 25-year-old bride to be: Honey, I've been married 53 years. The secret to a great marriage? Give him lots of sex. Lots of good sex.

--Dumbo, Brooklyn

Overheard by: Tanya

Five-year-old boy to teacher about five-year-old girl next to him: We're going to get married. (to five-year-old girl) What's your name again?

--61st & Amsterdam"

"Eroding the Exclusionary Rule" - Continuing the diminishment of civil liberties and moving ever closer to, yeah, I'll say it - a police state.

Reproduced almost but not quite in full, because, damn it, this is important. And nobody seems to care.

FOXNews.com - Eroding the Exclusionary Rule - Opinion:

"In the recent Supreme Court case Herring v. United States, the majority determined that courts may not throw out evidence in cases where the police may have violated a suspect's Fourth Amendment rights due to "isolated negligence." The case represents further erosion of the exclusionary rule, a doctrine dating back to 1914 (with some weaker antecedents in English law) holding that evidence obtained through unconstitutional police procedures can't be used against a defendant at trial.

Conservatives have long despised the exclusionary rule, arguing that it protects the guilty (by disallowing evidence of their guilt at trial) and does little to protect the innocent (those who've done nothing wrong aren't going to be prosecuted). There's some merit to those arguments. It is an imperfect remedy to search and seizure violations.

The problem is that right now, it's really the only remedy. If police officers can make a case against someone using evidence they obtained illegally, what's to stop them from disregarding the Fourth Amendment entirely?

...The more direct hurdle to the use of lawsuits to halt police misconduct is that as government employees, the police have qualified immunity from such suits. They're effectively shielded from liability — even if they've done something unlawful — unless you can show they've violated "clearly established law," as determined by a reasonable person.

...If you take away the exclusionary rule and you make it increasingly difficult to sue police officers for search and seizure violations, the Fourth Amendment carries all the literal weight of the parchment on which it's written. Without an enforcement mechanism, it's meaningless.

Some — most notably Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia — have argued that the Exclusionary Rule is no longer necessary, because there's a "new professionalism" that's been sweeping police departments over the last 20 or so years. Scalia first made that argument in the 2006 case Hudson v. Michigan. He may be right that police today are more cognizant of civil liberties than they were in the 1950s or 1960s. But "better" doesn't necessarily equate to "acceptable." The "Blue Wall of Silence" — the code by which police officers refuse to testify against one another — hasn't exactly broken down. In just the last year, police departments in Atlanta, Oakland, and Chesapeake, Va., have come under fire for taking shortcuts on search warrants, including outright lying.

Dr. Sam Walker, one criminologist Scalia referenced in his Hudson opinion, actually took to the pages of the L.A. Times to denounce how Scalia had interpreted his work.

...In response to the Court's ruling in Herring, University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds proposed a grand bargain to the law-and-order crowd: He'd give up the exclusionary rule, if they'd work with him to get rid of qualified immunity.

It's not a bad deal. In fact, it would be a good idea to get rid of qualified immunity for all government employees. They idea that getting a government paycheck somehow inoculates you from liability should you harm someone while on the job is antithetical to the principle of equality under the law. If anything, the government should be held to a higher standard.

I'd add, though, that opening police officers up to lawsuits probably isn't enough. There's an interesting dichotomy on the right when it comes to the police. The same philosophy that distrusts the government when it manifests itself as bureaucrats and regulators (a sentiment I share) seems to put an unhealthy amount of trust in the government employees we call police officers. The sentiment among many on the right is that the police need less supervision, less watch-dogging, and less second-guessing than other government employees. This is particularly odd given that, compared to your average bureaucrat, police officers are entrusted with an extraordinary amount of power, at least when it comes to the power they wield over the people with whom they come into contact. They are as susceptible to the same trappings of power as any scorned EPA regulator or grudge-bearing city council member, only they're also entrusted with the power to detain, use force, and kill.

My point is not that police officers on an individual level are terrible people, or more prone to misbehavior than your typical government employee or your typical citizen. The problem comes when the weaknesses that are in all of us are coupled with a license to use force, authority, and the sense that one is above the law. Philip Zimbardo's famous Stanford prison experiments showed that it doesn't matter who you put in that position, the results can be disastrous without the proper controls. We can't do anything about the first element, and the second and third are by definition part of policing. It's that last one that we can change.

