There are 3 major players that act in combination and affect leaf thickness/flexibility. Most important is the amount of photo-exposure the leaf receives. There is a layer of cells (palisade) just under the epidermis, These palisade cells are perpendicular to the epidermis and are much longer in leaves grown in bright light, which makes the leaf thicker and less flexible. The amount of N the plant gets and watering habits are the other two. Plants that are regularly irrigated when they are almost dry show thicker cuticles and more cuticular wax, both of which are a developmental response that ensures reduced water loss from the epidermis (cuticular transpiration). Excess N will cause thinner leaves. New leaves are strong energy sinks, so each generation of leaves in plants that are growing quickly get a smaller share of photosynthate production. Because surface area of the leaf is extremely important to the plant, the plant is programmed to increase surface area before it thickens. By the time the leaf is mature, it's ability to attract the photosynthate that would have allowed it to thicken is already being devoted to the next generations of leaves. This is kind of a parallel to the idea that 'excess N produces weak and spindly growth. Al

Unfortunately, most of Americana is too greedy and stupid to separate the good from the bad or better termed healthy from the unhealthy and they get lost in fantasy and wishful thinking. We can see this sickness this very moment in our country. Lets see...the little guy has created too much debt, has lived beyond his or her means and can't pay their bills. So we need the bailout, so the little guy can borrow more money, continue to live beyond their means and create more debt that they can't pay? Sounds like the bailout, is more of a Ponzi scheme not meant to bailout the taxpayer, but instead reamout the taxpayer as it makes the rich...richer. Would an alcoholic be fixed if he inherited a whiskey factory? Would a limitless supply of free alcohol cure what ails him? Or would it just increase the sickness? We have learned nothing from our bailout mess. We can see this from the debate on how to water down the mark to market accounting standards. Instead of restoring high financial and accounting standards we are further relaxing them, in effect increasing the sickness that got us here. I would add that any accounting standard that discards mark to market accounting would be off my screen for investments. Even with mark to market, we have all these accounting lies. Can you imagine how it will be when asset values can be assigned by the holders of those assets with no reckoning with what the 'actual market value' of those assists are? I believe that many ads should contain disclaimers like cigs do. But, without 70% of the economy fueled by the consumer all our retirement funds would tank and there would be a riot. So the politicians do the best they can and hope the roof does not come crashing down during their watch. And to keep the rook from falling requires much adverting for us to keep consuming. We have built a defective model for long term population support. We can only keep on keeping on as long as the crude is free flowing and affordable by the masses. It would be one thing if we all reverted back to rural living, burning trees for fuel and housing and living within our comfortable means allotted to us by nature, as our ancestors did back in the day. But seven billion people can't burn the trees! We must accept that we have built our world on unsustainable means - a means built artificially on fossil fuel. And when we live out of balance with natures intended means there is a price to pay to come back in balance with nature. And the price usually extracts pain from us in the adjustment process. It has been estimated that for the earth to sustainably support its population without fossil fuels a 90% dieoff must occur. I don't know if that is the right figure, but I do know humans could not live as they do unless it was funded by artificial means via fossil fuels. http://dieoff.org/ The other day Discover card was promoting endless consumption 'as a good' and they wished to do us a favor by helping us spend money better as we create more debt we can't afford to pay. The ads for pills seldom offer help for the underlying cause of the disease, just quick fixes that cost lots of money. I especially like the ad that is targeted to women that are 'too busy' to take one pill every week. They just have to take their bone builder pill once a month. Wake up ladies...if you are too busy to take a pill once a week how are you going to live a healthy life? Healthy living requires much more work, such as exercising and preparing and eating healthy foods, than just taking a pill once a week? We live in a sick, greed driven world that poisons for profit. Just look at all the unhealthy food sold to us all for the sake of making a buck. I just say NO to the bastards that try to injure me with their demands to run me into debt and the endless phone calls and offers to fleece me of my money and clutter up my life with useless things.

Sometimes , things that we wouldnt even blink twice about with our own kids, become major irritants with stepkids. Most stepparents, whether they will admit it or not, are occasionaly guilty of the double standard, regarding their kids and their partners kids. Those of us who accept that the inclination and tendency exists to view the same action differently depending upon whether our birth kids, or our stepkids do it, are better able to guard against reacting to it, and thus have less tension over the little things. OCcasional lapses arent going to destroy things, but a lifestyle of different standards certainly will. About a month ago, husband and I were out shopping and came home to find one of my birth sons and his gf in our hot tub, eating bbq steaks that we had taken out for dinner ourselves . I could tell it bothered my hubby although he didnt say anything. Later, after the kids left, I asked him why he was bothered. My husband was wise enough to admit that it bugged him that my son and his gf just showed up, ate our food, and made themselves at home without us there....but he was also wise enough to realize that he knew it was his problem, it wasnt a big deal, and that he fully admitted that if it were HIS kids that did it, it wouldnt bother him at all. Even though both hubby and I dont sweat the small th ings, and even though we both try as much as we can to treat the others children like our own, and even though it doesnt really bother either of us if the kids come home anytime without letting us know, there are still times when one of the kids trigger a response that is probably just human nature, since they arent our birth kids. ITs not what they do, its how we react, or choose not to react to it, that counts.

I had no doubt Elmer would chime in in defense of the large corporations, and offer advice like: rather than complain about the corporations efforts to avoid paying the taxes they are legally obligated to, instead you should buy stock in the company so that you can benefit from the dribs and drabs of ill-gotten-gains that spills forth from their over-full pockets. I wasn't talking about moving manufacturing operations to third-world locations like China or Mexico or Alabama, where the responsibility of manufacturers to their workers amounts to: "Too bad, so sad, enjoy your cancer." or "Sorry about your missing limb, I hope that grows back" I was talking about schemes where the companies declare their "headquarters" to be a mail drop in a strip mall in Ireland, and then create fictitious subsidiaries in Ireland, The Netherlands, The Bahamas and/or Singapore and exploit dubious loopholes with clever names like: Double Irish with a Dutch Sandwich, Bermuda Black Hole, or Singapore Sling. These schemes to avoid paying taxes are not illegal only because the companies exploiting them have a cadre of accountants, lawyers and lobbyists working tirelessly to prevent the government from closing the loophole and making them illegal. And they are only "not nefarious" by a situational morality ruler of "All of those others are doing it too, therefore it is not morally/ethically wrong." Using these Google paid a tax rate of 2.4% in 2009 on 5.5 billion euros in profit, while in a different year Apple paid approximately 1% in taxes using such schemes. Some half-assed efforts have been made to address these abuses, but rather than declaring that their use of these loopholes was illegal all along and demanding the companies pay the taxes they would have owed, plus penalties, like I would have to do if I engaged in tax fraud, instead the governments have said what you've done is wrong, but the punishment for doing so is nothing, and we'll give you until 2020 to continue this particular tax fraud while you look for new loopholes you can exploit to continue to avoid paying taxes. If you are saying that you helped companies exploit these dubious tax avoidance schemes then you are part of the problem, and in my mind you are no less criminal than the companies that have done so.