Have you found the connection between Richard Dawkins and Neal Stephenson?

Human Nature and Social Networks [PDF]

Believe it or not, that headline is for real.

KANDAHAR -- A wave of crime in this southern Afghan city has evoked a growing local nostalgia for the Taliban era of 1996 to 2001, when the extremist Islamic militia imposed law and order by draconian means.

The rising discontent in Kandahar could prove particularly problematic for Karzai.

There is much about Kandahar that underscores how far it has progressed since the Taliban's ouster. Bazaars are filled with merchandise, from photos to VCRs, that would have been unthinkable during the Taliban era.

Still, residents say, the outward trappings mask entrenched problems.

On March 13, I ran an NYRB article called "The Real Afghanistan"; did you read it? This story reinforces the same themes.

Afghan Crime Wave Breeds Nostalgia for Taliban

Finally, the time has come!

... a resplendently silly new musical ...

This eager celebration of inanity will find a large and lucrative audience among those who value the virtues of shrewd idiocy, artful tackiness and wide-eyed impiety.

'Monty Python's Spamalot': A Quest Beyond the Grail

This is pretty cool; it debuted in late January but I hadn't noticed it until now.

Our mission is to organize the world's information, and that includes the thousands of programs that play on our TVs every day. Google Video enables you to search a growing archive of televised content -- everything from sports to dinosaur documentaries to news shows.

Right now we're just testing this product, so you'll find programs only from a limited number of channels, which we've been indexing since late December 2004. You can expect to see more and more content as we continue to add new channels.

Google Video Search

For all of you who lust for "a delightful romp through grammar," here you go. Enjoy!

From Geronimo! to gesundheit to haminahamina to holy mackerel, and from abracadabra to zoinks, Mark Dunn and Sergio Aragonés show you interjections like you've never seen them before.

Often thought of as unnecessary verbal fringe or simply linguistic decoration, interjections (ahem, howdy, mamma mia, pshaw, tally-ho, whoop-de-do) may well be the most overlooked part of speech in the English language. ZOUNDS! A Browser's Dictionary of Interjections focuses the spotlight on this most deserving (and sometimes most demented) grammatical group. A light-hearted look at more than 500 interjections, ZOUNDS! explores the origins of these essential words and highlights the contributions of these previously unheralded parts of speech.

Perfect for both word lovers and the casual reader, ZOUNDS! brings together the linguistic talents of Mark Dunn, author of the award-winning novel Ella Minnow Pea, and the graphic hilarity of Sergio Aragonés, the legendary cartoonist and contributor to Mad Magazine, for a delightful romp through grammar, culture, and the English language.

ZOUNDS! : A Browser's Dictionary of Interjections

Yesterday, I memed a letter to the editor at the Washington Post in which the author complained about nonsense words and phrases like "going forward" that seem to plague the world today.

Well, as annoying as such phrases may be at times, they can also be fun! Or so says Mark Dunn, who's written an entire book about interjections.

Zounds!: A Browser's Dictionary of Interjections explains where a few of our favorite filler words come from. English, having the most words, has the most interjections, and the lexicon is growing daily.

Gadzooks and Yadda Yadda

The refusal of the intelligence services to yield on the admissibility of intercept evidence, and the support they have received for this position from their political masters, is the clearest evidence we have that if this is not yet the case, it is (though they would no doubt phrase it differently) the wish of important elements in our political and security community.

Short Cuts

The books on display are significant both as physical objects and as reminders of great stories. Taken as a whole, they provide an index of American interests and reading tastes over the last two and a half centuries.

Be sure to check out "The Blockbuster" under "Types of Bestsellers."

Rave Reviews: Bestselling Fiction in America

Elonka wrote:
] Note: I've been curious as to what other books beat DVC's
] sales records.

Nothing definitive on that point, but I did find a few data points:

* What to Expect When You're Expecting: 12.7 million in the USA; published in 30 languages worldwide.

* Robert Ludlum: 25 novels and more than 210 million copies worldwide.

* Da Vinci Code: 29 million in print worldwide.

In 1997, 2.1 billion books were sold in the US, including 758 million hardcover units.

According to Google Answers

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=14

most works of fiction can't compete with the likes of the Bible and Chairman Mao's Little Red Book. This page claims that "The Valley of the Dolls" is the bestselling fiction of all time. (This is affirmed by other sources, as well.) The count is not provided, but it is said that #2 is Gone With The Wind, with 28 million copies sold. This page also provides a list of books exceeding 10 million copies sold; one of them, The Godfather, has sold 20 million copies, according to a University of Virginia study.

Comparing 'Da Vinci Code' to the bestselling books of all time

The FCC under Martin is likely to be more active on indecency than under Powell.

FCC's New Standards-Bearer