Shabbir's Diary

Israeli elections

I know everyone's focused on the State of the Union, but frankly, I find the Israeli elections to have more of an immediate impact on our future. In particular, the fight between the secularists and the ultra-orthodox is a fight we have played out in every country (America included) that is not an organized theocracy.

The Sublime Sarah Vowell

I saw Sarah Vowell speak at the recent They Might Be Giants vs. McSweeney's show here in DC. She read one short section from her book The Partly Cloudy Patriot which was hysterical. Certainly a lot funnier than Dave Eggers could be in a million years. Sarah (my wife, not the author) picked up the book for me, and I enjoyed it thoroughly

Mark Fiore

Since Salon has gone all-pay (and I'm a cheap bastard) I've had to go straight to the horse's patootie for my weekly fix of Mark Fiore. Take a moment and check out one of the greatest political animators of our age.

No Way to Treat a First Lady

Warning: I think Christopher Buckley is hysterical. Perhaps it's the strange way he dresses when he comes to the dog park by my house when he walks his dog, but I think that's just one of life's little benefits of living in Washington DC. No, Christopher Buckley is hilarious because he understands how politics really works, and can make it funny without being paralyzed by the cynicism that usually accompanies any insightful understanding of the sausage factory of politics.

Gambling as a profession (or maybe not)

My winter holiday this year was spent in a warm place with a stack of books, some good friends, and a flu we all shared. Despite the flu, we had a great time, and I'd repeat the entire experience in a heartbeat (except for the vomiting).

It was this book, Michael Konik's "The Man with the $100,000 Breasts", that set the theme for my vacation reading. Following on my read of the MIT Blackjack Club book (which I now believe to be true), I went out and bought a number of leading books about gamblers, as opposed to books to teach you how to gamble.