"Stark says in Indonesia, where China gets much of its wood products, illegal and unsustainable logging threatens to wipe out lowland tropical rain forests within the next 10 years."

Sigh.

I don't really know how accurate this is, but when I was in China (Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzho, 6 years ago), wood products seemed to be really common and really cheap, like I saw a (mahongany? or some mahogany-like tropical wood) desk that would have cost multiple thousands of dollars, I forget the price but it was jaw-droppingly low. High-quality wood panelling very common in buildings. (But I guess the main use of wood is probably paper and structural.) So like maybe they have started logging Indonesia in the last couple decades and are ripping through a newly plentiful resource?

The ripping of the most valuable timbers is happening at the China-Burma border, where the dictators are happy to sell off lands that belong to hill tribes.

Of course this is the perennial story where kleptocrats can liquid "public" assets (Marcos, Suharto etc).

Not so far different from how special interests treat the US budget, and why no one's complaining too loudly about a trillion spent on the Iraq war.

no one's complaining too loudly about a trillion spent on the Iraq war.

Huh?

You mean noone in Japan is complaining too loudly?

M/M, sorry for my lack of clarity. The business community certainly isn't moaning, and neither Congresscritters (of either stripe) nor even voters are particularly up in arms about how the war is being financed on the back of future generations.

The same is true of all our entitlements, including the great new prescription boondogle for the elderly and drug companies.

Theft all around. We may as well see what it is in our own country, even as we point it out elsewhere.

5: Oh, I knew what you meant. I just think your statement is false, or at least so overbroad as to basically be meaningless.

Show me the fervent protests, M/M. It's a point of debate for sure, but unfortunately not much more. If not, why did the Dems cave in giving Bush the additional money he wanted?

Oh, Tom, you're just disappointed that there aren't throngs, millions strong, bringing society to a standstill as way of demanding you be installed as absolute non-ruler. Admit it.

7: Yep, Tom, you're the lone voice in the wilderness who cares about these things.

8: Disapppointed? The day of my absolute non-rulership arrived long ago!