Friday, May 02, 2003

Why Do Some Societies Make Disastrous Decisions? Jared Diamond writes: Why is it that some societies in the past have collapsed while others have not? ... For example, the Easter Islanders, Polynesian people, settled an island that was originally forested, and whose forests included the world's largest palm tree. The Easter Islanders gradually chopped down that forest to use the wood for canoes, firewood, transporting statues, raising statues, and carving and also to protect against soil erosion. Eventually they chopped down all the forests to the point where all the tree species were extinct, which meant that they ran out of canoes, they could no longer erect statues, there were no longer trees to protect the topsoil against erosion, and their society collapsed in an epidemic of cannibalism that left 90 percent of the islanders dead. The question that most intrigued my UCLA students was one that hadn't registered on me: how on Earth could a society make such an obviously disastrous decision as to cut down all the trees on which they depended? (05/02/03) Making Iraq Safe: Total Disarmament Timothy Wilken, MD writes: The war is supposed to be over, but we continue to hear of armed Iraqis  attacking our soldiers. The following excerpts are from this week's news:  "At least 15 Iraqi civilians were killed and 53 injured during a gunfight with 82nd Airborne Division soldiers in the town of Fallujah, witnesses and Red Cross officials said Tuesday. " ... Four U.S. soldiers were wounded, one of them seriously, in an ambush Sunday morning in downtown Baghdad." ... "Unidentified assailants Wednesday night tossed two grenades inside a U.S. military compound in the heart of this town west of Baghdad." ... "Two more Iraqi civilians were killed Wednesday in a clash with U.S. troops, bringing the total in such clashes to 17 in three days of conflict in Fallujah." ... "A number of snipers have fired upon U.S. troops in Baghdad." ... My question is: Why do these people still have guns? (05/02/03) Unemployment Climbs New York Times: Economy -- The nation's unemployment rate jumped to 6 percent in April and companies slashed jobs for the third straight month -- particularly in manufacturing, airlines and department stores -- as the fragile economy continued to quash hiring prospects. Last month's jobless rate was up two-tenths of a percentage point from March, with payrolls falling by 48,000, the Labor Department reported Friday. Those figures matched economists' expectations. The economy has lost more than half a million jobs in the past three months as the number of unemployed workers surged to 8.8 million. Nearly 2 million people have been jobless for 27 weeks or more. (05/02/03) Dollar Continues to Fall International Herald Tribune -- The U.S. dollar tumbled to a four-year low against the euro Thursday, as weak economic data, low interest rates and the ballooning U.S. deficit spurred investors to continue seeking higher yielding currencies elsewhere in the world. The euro surged to $1.1230 on Thursday, up from $1.1100 on Wednesday, pushing it to within about 5 cents of the level at which the single currency was introduced in January 1999 but had never regained in the four years of its existence. The dollar has plunged 2.5 percent against the euro this week alone. (05/02/03)   8:38:38 AM

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