Problem with mounting usb flash drives

[JD]

Fc16 - latest updates
Desktop: XFCE4

When I insert a flash stick in a usb slot,
it appears on the desktop - but it does not
get auto-mounted as it used to in gnome2.
So, I right-click it's icon and wait 10 years
for the desktop to respond with what I need
to do, and I select to mount it.

So far,so good.

I then insert a compact flash into a usb card-reader
dongle (because the internal one never worked from
day one when I bought the laptop).
Immediately, the first usb flash is removed from
it's mount point. The new icon of the flash in the usb dongle
apears on the desktop (in the spot where the first
usb stick was) and again I right-click, wait for 10 years
and I select to mount it.
in /dev, where there was /dev/sdd and /dev/sdd1, now
appears (in addition to sda*, sdb* and sdc*), sdd, sde, sde1.
sdd1 (which was mounted as the first flash drive) is gone.

So, now it is evident I can only have one usb flash
drive in the system at a time.

Is this a problem with desktop, the kernel, or the udevd?