How could something that most of us only experience for 12 minutes a year be the driving force of humanity? A book explores the rich, strange history of the orgasm.

"Aside from the need to breathe and eat," writes Jonathan Margolis, "the pursuit of orgasm has been one of the strongest single determinants of human behavior throughout history."

It is hard to disagree with him, especially once you've come to the end of his book, O: An Intimate History of the Orgasm.

Documenting attitudes to sex from the cavemen to modern times, Margolis shows how human culture has been driven by the pursuit of that most elusive, fleeting and inconsistent pleasure.

For despite our obsession, he writes, "most individuals will experience a mere twenty seconds of orgasm a week, a minute or so a month, or a total of twelve ecstatic minutes a year."   more »

Tom Cruise Wages A Dangerous War on Psychiatric Drugs

Tom Cruise denounced psychiatry as a "pseudo science" last week when questioned by the American NBC-TV host Matt Lauer about his stance against anti-depressant drugs.

The actor had criticised Brooke Shields for taking drugs for post-natal depression, which in turn has drawn a rebuke from the American Psychiatric Association. In response to Cruise's comments, it stated that: "It was irresponsible for Mr Cruise to use his movie publicity tour to promote his own ideological views."

The Association, which represents more than 36,000 physicians specialising in the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness, challenged Cruise's assertion that psychiatry lacks scientific merit. "Rigorous, published, peer-reviewed research clearly demonstrates that treatment [of mental illness] works," they asserted.

Cruise's comments come as no surprise to many psychiatrists, not because much of his recent behaviour has been found so strange by the press, but more because it is widely reported he is a follower of the Church of Scientology, which is virulently against psychiatry.   more »

Last week Time magazine turned over its reporter's notes to a special prosecutor assigned to learn who told Republican columnist Bob Novak that Valerie Plame was a CIA agent.

The revelation, which effectively ended Plame's CIA career and may have endangered her life, followed her husband Joe Wilson's publication of a New York Times op-ed piece that embarrassed the Bush Administration by debunking its claims that Saddam Hussein tried to buy uranium from Niger.

Time's cowardly decision to break its promise to a confidential source has had one beneficial side effect: according to Newsweek, it indicates that Karl Rove himself made the call to Novak.

One might have expected Rove, the master White House political strategist who engineered Bush's 2000 coup d'état and post-9/11 permanent war public relations campaign, to have ordered a flunky underling to carry out this act of high treason. But as the Arab saying goes, arrogance diminishes wisdom.   more »

Most people in Britain, and increasingly in America, want troops withdrawn from Iraq - and so do most Iraqis, according to opinion polls.

Trade unions are calling for early withdrawal, as are some Labour MPs and the Liberal Democrats. But many well-intentioned people argue that the US-led occupation must end only when the country is stable. A swift withdrawal, they fear, would plunge the country into civil war.

In one sense this position is the same as that of Bush and Blair, who consistently say troops will not stay in Iraq "a moment longer than necessary" and will withdraw when asked to do so by a democratically chosen government.

In reality, with over 200,000 foreign troops and auxiliaries in control of Iraq, even an elected government will owe its survival to the occupation.   more »

Are you willing to die for the idea called the United States of America? Are most Americans ready to die for their country?

On this patriotic weekend, most of us would blurt in reply, "Of course."

We are lying. At best, kidding ourselves.

That is the sad message of the days that have passed since the awful one we call 9/11.

Die for the idea called America? Many of us aren't willing even to conserve a little gasoline. Or pay our fair share of taxes. Or spend less than we earn.   more »

Popcorn from the 9/11 Rubble: Spielberg's War of the Worlds is crap

But America doesn't think so, apparently. There, most voices conjoin in reverential awe. "It's a rare thing - a summer movie that demands to be taken as a serious emotional experience," says the Village Voice.

"It is, simply, the alienation-invasion movie to beat all alien invasion movies," says the San Francisco Chronicle. Spielberg's biggest box-office hit for years, predicts Variety. And the question is: why?

You don't have to dig too far to find out. War of the Worlds 2005 is the first piece of multiplex fodder ripped straight from the rubble of 9/11.

Its "scenes of urban destruction - chaos in the streets, collapse in communications - intentionally call to mind everyone's worst terrorism nightmares", the Chronicle observes.   more »

G8 number crunching: the deal doesn't add up

Heading up to Gleneagles tomorrow for the demo, but we've spent much of today number crunching so as to work out exactly what the G8 are preparing to serve up as their answer to global poverty.

And also to work out how on earth the government has managed to get the good press it has when it is offering such derisory crumbs from the rich man's table. So, specially for Red Pepper readers, this is what we know.

According to the stats we have, the G8 package of $40bn debt stock cancellation agreed last month translates into around $1bn a year in cancelled debt repayments for the 18 lucky countries which have 'qualified' to get it.

Instead of the $45bn in cancelled annual repayments which we'd see from 100 per cent write-off of the debts of the 62 poorest countries. That's quite a shortfall - roughly 98 per cent short, in fact.

Worse still, any good achieved which might be achieved by aid and debt cancellation will be wiped out by the forced liberalisation which has been foisted on the poorest countries both at the WTO in Geneva and through the World Bank and IMF.   more »

The hyped-up British media dubbed Live8 "the biggest musical event in history", watched by "half the world".

Stiff-upper-lipped editorialists almost fainted as they elevated to the heavens the "idealist alliance" between the faded rock star and Live8 organizer Bob Geldof and the canny politician, British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The media hysteria that has spread across the world, fueled by Bono's U2 singing "It's a beautiful day", has created expectations that this G8 summit could "make poverty history" or even reverse the terrible damage caused to the environment. No way.

Live8 will have an impact - on CD sales and iTunes downloads of the Madonnas and Snoopy Dogs and the reformed Pink Floyd.

As for the global environment - the poor cousin in Live8's agenda - the Bush White House may have officially admitted - for the first time ever - that climate change is at least "to some extent" the US's own fault.   more »