Official Neal Stephenson WebsiteOrder “Anathem” HERERead Reviews via Booklist + Threat Quality PressINTRODUCTION: Neal Stephenson needs no introduction. Possibly the most acclaimed US speculative fiction writer today, Mr. Stephenson has written masterpieces like “Diamond Age”, “Cryptonomicon”, and the extraordinary Baroque Trilogy about the beginning of the scientific and technological era that we are currently living in.In “Anathem”, Mr. Stephenson offers another triumphant combination of grand ideas and large-scale action, this time tackling deep questions about ...

Bruce "Two Dogs" Bozsum, then the chairman of the Mohegan Tribe, opened a new casino on Friday morning. The 64,000-square-foot addition to Mohegan Sun called Casino of the Wind is the latest piece of a $925 million expansion intended to keep up with nearby Foxwoods Resort Casino.

On the August 29 broadcast of the CBS Evening News, Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer asserted that Sen. John McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, is "[s]omeone, you know, who is against earmarks, who is against that bridge to nowhere." But as Media Matters for America previously noted, Palin's administration has said it requested federal earmarks in 2008, and she reportedly initially supported the so-called "bridge to nowhere" project. While Palin canceled state ...

The MVP candidate did not have an MVP kind of game Sunday afternoon. The Fenway Park masses kept shouting their "MVP! MVP! MVP!" chant each time cleanup hitter Dustin Pedroia came to the dish, but the best Pedie could offer in the way of thanks was a bloop single down the right field line in the bottom of the first inning. And while bloop singles are fine if you're, say, a 5-foot-9, 180-pound second baseman, ...

"As one McCain aide put it: "We either get Hillary's voters and we win, or we don't. It's not a mystery." In a move that reeks of desperate Hail Mary strategizing (and, to my mind, grossly overestimates the potential PUMA vote in this country), John McCain chooses Alaska governor Sarah Palin, a woman he'd barely spoken to before yesterday, as his running mate. (I was flying back from Denver when the news hit, and it's ...

Interesting choice. My immediate reaction is that it’s a funny old world. We’re guaranteed either an African-American or a woman in the White House next year. Like the vast majority of people, I know nothing much about Palin. Based on her potted biography, my feeling is that, if you’re unrelated to powerful people, you don’t get to be Governor of a corrupt state by being ambitious but stupid. But neither, mostly, do you get their ...

AnglopheniaUpcoming Doctor Who Specials To Get "US Setting" and "US Assistant"?Anglophenia, NY - 16 hours ago(Daily Mail) The New York Press' Armond White, the legendarily maverick film critic, says Jason Statham "has the best track record of any contemporary movie ...

Reports are starting to circulate that two of the proposed three "Doctor Who" specials planned for 2009 will be filmed in the United States rather than the United Kingdom. According to News of the World, a BBC source said that such a move -- the first since the 1996 "Doctor Who" film was shot in Vancouver, B.C. as well as San Francisco -- is in response to the show's continued popularity in the United States ...

"To those who still believe in the myth of a maverick instead of the reality of a politician, I say let's compare Senator McCain to Candidate McCain. Candidate McCain now supports the very wartime tax cuts that Senator McCain once called irresponsible. Candidate McCain criticizes Senator McCain's own climate change bill. Candidate McCain says he would vote against the immigration bill that Senator McCain wrote. Are you kidding me, folks? Talk about being for it ...

Nathan Rabin's sporadic exploration of things that are awesome delves into the mind-blowing comic genius of radio duo Scharpling & Wurster

By picking Joe Biden as a running mate, Barack Obama may have reassured the electorate about his lack of experience and foreign policy bona fides, according to some pundits. But the coal-state senator may have also taken a step toward shoring up his enviro cred.The Delaware senator is as serious as a heart attack about energy policy--a point The Wall Street Journal's Jeffrey Ball made this weekend. [More]

When I played Little League, there was a kid on another team who threw hard. I mean, he threw really hard. He threw so hard that most of us questioned if he was really under the age 12 limit that our local league imposed. We were so intimidated by this kid that the well-known rumor he was already shaving carried real weight. And when someone said this guy was in the habit of driving his ...

The Dartmouth College Library hosts a Simple Book Repair Manual, which teaches you how to repair common problems such as torn pages and wet books. For more complicated procedures, the Alaska State Library put together a training manual, with illustrations of repair procedures. (Full PDF here.) There is also a book conservation dictionary hosted by the Stanford conservation department, which explains many of the terms used.

An article on the FOX News website today reminds the public that Joe Biden is 65 and just could have another brain aneurysm. The article opens with this rather obvious question. " As he approaches the end of his sixth term as a U.S. senator from Delaware, Joe Biden certainly lends experience to Barack Obama's presidential campaign. But is the 65-year-old Democratic vice presidential nominee-to-be physically fit to be "a heartbeat away"? read the article ...

With a mandate to teach evolution but little guidance as to how, science teachers are contriving their own ways to turn a culture war into a lesson plan.

Yo La Tengo @ McCarren Pool 8/24/2008Mr. Tough (with horns) / Do The Swim (with horns) / Pass The Hatchet, I Think I'm Goodkind / Stockholm Syndrome / Pablo & Andrea / The Weakest Part / "Joan Is In Love" (not sure what this is, really pretty song, probably a cover) / Cherry Chapstick / ? (vaguely Mission Of Burma-ish song) / Moby Octopad (with horns) / Watch Out For Me Ronnie (with horns) / ...

In 2005, "Doctor Who" returned to the BBC after more than a decade off the air and has been met with constant critical success and ratings wins. Now as the series winds down a little to make way for four specials in place of a full season, one could be forgiven for thinking "Doctor Who" fever is gone. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth and even new showrunner Steven Moffat has admitted ...