I followed the link above to read more about this story. It upset me so badly that I have been trying to think of any way that people could have some influence that might prevent the destruction of these plants. I wrote an email to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Vilsack asking that our government try to exert some influence to preserve these plants. When I was a kid my grandmother told me stories about when the chestnut blight killed all the American Chestnut trees in the eastern US. One fungal disease managed to decimate one of the most important trees in the forests of the eastern US. In a matter of a few years, a tree, which was as common in forests as oak trees are today, were all completely dead. Because the wood was naturally disease and rot resistant, the dead tree stood for years until people gradually cut them down for timber. They stood like skeletons to remind them of what had been lost. The trees had provided a tremendous source of nutrition for humans, livestock, and wildlife as well as one of the best lumber materials available. I live in Knoxville, TN at the foot of the Great Smokey Mountains. For the past 20 years, the hemlock woolly adelgid had been repeating this same story as it kills all of the hemlock trees in the Great Smokey Mountains. Scientists are predicting that all all hemlocks in the southern U.S will be dead within 10 years. We never know when a new pest or disease will come along and wipe out a species or variety of plant upon which we depend. It is imperative that organizations with collections of plants, like the ones at the Pavlovsk experimental station, be preserved so that we have genetic diversity upon which we can develop new variates that will be resistant to plant diseases of the future. I am going to start putting together a list of URLs and email address for sending comments to press, government, and other groups to see if anything can be done to convince the Russian government that they need to build elsewhere. If I put this list together of URLs and email addresses, how many people would volunteer to send notes to them all. You could write a one simple note to them all, but it is not as simple as sending a group email with blind carbon copies. More and more often groups are using web pages where you must post your comments to them, rather than having a public email address. For these you have to click, paste, and send to each one. Besides agreeing to send to the list I can put together, everyone that is interested could send the list to friends that are fellow gardeners for example. If a few dozen influential people get a few thousand emails, something might happen to prevent this catastrophe. The alternative to preserving this plant genetic diversity is that soon we will all be held hostage by a few large corporations who will hold the patents on every plant that is grown for food or fiber, and these plants will depend upon their company's patented chemicals to...

I thought I planted some of those last year, but I didn't have any big enough that I thought could be Big Jim. I thought I had the sweet peppers on one end of the garden and all the hots on the other, but somehow I goofed and every now and then we got a little surprise. It looked a lot like that pepper in color and shape (but not size) and looked exactly like another sweet pepper I grew. Some of my labels didn't survive the April and May rainfalls, so that pepper was unexpected. I was cooking one night and cut a small end off of a pepper that I was planning to eat while I cooked. I tasted the end to make sure it was a sweet one. I tasted no heat, so I sliced off about and inch from the bottom of the pepper and tossed it in my month and bite down on it, then danced around the kitchen for about five minutes. After that, I was very careful which peppers I put into recipes.

Do you only have one email address? I have more than 1 and when I register anywhere as we need to on this site I use my other address, not the main one provided by my internet service provider. The main address is only for family and friends. If that address becomes overwhelmed with Spam you can quit using it and create a new email acco8nt to start again. Also all these emails with dozens of names and addresses at the top are harvested by these Spam artists. I have asked folks to use the BCC (blind carbon copy) so the addresses are invisible but few take any notice. I have read some good reports on the Spam blockers Bob wrote about, you might consider using one of those and see how much it reduces your Spam. If you do it would be nice to read about how effective you consider it to be. There are always lurkers who value information like that.

So many good responses. I agree with so much already said. Vampiressrn comment that "I think there is a lot of gray area here" is very much to the point. If I tell a poster that I also have a bed in the corner, and I link to my blog photo, and the blog has an advertisement for smelling salts, one person might feel that it's a ploy for smelling salts sales, and one might just see it as a helpful link. Given that, I don't think most of us are patrolling for spam, or getting all up in it over posts with links or blog links. When other posters start labeling something as "spam" it usually is. And if I have a website called Redbazel and you click on it, that's on you. Doesn't mean my posting with the same screen name I've used for 10 years is spam. If I post that I HAVE a website, and you email me to ask about it, that is also on you. Doesn't mean I tried to dredge up hits to my website. Now, I'm glad that the votes thing got brought up. While I don't think anyone here had any bad motives when they asked for ugliest kitty votes, or pinkest cheek votes or dancing with penguin votes, I don't really think the decorating forum is the place for this. If you want to call your friends and solicit votes, I guess that's ok. But I really think that votes should also be based on real feelings. So if I click on the "Vote for MY recliner!!" thread and I find that Magnaverde's recliner is in a Glen plaid and I truly love some anonymous recliner in gray velvet, it's annoying to see all the votes go to MV just because he happens to be an outstanding GW poster instead of to the anon. owner of the very pretty gray velvet. It skews the voting process. If it's popularity votes you want, My vote is for MV. If we are Really voting for nice recliners, I'm going to check the box next to the velvet with the feather headrest and the built-in remote. Red **No blogs, so don't hunt for them!!