To make matters worse, for the last 30 years politicians have trumpeted a "get tough on crime" message that has resulted in measuring police departments and prosecutors primarily by how many people they're able to arrest and toss in jail. There's a huge push for arrests, and a de-emphasis on civil liberties. It isn't difficult to see the sorts of incentives that sets up.

If we're going to get rid of the exclusionary rule, it needs to be replaced not only with alternative punitive measures, but also with a wholesale change in mindset that emphasizes the "keeping the peace" approach to policing, as opposed to merely racking up arrest statistics.

I don't see either happening any time soon."

Fred on practical Middle East realizations - "Stabbing jello doesn't buy you much."

The continued existence of Israel? Much more at the link.

Fred On Everything:

"The practical question regarding Israel’s recent invasion of Gaza is not “Who is right?” but “Can Israel last?”

As I write, Israel is using a military designed to fight hostile countries to fight a hostile population. In the modern world, this has seldom worked. To defeat a country you destroy its military and capture its territory. But Gaza has little military to destroy, no tanks or aircraft, and Israel already owns its territory. The IDF can invade but, afterward, the population will still be there, and still be hostile. Stabbing jello doesn’t buy you much.

Israel remains a small state in a region that intensely doesn’t want it. The rights and wrongs change nothing...

Israel today is not the country once dreamed, in which Heidelberg professors escaped from Europe would work the soil with their hands on kibbutzim and play chess and the violin at night. It looks more like what the professors fled. Brutal conflicts breed brutal people. Atrocities engender counter- atrocities, extremists come to the fore, and military solutions seem the only solutions.

Where is this going? How long can it continue? Another fifty years? A hundred? Say I, either the country finds peace with its neighbors or it goes the way of the Crusader Kingdom. We can stipulate that the Israelis are the world’s best people, or the worst. It doesn’t matter. You can die in the right as easily as in the wrong.

The Israelis appear to be trapping themselves in their own policies. They continue their annexation of the West Bank. The settlements are now so numerous and so populous that dismantling them is probably politically impossible for any Israeli government, which rules out a two-state solution. To control a large hostile population, you need harsh methods, which keep the population hostile. Arabs outbreed the Israelis, so that a proportionately declining number of Israelis rule a slowly rising tide of Arabs. Think: South Africa. How is this going to work? For how long?

Israel also has a large internal minority of Arabs. These also outbreed the Jews. If this continues and the internal Arabs can vote, Israel will one day become an Islamic state. Sooner or later, the question will be: Democratic, or Jewish?

...Since Israelis do not yearn to get in touch with their inner Moslem, the choices will be disenfranchisement or ethnic cleansing. Disenfranchisement would, again, leave a diminishing proportion of Jews ruling more and more Moslems. Think: Alabama in 1930.

...Today, the Bomb is Israel’s trump card. If, say, Syria attacked and (improbably) began to win, its cities would turn to green glass, and Damascus knows it. Thus Israel is in exactly zero danger of conventional defeat. But if Arab countries had nuclear weapons, the trump card would lose its value. You have to be very careful about bombing countries that can vaporize your cities."

Ready?! [Japanese] Dodgeball!

So, one of the folks who visited last fall/winter are having a Japanese festival back in the U.S. and they sent a fax/letter to one of my elementary schools to ask some questions and whatnot. One of them was how the Japanese kids play dodgeball - which is a beautiful thing.

I also read their explanation that I think they sent back describing the game, and, despite having played the game, I couldn't exactly follow it. To be fair, I think it might be actually describing an older, more traditional version of the game, but it's not one I've ever played.

So, anyways, I spent 5 minutes in Paint and another 10 in Google Docs to knock out a description of the way the kids have taught me how to play. I don't know that this is THE way to play, but it's how we do it round here in Tsuyazaki.

And I figured I'd post it up because, surprisingly, Googling "Japanese dodgeball rules" didn't get me any hits that I could find in the first couple pages that clearly and simply explained it. So, here's my stab at it, if anyone else needs it.

Japanese Dodgeball Rules

2 teams, in this example, Team A and Team B.

