ness

You'd think they could hit the enter key a couple extra times to keep the hatcheries open.

Less than an hour since the Fed made its much-awaited announcement. More of the same: keeping short term rates near zero until 2015 and buying $85 billion per month of mortgage-backed securities which keeps mortgage and other long-term rates lower. If you refinanced your mortgage in the last 8 weeks, it's time to do it again. BTW, the way they pay for those securities is by creating an entry in the selling bank's Fed account. Hit the 'enter' key, create some dollars. It's magic!

Yeah, having them pull out is great news, but that thing's not over yet.

Mornin' joeD. Before you get it on today, make some time for post editing.

You know, I thought that same thing. The reviews on Amazon helped me decide. The ones I weighed the most said it was a pretty humorous read so I went for it.

Sounds like a pretty good read, Al. Thanks for sharing that. Just bought it.

Let me see if I can list some things we can all be in agreement with: There should be better accountability for the money being spent. There are undoubtedly programs where there is waste, that have outlived their purpose, or are just flat stupid to begin with. Deficit spending has been going on for decades, but has increased greatly in recent years. Interest rates are at historic lows. If/when interest rates go up, we will spend more in interest payments per dollar borrowed. We depend on others to fund a large part of our government functions. The remainder is been funded by all of us through IOUs issued to Social Security, Medicare, etc. There's a limit to how much we can borrow, and that limit is not determined by us. No president or party is blameless for the past. There is no short or long-term plan to eliminate deficits, so we can expect debt to continue to grow. So, how'd I do?

Lancer You got me on the calls. To me Bowe looked like he just quit instead of hustling back to his feet

Welcome. Lotsa good knowledge here. Ask away or tell us some stories.

It's just not worth the effort to look at little cuts. A few hundred million here and there just isn't worth our time. The big stuff, well, we can't cut that because it's the big stuff. You cut the big stuff and the economy goes in the crapper more. We should be able to trust the military to do the right thing with their $700 billion each year, without us asking a bunch of questions. They're pros! They need to be strong, so we can threaten foreign dictators with Tomahawk strikes, or roll over foreign countries run by bad guys when it's needed. If not us, then who? We also gotta build new carriers and jets, because our old ones, while still the envy of every other country on the planet, just aren't up to date. As for entitlements, we owe it to our citizens to keep them well fed, sheltered and medicated, whatever the cost! It's how we've become the most prosperous country in the history of the planet. Plus, it keeps children from having to take their aging parents in when they're broke or sick. We all know that's a hassle. Good health comes from good insurance and that makes it possible for us to live much, much longer. And that's obviously a good thing. Everybody wants to outlive their organs and their brain. Who doesn't look forward to the day when you're cast aside by your family and placed in a home, living in a pool/pile of your own waste, burning through the remnants of your savings while playing bingo? Plus, you might qualify for one of those scooters. Nice! So, I really don't see the need to change anything. It all seems to be going pretty well.

I agree Wayne, the line is a worry. Charles was stuffed way too much and Smith was hurried too much too. Got a FG blocked. Bowe sat down rather than get hit. He freaking sat down. Wasted timeouts, stupid penalties. We had a lot of favorable calls, bounces, etc. Lot's of positives, lots of negatives but a win is a win.

YEah, it takes a lot of heart to win a game when you've tried so hard to lose it.

I like the looks of that Heddon Pal. How does it cast, and is it in pretty good shape? Medalists are kinda cool. I inherited a couple from my dad. They're easy to ding up, but a little touch up paint get's them looking good again. While you've got the paint out -- might want to...nope, I ain't gonna say it. Either way, those are treasures coming from somebody special.

No hard and fast rules here, and I rarely if ever count. At the end of the day I know if it was a good one or not. I'd just as soon not handle most trout. Tricking one is fun, playing one right and bringing it in is fun. Jacking around with one in a net, trying to get a hook out and/or tippet unwound while doing as little damage as possible isn't so fun. A lot of the time I'll try and twist the hook out without netting the fish at all.

Yep. That's a great way of summing it up.

BilletHead -- I don't even know what the heck you're talking about, but that stuff looks pretty cool. Last I shot was Scout camp.

Niiiice. I gotta google the Hawkins Hat Trick -- I don't know that one.

A friend of mine once said, 'I like fly fishing because of all the cool stuff you can buy.'

Clay Self is great!

Wrench that 57 is a beauty. Gotta love those fins

mic, when you say the skirts were 'made', what do you mean? I just assumed you'd buy the material and tie it on.

Thanks for sharing that. It's true, we really do have it good. I ran into a friend of mine who's a pastor a few months ago. He led a group to Haiti and had similar stories of the unimaginable poverty. One of the things he said that really stuck with me was that they were told not to accept a baby if a parent asked them to hold it because the parents would just not come back.

Interesting that you say Driftless area. I wouldn't have made that connection, but I kinda see the similarity in topography and the looks of the stream now that you mention it. No 400 year old bridges up in IA though. What about food, drink and lodging?

Thanks FS. Yeah -- I've got a compressor coming this week for the airbrush I got. Settled on a (supposedly) quiet, tankless job with a regulator and water trap. It'll take some time to learn how to use an airbrush, I'm sure.