David Brooks asks "Do animals have morals?"

David Brooks asks Do Animals Have Morals? No, he wasn’t discussing Congress. He was moderating a panel discussion titled Darwin 200: Evolution and the Ethical Brain, sponsored by the Templeton Foundation earlier this month.

I won’t spoil the fun by providing the definitive answer here. Video of the discussion featuring Michael Gazzaniga (UC-Santa Barbara), Jonathan Haidt (University of Virginia), and Steven Quartz (Caltech), is on the Templeton Foundation’s website.

The discussion is supposed to shed light on the question of whether evolution can account for traits like altruism, cooperation, conscience, and a sense of justice. Can a richer view of our evolved nature help us to understand modern society?

I wish Brooks et al had taken up the case of Santino the Chimp. Chimpanzee's Plan to Attack Zoo Visitors Shows Evidence of Premeditated Thought.

When Santino the chimpanzee started pelting zoo visitors with stones, his keepers were mystified.

Not that they were surprised by his displays of aggression — the 31-year-old chimp is, after all, a dominant male. But there was no obvious source of stones in his enclosure; so where was he finding all the missiles?

All became clear when they carried out a search and found his stockpiles of rocks. Santino had been fishing stones from the moat surrounding his enclosure - and, even more impressively, he had been shaping odd pieces of concrete into aerodynamic disc-shaped missiles. Then he had been stashing them away for future use.

His behaviour has led scientists to conclude that premeditation is not a uniquely human trait.

Unfortunately, the Templeton Foundation tends to the high-minded sort of discussion rather than the really interesting stuff like Santino. Last week they awarded the £1 million 2009 Templeton Prize for progress in spiritual thought to Bernard d'Espagnat, an 87 year old French physicist whose main contribution to spiritual thought seems to have been to note that reality can’t be explained by science.

Bernard d'Espagnat, 87, was today announced as the winner of the £1 million Templeton Prize, founded by the late US multi-millionaire entrepreneur and philanthropist Sir John Templeton to honour scientists who contribute to progress in religion.Dr d'Espagnat, professor emeritus of theoretical physics at Paris-Sud university, believes that science cannot fully explain "the nature of being".

Dr d'Espagnat said in prepared remarks that, since science cannot reveal anything certain about the nature of being, it cannot tell us with certainty what it is not. "Mystery is not something negative that has to be eliminated," he said. "On the contrary, it is one of the constitutive elements of being."

His main contribution to the development of quantum mechanics was made from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s when he carried out experiments testing the "Bell's inequalities" theorem. His work centred on a concept described as "veiled reality", a reality that is hidden beneath what is perceived as time, space, matter, and energy, concepts challenged by quantum physics as possibly mere appearances.

Well, duh! For a million, I could have come to the same conclusion.

Spring green

Spring has arrived in the woods. I know because the garlic mustard is back. I went out with the chain saw to slice up the various trees and branches that had fallen on the trails over the winter and there it was, already rather large and robust looking. Soon the entire forest floor will be a carpet of toxic green.

What’s wrong with garlic mustard? After all, it makes a tasty addition to a salad or soup. Here’s what the Plant Conservation Alliance says:

Garlic mustard poses a severe threat to native plants and animals in forest communities in much of the eastern and midwestern U.S. Many native widlflowers that complete their life cycles in the springtime (e.g., spring beauty, wild ginger, bloodroot, Dutchman's breeches, hepatica, toothworts, and trilliums) occur in the same habitat as garlic mustard. Once introduced to an area, garlic mustard out-competes native plants by aggressively monopolizing light, moisture, nutrients, soil and space. Wildlife species that depend on these early plants for their foliage, pollen, nectar, fruits, seeds and roots, are deprived of these essential food sources when garlic mustard replaces them. Humans are also deprived of the vibrant display of beautiful spring wildflowers.

I have given up fighting garlic mustard. When it first appeared several years ago, I went on a rampage of uprooting it, poisoning it with Roundup and even burning it. I have the propane flame thrower to prove it if anyone cares to know. Nothing worked. It seems to thrive on Roundup. Maybe it ingested some of those Roundup ready genes Monsanto is using to spike its soybean seeds.

If it were just the one thing, maybe a guy could feel that something could be done. But if you spend all your time fighting garlic mustard, when will you fight the buckthorn or the Japanese honeysuckle? And there is no way to fight the Dutch elm disease, oak wilt or green ash borer.

