Controversial author and journalist Christopher Hitchens died yesterday after a long battle with esophageal cancer. During his career, he managed to piss off pretty much everyone with his refusal to allow a commitment to one political ideology to prevent him from speaking out against it, plus, of course, his vehement opposition to organised religion in any form.

In 2008, in preparation for an article in Vanity Fair, Hitchens allowed himself to be subjected to waterboarding.  He sought to learn whether the technique, which was used and defended as a tool of  interrogation by the US government in the War On Terror, could indeed be described as torture. After wards, he said:

…if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.

He will be missed.