Clipmarks | Hitchens Clips

Chris Hitchens tries waterboarding

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 19:37:59 GMT

clipped by: cakebelly
clipper's remarks: http://www.disinfo.com/content/index.php?category=HumanRights

Here is the most chilling way I can find of stating the matter. Until recently, “waterboarding” was something that Americans did to other Americans. It was inflicted, and endured, by those members of the Special Forces who underwent the advanced form of training known as sere (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape). In these harsh exercises, brave men and women were introduced to the sorts of barbarism that they might expect to meet at the hands of a lawless foe who disregarded the Geneva Conventions. But it was something that Americans were being trained to resist, not to inflict.

'Believe Me, It’s Torture' — Christopher Hitchens Undergoes Waterboarding

The Boogey Man is Gonna Get Ya!

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 15:53:11 GMT

clipped by: AtlLiberal
clipper's remarks: According to the review of this new book it seems the author is rehashing the same old discounted arguments over what he dubs the "New Atheism". Using fear and misdirection it seems once again to be a weak attempt to defend the indefensible by a christian apologist.

Clip Source: www.towersonline.net

In “Atheism Remix: A Christian Confronts the New Atheism” (Crossway), Mohler engages the central arguments of four contemporary atheists, whom he calls “The Four Horseman of the Atheist Apocalypse:” Oxford University scientist Richard Dawkins, Tufts University philosopher Daniel Dennett, author Sam Harris and pundit Christopher Hitchens.

Mohler, who serves as president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, chose Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and Hitchens because “they are four figures who have especially come to embody the New Atheist movement.”

The new atheism is marked by:
· An unprecedented new boldness.
· A clear and specific rejection of the Christian God of the Bible.
· An explicit rejection of Jesus Christ.
· Arguments grounded in science.
· A refusal to tolerate even moderate and liberal forms of theism.
· An attack on the toleration of any form of religion.
· A questioning of the right of parents to instill religious beliefs in their children.

Tags: christian, religion, book, atheist

"Believe me, it's torture": Christopher Hitchens gets waterboarded

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 20:07:05 GMT

clipped by: enbar
clipper's remarks: Hitchens decided to experience waterboarding for himself. He lasts about twenty seconds and describes having nightmares and panic attacks ever since. Also check the video at http://snipr.com/2sv2d

Clip Source: www.vanityfair.com

The author catches his breath after undergoing his first waterboarding session. Photographs by Gasper Tringale.

Believe Me, It’s Torture

by Christopher Hitchens

You may have read by now the official lie about this treatment, which is that it “simulates” the feeling of drowning. This is not the case. You feel that you are drowning because you are drowning—or, rather, being drowned, albeit slowly and under controlled conditions and at the mercy (or otherwise) of those who are applying the pressure. The “board” is the instrument, not the method. You are not being boarded. You are being watered. This was very rapidly brought home to me when, on top of the hood, which still admitted a few flashes of random and worrying strobe light to my vision, three layers of enveloping towel were added. In this pregnant darkness, head downward, I waited for a while until I abruptly felt a slow cascade of water going up my nose.

I don’t want to tell you how little time I lasted.

Tags: torture, gwot, journalism, violence

Christopher Hitchens on the waterboard

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:40:59 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: blog.newhumanist.org.uk

Here's a proper bit of journalism - following his earlier claim that "waterboarding" doesn't amount to torture, but rather "extreme interrogation", New Humanist honorary associate Christopher Hitchens agreed to let some scary-looking ex-special forces guys in balaclavas try it out on him for his latest Vanity Fair assignment.

The video's up on the VF website, as is Hitchens' article on the experience. As you'll see he doesn't last very long, and he now admits that waterboarding is most certainly a form of torture.

For more on America's continuing use of torture in the "war on terror", read Stan Cohen's column from our January issue.

Clip Source: www.vanityfair.com

Book Drive for Iraq: How You Can Do Your Bit to Build Democracy

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 11:31:51 GMT

clipped by: MHacker
clipper's remarks: Christopher Hitchens tries to do something nice.

Clip Source: www.slate.com

Here is some background: In 2006, the McKinsey consulting group was hired by my friend Barham Salih, the deputy prime minister of Iraq, to produce a business plan for a university along the lines of the existing success stories of the American Universities in Cairo and Beirut.

the Arab region—which at the time of the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad was one of the world centers of humanistic learning and philosophy—is in a profound crisis of intellectual unfreedom. It boasts of no great centers of study; it translates pathetically few books from other languages and cultures; it is prone to waves of intolerance and fanaticism under which books are actually burned.

look at the university's Web site. Get some decent volumes together,

and send them off to:

Nathan Musselman
The American University of Iraq—Sulaimani
Building No. 7, Street 10
Quarter 410
Ablakh Area
Sulaimani, Iraq
(+964) (0)770-461-5099

It's important to include the number at the end.