Captains are decided and choose up teams. Who goes first is usually decided by rock-paper-scissors. Winner gets first pick, loser usually gets the ball first. Though sometimes they rock-paper-scissors again for the ball.

Team A plays both in the large area A and in the boundary area A1 - the color blue on the picture. [And B plays in both B and B1 - the red.] Usually only two or three students start the game in A1 and B1, depending on the number of students playing.

Gameplay: In this example we'll say a player in A has the ball. They can either throw and try to hit a player in B or pass the ball over the heads/around/through the players in B to their teamates in A1. If A throws it at a player in B and hits them, the struck player in B must move to B1. A player in A1 can also throw at a player in B or pass back to A, however they rarely pass to the players in A because if a player throws the ball from A1 and hits a player in B, that frees the thrower from A1 [they return to A] and the player in B who is struck has to go to B1. In this way the players are constantly rotating from A to A1 and from B to B1. This makes the game much longer and less cutthroat than the American version [emphasizing teamwork, cooperation and all sorts of other Japanese-y traits.] You can 'win' by eliminating all the players from either A or B. Though it takes a lot longer and usually only happens when there's a few players. So you can end up playing for a good 20-30m without a clear winner or finish. That's what the school bell is for.

Random rules - you can catch any ball thrown at you, with no penalty for the for the thrower or the catcher. Any shots to the face/head don't count and the player stays in A or B. I know this only because I've hit too many kids in the head. Not a lot of body mass to aim for on those midgets. And the last one I can think of is that the players in A and B are stuck there, but the players in A1 and B1 can run for a loose ball. But the boundaries and halfway lines [areas A1 and B1] are considered to extend indefinitely, so if a loose ball passes into "their" area, only players from that team can retrieve it. In other words, for example, a player from A1 can't cross the center line into B1 to retrieve a loose ball.

Training 282/P90X 51.

3L water, 1 big meal, P90X Core Synergistics wkout.

My comedic motivation of the day.


My kick-ass/tough-love/take-no-prisoners motivation of the day.

» » Pretty basic and simple to get lean and stay lean:

"So you want to get lean and stay lean. It’s simple: just stop eating crap! Stop talking yourself into cheat meals benefit you or that those cookies are ok. There is no such thing as comfort eating in my book. Don’t be naive, you think you’ll be happier with that junk in your trunk? Heck no! Deal with it and stop complaining! Listen, we all know we were conditioned by society and our parents to stick something sweet into our mouth whenever we felt down, but that was then, now is different. be a grown up, be responsible for your actions!

Yeah, food is wonderful and yummy. That’s why fat people get fat! You are no different! It’s not unfair that you cannot eat and get away with it. Yes, there are people who do, but you are not one of them apparently.

Nobody is born with a lean and muscular physique. It takes dedication. You either have it or you get it. Cannot buy it just like you cannot buy love!

I get it, you are feeling like you’re starving, but check yourself in the mirror and take a good look. I am sure you’ve got some pounds indicating you are just fine! Low blood sugar, feeling jittery, no energy? Welcome to the club, it’s the price you pay!

...Just accept or change your goals!

...Stop complaining and just DO.

...Just go work your ass off and you will be fine!"

Hell hath no fury...

Via Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

More than I ever learned.

Overheard Everywhere | What Happens When Whoopi Goldberg Is Your Bible School Teacher:

"Mother to young son: What did you learn in church today?
Son: I told you.
Mother: What was it again?
Son: That when you play tic-tac-toe it's best to pick the middle square.

Costco
Boise, Idaho"

Training 281/P90X 50.

This week's the scheduled 'recovery' week in P90X.

Today was supposed to be Yoga X, so I subbed in X Stretch. X Stretch is honestly what I had expected the Yoga wkout to be, kind of relaxing and slightly strenuous. In reality, the Yoga wkout is just brutal. So I'm gonna keep subbing out X Stretch this round. Surprisingly, today was the first time my feet were able to hit the deck in plow pose, and today was also the first time I was able to [briefly] pull off bow pose. So hey, progress.

I also needed to work out some tension, so I also did 3 sets [10/6/6] of single arm dumbbell snatches. Throwing weights around is soothing.

