Pamela M. takes us through a humorous journey covering transaction isolation levels in SQL Server:
READ COMMITTED: One step up (and the default for SQL Server). A query in the current transaction can’t read data modified by someone else that hasn’t yet committed. No dirty reads. BUT….data could be changed by others between statements in the current transaction, so the data may not look the same twice. READ COMMITTED uses shared locks to prevent dirty reads, but that’s about all you get. You still get non-repeatable reads and phantom reads here (more on phantom reads below).
Click through for the full list.