Tags: books, iraq, hitchens, slate, neocons

MANDELA Arrives for 90th. Birthday Party

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 12:55:38 GMT

clipped by: righthand
clipper's remarks: Friday's concert coincides with the 20th anniversary of London's Free Mandela concert, which was held to demand his release from prison. He had been convicted as a [b]TERRORIST by the APARTHEID regime.

He was freed in 1990 after 27 years behind bars, and was elected South Africa's first black president in 1994.

He will be 90 on July 18. He has visited London many times and has expressed gratitude for the constant vigil that was held outside the South African embassy in the city during the APARTHEID years.

One GREAT MAN. What if ...

.

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Nelson Mandela arrives in London for birthday concert

Nelson Mandela arrived in London today for a week of events to celebrate his 90th birthday.

An outdoor concert in honour of the former South African president will be held at Hyde Park on Friday, with performers including Annie Lennox, Leona Lewis, Queen and the Soweto gospel choir.

Proceeds from the concert will go to the Aids charity 46664, which is named after the number Mandela wore while imprisoned by South Africa's apartheid authorities.

Clip Source: www.brisbanetimes.com.au

Clip Source: www.fotw.us

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Critics of the Zimbabwean regime will hope that Mandela will break his silence on Robert Mugabe's campaign of intimidation and violence against opposition supporters. But his former lawyer, George Bizos, who has also represented the Zimbabwean opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, told Christopher Hitchens that Mandela had been advised by doctors to avoid anything stressful.

Clip Source: www.kwintessential.co.uk

Clip Source: www.arvinddevalia.com

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Amy Winehouse is also scheduled to sing, if her doctors allow it. She was taken to hospital last week after fainting at home.

Tags: south africa, uk, apartheid, anniversary

2007 National Book Awards - Non-Fiction

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 04:58:12 GMT

clipped by: inglesita

Clip Source: www.nationalbook.org

NONFICTION

Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (Doubleday) - Interview ~ Video
Tim Weiner

Edwidge Danticat, Brother, I’m Dying (Alfred A. Knopf) - Interview
Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
(Twelve/Hachette Book Group USA) - Interview
Woody Holton, Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution
(Hill and Wang/Farrar, Straus and Giroux) - Interview ~
- Book That Changed My Life Essay
Arnold Rampersad, Ralph Ellison: A Biography (Alfred A. Knopf) - Interview

Nonfiction judges: David Shields (chair), Deborah Blum,
Caroline Elkins, Annette Gordon-Reed, and James Shapiro.

NeuroBuddhism

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 20:24:44 GMT

clipped by: abailart

Clip Source: richarddawkins.net

In their arguments with Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, the faithful have been defending the existence of God. That was the easy debate. The real challenge is going to come from people who feel the existence of the sacred, but who think that particular religions are just cultural artifacts built on top of universal human traits. It's going to come from scientists whose beliefs overlap a bit with Buddhism.

First, the self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships. Second, underneath the patina of different religions, people around the world have common moral intuitions. Third, people are equipped to experience the sacred, to have moments of elevated experience when they transcend boundaries and overflow with love. Fourth, God can best be conceived as the nature one experiences at those moments, the unknowable total of all there is.

cognitive revolution is not going to end up undermining faith in God, it's going end up challenging faith in the Bible

Tags: inner life

A Tale of Two Tell-Alls: Christopher Hitchens

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 03:10:52 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: [this] book that was published in the first week of April, books pages of the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Boston Globe have not seen fit to give Feith a review. An article on his book, written by the excellent James Risen for the news pages of the New York Times, has not run. This all might seem less questionable if it were not for the still-ballooning acreage awarded to Scott McClellan.

Feith draws on countless internal documents, many of which were intended for, written by, or debated among members of the president’s Cabinet, the most senior advisers to Cabinet officials, and the president himself. Feith has performed a public service by taking the time to present these documents, which have gone through the painstaking process of official declassification, in nearly 600 citations that are reproduced online with links to full texts, transcripts, and presentations.
Larry DiRita
National Review Online

Clip Source: www.slate.com

If you want to read a serious book about the origins and consequences of the intervention in Iraq in 2003, you owe it to yourself to get hold of a copy of Douglas Feith's War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism. As undersecretary of defense for policy, Feith was one of those most intimately involved in the argument about whether to and, if so, how to put an end to the regime of Saddam Hussein. His book contains notes made in real time at the National Security Council, a trove of declassified documentation, and a thoroughly well-organized catalog of sources and papers and memos. Feith has also done us the service of establishing a Web site where you can go and follow up all his sources and check them for yourself against his analysis and explanation. There is more of value in any chapter of this archive than in any of the ramblings of McClellan.

If you want to read a serious book about the intervention in Iraq, look to Douglas Feith.

Tags: douglas feith, war and decision, national security council

If Cheney & Co. Had Really Plotted the 9/11 Attacks ...

