Skip to Content
Uncategorized

Words Fail The Hitch

“Gorgeous George” Galloway, a maverick British left-wing politician, who loudly opposed the Iraq War and who is accused of taking kick-backs from Saddam Hussein, testified before Congress yesterday. One of his interrogators was Christopher Hitchens, a British left-wing journalist, who…

“Gorgeous George” Galloway, a maverick British left-wing politician, who loudly opposed the Iraq War and who is accused of taking kick-backs from Saddam Hussein, testified before Congress yesterday. One of his interrogators was Christopher Hitchens, a British left-wing journalist, who supported the War. I should explain that The Hitch (as he called by those who love him) is brilliant, prolific, effortlessly eloquent, fearless–and is known to like a good drink. Or two. Or three.

Gorgeous George: “You’re a drink-soaked former Trotskyist popinjay. Your hands are shaking. You badly need another drink.”

The Hitch (words, for once, utterly failing him): “And you’re a drink-soaked …” (Giving up) “You’re a real thug, aren’t you?”

American public life in comparison to this sort of thing is pallid, self-important, and spiritless. Also, much less funny.

Keep Reading

Most Popular

Large language models can do jaw-dropping things. But nobody knows exactly why.

And that's a problem. Figuring it out is one of the biggest scientific puzzles of our time and a crucial step towards controlling more powerful future models.

OpenAI teases an amazing new generative video model called Sora

The firm is sharing Sora with a small group of safety testers but the rest of us will have to wait to learn more.

Google’s Gemini is now in everything. Here’s how you can try it out.

Gmail, Docs, and more will now come with Gemini baked in. But Europeans will have to wait before they can download the app.

This baby with a head camera helped teach an AI how kids learn language

A neural network trained on the experiences of a single young child managed to learn one of the core components of language: how to match words to the objects they represent.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.