[Cloud9...68]

[size="2"][color="#1c2837"]http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/307901[/color][/size]

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[color="#1c2837"][size="2"]I'm not a big anti-imports person (I firmly believe in free trade, and would hate to pay $20 for a pair of tariff-protected, made-in-the-USA gym socks), but still, this article was a fun read.[/size][/color]

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[ds968]

<img src="/forum/images/smilies/968/biggrin.gif" class="smilie" alt="" /> <img src="/forum/images/smilies/968/biggrin.gif" class="smilie" alt="" />

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[Langley968]

Of all items! <img src="/forum/images/smilies/968/ohmy.gif" class="smilie" alt="" />

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[Cloud9...68]

I know, that's the really cool thing about it. Apparently, China is running low on wood, and Americus, Georgia just happens to tons of trees of the type that are perfect for chop sticks, and they grow at a very fast rate.

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[tamathumper]

So first we sent all our jobs over there, now we're sending all our wood?! Where's the Lorax when you need him.

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[DaveN]

Someone is showing there age <img src="/forum/images/smilies/968/rolleyes.gif" class="smilie" alt="" />

I speak for the trees for the trees have no tongues.

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[Langley968]

Dave = a "tree hugger"?

Really...? <img src="/forum/images/smilies/968/huh.gif" class="smilie" alt="" />

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[DaveN]

Nah. I'm all for cutting them down, it's a renewable resource. BUT, I am also strongly for replanting what they take and caring for the land and critters in the process. I like bunnies.<img src="/forum/images/smilies/968/smile.gif" class="smilie" alt="" />

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[Rap]

Bunnies you mean like Playboy?

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[Cloud9...68]

I can't remember the types of trees Americus is using for their chop sticks, but the report I heard on the radio about this said they're fast-growing species that are highly renewable.

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[tamathumper]

I'm not a tree hugger, but I could show you vast swaths of land in Maine where there isn't a rabbit, or a bird, or a coyote, or anything living - all beneath a dense fast-growing pine canopy (and needle carpet) as far as the eye could see in any direction. The trees are all planted in straight rows in a "grid". It's like a scene out of "X-Men".



The harvest of a diverse forest system, and subsequent replacement with a homogeneous carpet of a single species, pine or otherwise, leaves no variability for animal species to move into. Beetles probably eat from one kind of tree, birds eat those beetles but live in another kind of tree, rabbits and furry critters live under another kind of tree - it's all a sort of "web". One kind of tree doesn't support a "web", and it becomes an eery "dead zone" that's deathly quiet. No buzzing, no chirping, no nothing.



Being a hunter and camper, I don't like "dead zones".

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[jfrahm]

Looks like it's popular and sweet gum trees:



http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/06/04/impo...rgia-town/



Populars (er, poplar) do grow like weeds so I suppose they will have a poplar forest spun up in China in a few years. The cheap chopsticks I get with take-out sometimes appear to be bamboo, but the better ones I like are some sort of light wood.



I would not be surprised if we exported logs to China and they made chopsticks out of them which we re-imported.



-Joel.

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[flash]

you mean Poplar, right, and not just a tree that has a lot of fans?



i always thought that chopsticks were bamboo (though i have also seen them in hardwoods, but those were really more to show off) - you learn something new every day





i also find this entire subject humorous - what's next? are we going to have them print our money (since they already loan it to us anyway)?

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[tamathumper]

Flash, they and many other countries already *do* print our money!



"Superdollars" are outright counterfeits of U.S. currency of a quality probably only attainable by a government: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar

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[Cloud9...68]

"i also find this entire subject humorous"





That was the intent. For once, I'm glad it din't morph into a serious discussion on trade policy, the pros and cons of nafta, protectionism, etc.

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[Rap]

It could!!!

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