Mladic the Monster

Our failure to respond to the Serbian atrocities prolonged the slaughter.
By Christopher Hitchens

"I suppose it is possible that the arrest of Gen. Ratko Mladic is as undramatic and uncomplicated as it seems and that in recent years he had been off the active list and gradually became a mumbling old derelict with a rather nasty line in veterans' reminiscences. His demands would probably have been modest and few: the odd glass of slivovitz in company with a sympathetic priest (it's usually the Serbian Orthodox Church.. "

Read More (Slate)

Rockstar with a voice

UPDATE ! "Please note: due to Christopher Hitchens' health challenges, he will be participating in the debate via video link rather than in person."

https://dogwood.uwaterloo.ca/alumnievents/store/comersus_viewItem.asp?idProduct=377

WATERLOO — Barry Brummett says he isn’t a rock star but Christopher Hitchens practically is. The two men are to take the stage at the Humanities Theatre at the University of Waterloo for a debate at a sold-out full house on June 4.

Debaters will address the topic: Religion, as a literary value, is a force of good. The debate will be moderated by the host of CBC Radio One’s Q, Jian Ghomeshi.

Full article (TheRecord.com)

Refutations from a Stalinist Commissar-Lookalike

This response to a response to a response to a response takes George Scialabba and Noam Chomsky to task for seemingly hasty analogies and false accusations.
By Christopher Hitchens

"George Scialabba confidently and effectively re-states the differences between Noam Chomsky and myself as they stood almost ten years ago. In my more recent article for Slate, however, I had briefly sought to bring attention to some fresh disagreements (at any rate new to me) arising from Chomsky’s comments on the killing of Osama bin Laden."

Read more (guernicamag.com)

Want To Stop Nuclear Proliferation? Encourage Democracy.

Ignore the shady people promoting sinister theories to the contrary.
By Christopher Hitchens

"It's very unpleasant to be given lectures on good behavior by the profiteers of nuclear proliferation, but if you can hold still and swallow your vomit, there are lessons to be learned from the exposure to it."
Read more (Slate)

Beaucoup B.S.

The DSK case and the silly stereotypes about American and European morals.
By Christopher Hitchens

"Why is that we cannot read any discussion of a political sex scandal, or a sex scandal involving a politician, without pseudo-sophisticated comments about the supposedly different morals of Americans and Europeans? And why is it that this goes double if the politician is French, or if the reactions being quoted are from Gallic sources?"

Read more (Slate)

The Enemy (Kindle Single) $1.99

Kindle Exclusive "..Hitchens reflects upon the life and death of Osama bin Laden in this sobering Kindle Single."

If you don't have Kindle, download free 'Kindle for PC' installer here.

Kindle also available on other various devices and platforms.


Amazon Product Description:
In a brilliant essay on the death of Osama bin Laden, Christopher Hitchens insists that the necessity to resist the threat of theocratic fanaticism is by no means cancelled. Hitchens argues that bin Laden and his adherents represented the most serious and determined and bloodthirsty attempt to revive totalitarian and racist ideology since 1945.
Read more (amazon)

The Four Horsemen of the Anti-Apocalypse Reunite in 2012

The Atheist Foundation of Australia is excited to announce that the next Global Atheist Convention – ‘A Celebration of Reason’ will feature headline speakers Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens (health permitting).

The Global Atheist Convention will be held once again at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre from 13 - 15 April 2012.

 More info: atheistfoundation.org.au and http://www.atheistconvention.org.au/

Egypt: Islamism Meets Realism

By Christopher Hitchens
FREE INQUIRY April/May 2011

 "I don’t think that a single newspaper or magazine article on Egypt has ever failed to mention the presence, in the wings of Egyptian politics, of the Muslim Brother hood. It’s one of those learned references that is de rigueur for every commentator and analyst. Yet it was notable, as both the Egyptian and the Tunisian regimes began to crumble in January, that the local branches and equivalents of the Brother hood seemed to be as thunderstruck as everyone else."

Read more (secularhumanism.org)

The Pacifists and the Trenches

The New York Times - Sunday Book Review
By Christopher Hitchens


"Woodrow Wilson’s fatuous claim about the European war of 1914-18 — sarcastically annexed by Adam Hochschild for the title of this moving and important book — was an object of satire and contempt even as it was being uttered. “A peace to end peace,” commented Sir Alfred Milner, that powerhouse of the British war cabinet, as he surveyed the terms of the Versailles treaty that supposedly brought the combat to a close."

Read more (nytimes.com)

Noam Chomsky responds to Hitchens' criticism

Original post (syracuse.com)

Red Rosa

The writings of the martyred socialist Rosa Luxemburg give a plaintive view of history’s paths not taken.
By Christopher Hitchens

"THE GENERALLY ACCEPTED verdict on 20th-century ideology—that its “totalitarian” character eclipses any of the ostensible differences between its “left” and “right” versions—is one that few wish to dispute. Indeed, the very term totalitarian was most probably coined by the dissident Marxist Victor Serge, to denote a uniquely modern form of absolutism that essentially sought to abolish the private life and the individual conscience." 

Read more (The Atlantic)

Think Inc 2011

Think Inc. Conference at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, September 18, 2011.

Neil deGrasse Tyson, Christopher Hitchens, Michael Shermer, Ayaan Hirsi Ali...

"Due to his ongoing battle with esophageal cancer, Christopher will be appearing live via video link from New York."

More info (thinkinc.org.au)

Award winning columns and favorite authors

Vanity Fair


Christopher Hitchens Wins National Magazine Award for Columns About Cancer http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2011/05/christopher-hitchens-wins-national-magazine-award-for-columns-about-cancer.html

Audio: Christopher Hitchen’s Favorite Authors
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2011/05/unspoken-truths.html

Chomsky's Follies

The professor's pronouncements about Osama Bin Laden are offensive and ignorant.
By Christopher Hitchens

"Anybody visiting the Middle East in the last decade has had the experience: meeting the hoarse and aggressive person who first denies that Osama Bin Laden was responsible for the destruction of the World Trade Center and then proceeds to describe the attack as a justified vengeance for decades of American imperialism."

Read more (Slate)

Unspoken Truths

Vanity Fair, June 2011
By Christopher Hitchens

"Like so many of life’s varieties of experience, the novelty of a diagnosis of malignant cancer has a tendency to wear off. The thing begins to pall, even to become banal. One can become quite used to the specter of the eternal Footman, like some lethal old bore lurking in the hallway at the end of the evening, hoping for the chance to have a word. And I don’t so much object to his holding my coat in that marked manner, as if mutely reminding me that it’s time to be on my way. No, it’s the snickering that gets me down."

Read more (vanityfair.com)

Christopher Hitchens opens his diary

The Spectator, 7 May 2011 issue


"I abhor the idea of taking a mobile-phone call at the dinner table but my friend Douglas Brinkley, eminent historian and editor (of Ronald Reagan and Hunter Thompson alike) has three small children and when his wife calls he rightly answers. So on Sunday night in Houston, Texas, at the home of the bountiful Michael and Nina Zilkha, we got an early notice that the President would soon be on the air."

Read More (spectator.co.uk)

Death of a Madman

What Obama does next will help define the legacy of Osama Bin Laden.
By Christopher Hitchens

"There are several pleasant little towns like Abbottabad in Pakistan, strung out along the roads that lead toward the mountains from Rawalpindi (the garrison town of Pakistani's military brass and, until 2003, a safe-house for Khalid Sheik Muhammed). Muzaffarabad, Abbottabad … cool in summer and winter, with majestic views and discreet amenities."

Read More (Slate)