All that makes a walk in the spring woods rather a bittersweet experience. It even makes it kind of tempting to enjoy the things that invaders can’t destroy, like the roar of a sweetly tuned Stihl saw with a very sharp blade. At least when you cut something, it stays cut.

The theology of orgasm

Paul Schmelzer tweeted this story Celibate Catholic Priest Writes Sex Manual and I thought it was pretty funny. Priests are like doctors. They think they know how to do everything. The Catholic Church has about 15 centuries worth of fomenting a crippling kind of guilt and disinformation about sex, not to mention the subjugation of women and exploitation of, well you know. They are as responsible as anyone for the sexual disfunction in the world. At least we can all get a laugh from their lame attempts to fix things up.

There is a bit of news here though. Twelve percent of priests admit to being in a sexual relationship. One out of eight. And that's just those who admit it. I assume they don't mean with boys. I hope.

I also got a good laugh from the "reader review" on Paul's tweet.

"I read this book. It’s not bad but it’s only two chapters long. The first one is on masturbation and is 736 pages. The second chapter, sex with younger, same sex partners is only half the size of the first. Still, I felt the book was authoritative and would recommend it to anyone wishing to learn more about either topic. Don’t knock something you haven’t read, based solely on a YouTube video."

Who's to blame?

Jim Jubak at MSN Money is kind of the people's wealth advisor and financial commentator, but lately he hasn't been touting investments as much as explaining the financial crisis in terms ordinary folks can understand. His latest column is worth reading because it points the finger directly at Congress and the big-money campaign contributions coming from AIG, CITI, etc. Of course, one column or even a book can't assess all of the blame. It was too much of grab the money and run for both bankers and Congress. Here's the top of his column.

The folks in power in Washington and on Wall Street want to pretend that the current global financial crisis -- you know, the one that reduced household net worth in the United States by $11.2 trillion in 2008, according to the Federal Reserve -- was an accident caused by some unfortunate confluence of greed and asleep-at-the-switch regulators.

What we're now living through, though, is the result of a conscious, planned looting of the world economy. Its roots stretch back decades. And it wouldn't have been possible without the contrivances of the bought-and-paid-for folks who sit in Congress.

We aren't going to get a real fix if we shrug our shoulders and say it's too complicated for us to understand. That's what they want. We aren't going to get reform if we direct all our anger at the miscreants at AIG etc. Look at the grandstanding Congress is doing this week by passing a 90% tax rate on bonuses. Clearly it will be thrown out by the courts, but Congress will be able to assuage public anger and look like the good guys while actually doing nothing.

We need a new Progressive movement to push through a genuine reform of all financial regulation that is based on concern for all, not just the few. That won't happen if you and I don't demand it.

On another topic. I know I post a lot about drug policy and advocate the legalization of drugs, but just for the record, I don't use drugs and don't advocate the use of drugs. I just think the cure is worse than the disease.

Bruce on Rolling Stone's Top 100

And he doesn't even play air guitar! Bruce was #74 on Rolling Stone's list of 100 people who are changing the world. Of course, Neil Young made the list too (but lower down). Here's what RS said about Bruce:

The director of the Move Beyond Coal campaign, Nilles is Big Coal's worst nightmare: an aggressive, strategic lawyer who knows how to monkey-wrench the industry. Behind Nilles' efforts, the Sierra Club claims to have stopped plans for 24 new coal plants in the U.S. last year.

Despite all the accolades, Bruce remains totally unpretentious. There's a great photo of him in RS. It doesn't tell you he's wearing a hand me down shirt. Looks good on him though. Hope to see him here for some prairie burning in a couple of weeks.

UN set to renew war on drugs despite devastating consequences

A UN commission today is set to endorse another decade of the “war on drugs” despite admitting the current policies have had devastating consequences.

You did not read this in the New York Times. Fortunately, The Independent and The Guardian are not as timid as The Times when it comes to drugs. I have included just the tops of their stories below in a slightly shorted form. Click the links to read the whole stories.

War on drugs 'has enriched cartels'
By Toby Green in Vienna

The Independent, Thursday, 12 March 2009 -- United Nations member states are set to paper over their differences today and sign up to 10 more years of the much-criticised "war on drugs" at a drugs summit in Vienna.