Sun, 25 May 2008 16:59:54 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks:
Matt Taibbi's hilarious re-enactment of the secret govt. conspiracy (that never happened) to conduct the attacks.
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"The Great Derangement" by Matt Taibbi (Spiegel and Grau, 2008).

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Clip Source: www.alternet.org

The people who really run America don't send the likes of George Bush and Dick Cheney to the White House to cook up boat-rocking, maniacal world-domination plans and commit massive criminal conspiracies on live national television; they send them there to repeal PUCHA and dole out funds for the F-22 and pass energy bills with $14 billion tax breaks and slash fuel efficiency standards and do all the other shit that never makes the papers but keeps Wall Street and the country's corporate boardrooms happy. You don't elect politicians to commit crimes; you elect politicians to make your crimes legal. That is the whole purpose of the racket of government. Another other use of it would be a terrible investment, and the financial class in this country didn't get to where it is by betting on the ability of a president whose lips move when he reads to blow up two Manhattan skyscrapers in broad daylight without getting caught.

Vicious Racism Concealed by a British Accent

Sun, 25 May 2008 07:52:21 GMT

clipped by: righthand

Clip Source: www.alternet.org

Martin Amis & Chris Hitchens: Vicious Racism Concealed by a British Accent

Hitchens is now the darling of right-wing America. Our homegrown hate mongers, like Ann Coulter, are so painfully amateurish and ham-handed that Hitchens, simply by applying the old Tory hater's kit, can seem like a master

American right wing, desperate for articulate hate mongers, has taken to importing Tory polemicists to stir the base up against the Muslim/Arab "enemy."

educated American editors are suckers for imported British bile

Tory discourse has only two topics: hatred of the new and foreign, and grief for the old and familiar

The object of its hatred changes its name from generation to generation, from Papist to Jew to Irish to German to Russian to Arab

Every device Amis uses to vilify Arabs and Muslims can be found, aimed at other targets, in Tory literature going back several decades

spent the rest of his life vilifying women, non-whites, and anyone else who failed to meet his standards of English-ness

elite

Tags: uk, media, fascist, journalist, arab, jew, irish, russia

Heathen Tv

Fri, 23 May 2008 00:47:05 GMT

clipped by: Antara
clipper's remarks:

Clip Source: heathen.tv

Tags: heathens, infidels, rabblerousers, interesting

No God For Me Thanks!

Tue, 20 May 2008 16:18:36 GMT

clipped by: thinkingblue
clipper's remarks: A recently discovered letter written by Albert Einstein, has once and for all ended the debate on whether this wise man of science relied on religion to get him through this life. "No God for Me, Thanks" says it all! To hear another intellectual on the subject follow this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sD0B-X9LJjs

Clip Source: theboard.blogs.nytimes.com

Albert Einstein: No God for Me, Thanks

There was a new entrant in the culture wars last week: Albert Einstein.

Albert Einstein: No God for Me, Thanks

A letter he wrote about God sold for $404,000–and reignited the debate about Einstein’s views on God.

Einstein has often been portrayed as a master of the mysteries of the universe who believed in God. Think of that classic dorm-room poster, with the photograph of Einstein and the quotation: “God doesn’t play dice with the universe.”

Or of his well-known quotation, “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”

According to the urban-myth-busting Web site snopes.com, there is also a widely circulated–and false–story of a young Einstein confronting an atheist professor on behalf of religion.

In the letter, he wrote: “The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.”

Tags: religion, albert, einstein, christopher, hitchens

"Science and Mysticism Joining Hands"

Fri, 16 May 2008 00:46:25 GMT

clipped by: Gul Agha

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

In their arguments with Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, the faithful have been defending the existence of God. That was the easy debate. The real challenge is going to come from people who feel the existence of the sacred, but who think that particular religions are just cultural artifacts built on top of universal human traits. It’s going to come from scientists whose beliefs overlap a bit with Buddhism.

In unexpected ways, science and mysticism are joining hands and reinforcing each other. That’s bound to lead to new movements that emphasize self-transcendence but put little stock in divine law or revelation. Orthodox believers are going to have to defend particular doctrines and particular biblical teachings. They’re going to have to defend the idea of a personal God, and explain why specific theologies are true guides for behavior day to day.

We’re in the middle of a scientific revolution. It’s going to have big cultural effects.

Tags: science, mysticism, buddhism, sufism, god

Hitchens Vs. Hitchens : Full Video Sequence

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 19:04:32 GMT

clipped by: Antara
clipper's remarks: Added: April 07, 2008 (Less info)
Brothers Christopher and Peter Hitchens debate the Iraq War and religion at an event organized by the Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies with support from the Center for Inquiry and the Interfaith Dialogue Association.

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

[Video]

Tags: hitchens brothers debate, religion, iraq war