2.5L water, 2 meals

Training 277-280/P90X 46-49 - "Success leaves clues. Follow them."

So, yeah, this week started off well again and then got shot all to hell. Thursday was screwed up. The totality of the day was spent fighting off just a brutal headache. So that, despite the amount of aspirin I popped, plus being sore from both Monday's and Wednesday's wkout [Tuesday's Plyo, while hard as fu** doesn't leave me sore after like Chest&Tri/Back&Bi] ...anyways, Thursday was a wash. There was no way I could hang w/90m of ass-kicking Yoga.

Speaking of, as it's the midway point of the whole P90X program, while I'm making progress, it's really slow, and I'm clearly gonna have to do more than one cycle to be able to hang/get up to snuff... so from now to the end of this first cycle I'm gonna sub in the X Stretch for the Yoga X. Yoga X is actually probably the most brutal of the workouts for me. And 90m mid-week is just, honestly, too inconvenient. And I guess it's worthwhile knowing, right now, how much I'm willing to push it.

Friday I managed to knock out Legs&Back [still tore up and sore today]... 2 meals and 2L water. I really have to start getting more water.

And then today and yesterday... man, weekends are a bitch. I had every intention of getting one wkout in this weekend. But between snow and cold and laundry and blah, blah, blah, excuse, excuse, excuse... it just didn't happen. Which I feel crappy about.

But well, this past week while I missed two wkouts, I did hit 4. So I guess I really should try to focus more on what I did well than what I didn't. I have a tendency to beat myself up for my "failings" [I blame my upbringing. And the Catholic Church. And the World.] But, figure, I did mostly okay this week. And next week I'm going to try to do better.

Inspiration/Motivation.

Bodybuilding.com - Over 40 Transformation Of The Week - Over 40 Transformation Of The Week - Judith Corbett!:

"Name: Judith Corbett
Age: 43
Height: 5'9'
Weight: 177 lbs
Chest: 37'
Waist: 30'
Hips: 40'


After:
Age: 46
Height: 5'9'
Weight: 150 lbs
Chest: 35'
Waist: 26.5'
Hips: 36'"

Bodybuilding.com - Female Transformation Of The Week - Female Transformation Of The Week - Vanessa Bailey!:

"Name: Vanessa Bailey
Before:
Age: 22
Height: 5'7'
Weight: 180 lbs
Body Fat: 28%


After:
Age: 28
Height: 5'6'
Weight: 130 lbs
Body Fat: 10%"

T-Nation.com | Seven Keys to a Successful Body Transformation:

"...Sure, most of us add some muscle, lose some fat, get stronger, feel better. Nothing wrong with that. But very few make those head-turning, 'holy shit!' transformations.

So what are the secrets of those who do succeed?

...I asked one question: "What do people who make successful physical transformations all have in common?"

Here's what they told me.

#1: They Become Assholes ... for a While

When you turn on the TV and come across a show about weight loss, you'll see a lot of crying, hugging, and syrupy-sweet one-liners about having a positive attitude.

Well, fuck that. In the real world, successful people get pissed off.

..."People who get angry and fed up with being out of shape always have the most amazing, lasting transformations," says Olesya Novik, a trainer and editor of our sister site, Figure Athlete. "They feel like they've got nothing left to lose, so they push themselves to extremes and keep coming back for more."

...how does a self-pitying whiner deal with discomfort? He quits. How does a guy who's willing to be an asshole deal with it? He gets ticked and fights through it. And he wins.

Anger isn't the only socially unacceptable personality trait that comes into play. "Significant change comes with getting a little selfish," says John Berardi, Ph.D. "That doesn't have to be a bad thing, although some of your friends and family may think so."

Even if it feels weird to set aside time for yourself and your own self-improvement, it's the only way to pull it off, Berardi adds. "You have to get a little selfish and take some of your time back." That allows you to avoid distraction while focusing so intensely on a single goal.

Another dickish trait common to physique success stories is a certain sense of superiority. You don't have to hold the weak-willed people around you in contempt, but it helps to remind yourself that you're stronger and more determined than people who skip workouts and succumb to the siren call of Dunkin Donuts.

...Take-home lesson: Positive changes often occur with the use of a negative attitude. Being an angry, self-centered asshole with a superiority complex helps body transformers reach their goals. Just be sure to cut that shit out when you're done.