Antonio Maria Costa, the executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said addiction to illicit drugs had "stabilised" in the past few years but admitted that a "dramatic unintended consequence" of the battle to stamp out the illicit trade was that drug cartels had become so rich they could destabilise impoverished and vulnerable nations in Africa and South America.

Ten wasted years:
UN drug strategy a failure, reveals damning report
By Duncan Campbell
The Guardian, Wednesday 11 March 2009

The UN strategy on drugs over the past decade has been a failure, a European commission report claimed yesterday on the eve of the international conference in Vienna that will set future policy for the next 10 years.

(The commission) declared that they had found "no evidence that the global drug problem was reduced". They wrote: "Broadly speaking, the situation has improved a little in some of the richer countries while for others it worsened, and for some it worsened sharply and substantially, among them a few large developing or transitional countries."

In an article for the Guardian, Mike Trace, chairman of the International Drug Policy Consortium, says: "We're about to see the international community walk up the political and diplomatic path of least resistance. It will do nothing to help the millions of people around the world whose lives are destroyed by drug markets and drug use."

In London, Lady Meacher, speaking on behalf of more than 30 members of the Lords, warned that the existing hardline prohibitionist strategy, which has been led by the US, had been deeply damaging. "We are concerned that the war on drugs has failed and the harm it has caused is far greater," said Meacher, at a briefing organised by the drugs advice charity Release.

However, while ignoring the failure of the drug war, The Times did have this yesterday:

Forbes’s list of the richest people in the world includes a fugitive drug don from Mexico who goes by the name Shorty. Joaquín Guzmán Loera, 54, who is the head of the feared Sinaloa Cartel, appears for the first time at No. 701. Mr. Guzmán escaped from a Mexican prison in a laundry cart in 2001, days before he was to be extradited to the United States. The United States government is offering a $5 million reward for his capture, which is pocket change for Mr. Guzmán; Forbes put his net worth at about $1 billion. His industry is listed as “shipping.”

Inside the asylum

Sometimes you have to listen to the really far right to understand how crazy this country really is. They make Rush look mainstream. Of course, not everyone has the stomach to troll those websites. Fortunately, truthout columnist William Rivers Pitt has done that for us in today’s column. Here’s the start. You can read the rest here:

One thing is certain: martial arts movie star Chuck Norris does not like President Obama. Not at all. Not one little bit. Norris dislikes Obama so much, in fact, that he discussed running for the office of president of Texas, which doesn't exist, as part of a larger move by him and a variety of other right-wing groups to overthrow the American government and return honor and decency to the country.

No, really, he said all that, and more. Read it yourself if you don't believe me. The best part is where he writes, "Remember the Alamo!" Great stuff.

Or something.

There's more. The owner of right-wing web forum Free Republic, Jim Robinson, was recently forced to post a truly deranged piece of apologia regarding the attention his web site recently earned from the Secret Service. "Unfortunately," wrote Robinson, "we are saddled with a communist sympathizer in the White House. I don't know whether or not he's an actual card carrying commie, but he's definitely an America-hating, anti-capitalist Marxist leftist who thinks communism is the way to go. So now comes the problem. If you feel it's your duty to call Obama a traitor and use salty language in your proposed resolution, ie, suggest the commie be keelhauled, walked off the plank, run up the yardarm, tarred and feathered and run out of Dodge, etc, etc, etc, you may be facing a visit from your friendly Secret Service."

"Keep," wrote Robinson in closing, "your powder dry." Yeah, O.K., good thinking.

Or something.

Last month, Fox News celebrity Sean Hannity ran a poll on his web site. It asked readers what kind of revolution they'd prefer: military coup, armed rebellion or war for succession? "#3 seems most realistic," opined Hannity, "since it does present an opportunity for more homogeneous states to sort of capitalize on their homogeneity. However, it would likely lead to mass migrations of the minority partisans out of the rebel states. Of course, that may be fine with those states. Yet it seems that the ultimate paradox in any rebellion for freedom from within is that the ultimate goal is to impose the will of the rebels on everyone else through force. It seems the very foundation of representative democracy is ****tered if we accept that we exchange the power of ideas for the power of the sword upon each other. Nevertheless, I am still very interested in your own preferred form of revolt."

That page has since been removed from Hannity's web site, surely due to some technical glitch, but before it was taken down, "armed rebellion" appeared to be the most popular choice of the three.