my shots are trapped in iPhoto

I've got a MacBookPro (recently purchased) and when I tried to move shots from my iPhoto to a thumb drive, they wouldn't move. They wouldn't even move to my desktop. any ideas? BTW, regardless of what camera I used to take the shots this happens.
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John Crawley

“Let there be light.” It all began right there.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wordsandsuch/show/

There are three kinds of people: those that are good at math and those that are not.