#2: They Surround Themselves with Like-Minded People

"Your results and expectations are directly related to those people with whom you spend your time," says Dave Tate, a successful powerlifter, entrepreneur, coach, and transformer...

"You're the average of the five people you spend the most time with," says Charles Poliquin. If you're trying to lose fat, then hanging around sedentary junk-food junkies isn't going to work. They're more likely to bring you down than you are to bring them up...

#3: They Set Specific Goals, With a Deadline to Reach Them...

#4: They Keep Logs...

#5: They Choose a Plan and Stick to It..

Too often, those who want to build muscle and lose fat develop "programming ADD." They adopt a training program or a diet, do it for a couple of weeks, then jump ship as soon as something new comes along. And something new always comes along.

The truth is, the new program probably isn't better. It's just different. Those who win are often those who adopt a plan of action and repeat it until their goal is reached...

#6: They Train Brutally Hard

People who don't achieve their physique goals often underestimate the time and effort it takes to change their body. They're inundated with commercials on TV promising amazing results in only 20 minutes, three times per week. Inevitably, the model using whatever gadget is being advertised is in phenomenal shape.

The implication, of course, is that the model developed his or her physique with the gadget, training just 60 minutes a week. Which, as we all know, is horseshit.

"People who make successful body transformations work out intensely at least six days a week," says Cassandra Forsythe, an author and Ph.D. candidate at the University of Connecticut...

#7: They Pre-Plan Their Meals...

...More Actions for Body Transformation

Chad Waterbury: "They eat fat. Fat is the most underrated and misunderstood nutrient. You need at least one-third of your calories to come from it..."

Alwyn Cosgrove: "Reduced-carb diets seem to outperform any other dietary manipulation..."

Olesya Novik: "People who are most successful allow for minor setbacks. Most people who convince themselves that they'll be 100 percent dedicated and will lose at least two pounds a week for four months usually end up dropping the whole program as soon as they step on the scale and see that it only moved a half-pound down. Those who're patient with themselves, set smaller goals, and actually expect to have a bad day once in a while end up ahead because they're never disappointed enough to quit."

...Success leaves clues. Follow them."

An easy way to understand religion.

Too funny.

New York health care is kind of awesome.

Overheard in New York | ...Four or Five Hours After You Report Them:

"Woman with migraine: Help me! I'm dying! I'm dying!
Triage nurse: Alright ma'am, just calm down and tell me what the problem is.
Woman with migraine: I'm fucking dying, what are you, stupid?
Triage nurse: Well, as soon as you develop some signs or symptoms other than being obnoxious, we'll talk.

--NYU Medical Center ER

Overheard by: Turn their ankles"

What I've Read - and what I realized.

We'll start off with "what I realized" - obvious to most, I'm sure - but the bottom line is that life is far to short to be reading stuff [and watching and/or doing stuff] that you're not getting anything out of. Be it entertainment, knowledge, or perspective. But I far too often find myself trying to slog through a book because I'd heard it was supposed to be good, or I liked some of the author's other books, or a person or source I respect recommended it, or the book is just on the edge of getting interesting, or - and this is all too often - I'm determined to finish a book just because I started it. Insane. Life is too short. So I need to just stop.

Cases in point, which brought this stunningly obvious realization to a head recently - I'd gotten to page 400 on Carter Beats the Devil when it struck me I just didn't really like it all that much. Parts of it were interesting, but I kept reading because I dig on period pieces, and I love early 20th century magic. But I found myself bored reading this, waiting for it to get interesting, and thinking it was too long by half. And it took me to page 400 to put it down and quit it. Same with James Ellroy's Destination: Morgue. I loved American Tabloid and The Cold Six Thousand and I liked Black Dahlia, but Destination: Morgue bored the hell out of me. Can't even tell you why, I just didn't dig it. All the harder to put down because it's a series of short stories and I'd keep reading in hopes I'd really dig the next one.

And finally, I'd read the first book in the Science in the Capital series - Forty Signs of Rain - and was about 100 pages into the second when I realized I just didn't like them all that much. It was hard to quit reading because I'd heard great things about the author, the books were loaned to me by Mike, with whom I generally agree with taste-wise, and the books did show occasional flashes of really interesting and cool stuff. Just not enough to keep me reading.

Anyways, on to what I have read of late...

The Keeper of the Flame―A Story of the Atomic Bomb in Hiroshima by Mari Kaigo. A short book about the Hiroshima Flame Monument in Hoshino, Fukuoka, Japan. Like a lot of work in Japan about the war, it treads that really fine line between being very thoughtful and moving and almost, well, fetishizing its "victimhood." Still, a fascinating tale.

Peace Flames & Beacons Around the World:

"2002 - Hiroshima Flame Monument, Hoshino, Fukuoka Prefecture, Kyushu Island (Japan). 'Image shows Takudou Yamamoto displaying a flame that has been burning continuously since the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima, and was brought to the western Japanese village of Hoshino by his father Tatsuo, who kept it personally for more than two decades.'"

Mastering Your Hidden Self: Guide to the Huna Way by Serge King. I'm of two minds on Huna... On one hand I totally agree with some of the underlying concepts of it's metaphysical approach. On the other hand, it bugs me that a lot of it puts itself out as a native Hawaiian, when it actually probably owes a lot more to the New Thought movement of the 19th century. A lot of good stuff in the book but my favorite work on Huna is still Fundamentals of Hawaiian Mysticism by Charlotte Berney.

Super Power Breathing for Energy by Paul and Patricia Bragg. Some good breathing exercises here. And lots of old school health advice. Some nonsense as well, imho, but the good outweighs the bad.

JLA/Avengers by Kurt Busiek and George Perez. Straight up slam-bang superhero goodness. Good story by Busiek, outstanding work by Perez on art.

"The most powerful characters in two universes collide as DC's premier super-heroes meet Marvel's. Collected in a gorgeous two-volume oversized slipcased hardcover is perhaps the most eagerly anticipated and memorable crossover of all time, as the Justice League of America unites with The Avengers. Superman, Batman, and the other members of the JLA join forces with Captain America, Iron Man, and the many other Avengers to fight a threat so immense it threatens two entire dimensions."

The Boys, Vol 2: Get Some and Vol 3: Good for the Soul by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson. Brilliantly subversively and wickedly funny superhero... well, parody isn't the right word, because like with Preacher before it [also by Ennis], beneath the [hilarious] obscenity and perversion is the soul of very moving story, with characters you really do grow to care about.

"In a world where costumed heroes soar through the sky and masked vigilantes prowl the night, someone's got to make sure the "supes" don't get out of line. And someone will. Billy Butcher, Wee Hughies, Mother's Milk, The Frenchman and the Female are The Boys: a CIA-backed team of very dangerous people, each one dedicated to the struggle against the most dangerous force on Earth-superpower. Some superheroes have to be watched. Some have to be controlled. And some of them-sometimes need to be taken out of the picture. That's when you call in The Boys."

Black Summer by Warren Ellis and Juan Jose Ryp. John Horus, one of the world's only 8 superheroes, holds a press conference, covered in blood, and announces "Ten minutes ago, I executed the President of the United States and the Vice President. And several of their advisors." The awesome increases from there. Great book.

"Warren Ellis' eight-issue opus of masked hero revolution, Black Summer, perfectly complimented by the stunning and explosive art of the genius Juan Jose Ryp, is nothing less than a sequential masterpiece! The world goes black in this epic story of super-powered heroes and villains. The story begins when the political situation in the United States becomes more than Horus can stand, and he moves to take matters into his own hands. Unfortunately, not all of his team-mates are quite so eager to throw the world into chaos, and an epic conflict ensues. With Horus and the rest of the surviving Guns facing off against the military and each other, no one is safe as the bodies start to fall."

The Question Vol 3: Epitaph for a Hero by Dennis O'Neil and Denys Cowan. Continued reprints of the seminal, both in the medium, and for me personally, series from about 20 years ago. Philosophical, fun, thought provoking and engaging.

"The Question, the faceless, morally conflicted avenger based in corrupt Hub City! A martial arts master, The Question delved into Eastern philosophy as he battled crime and the crooked politicians of his hometown... . In this volume, The Question is captured while on the trail of paramilitary fanatics!"