jeb

Looks good. Profile is very similar looking to a Shad Rap. But it sounds like it will cast much better than the Rap.

Agreed. I don't even think about it anymore. Just spend the $30 and be done with it.

Wish I could make it, Jeff. Sounds like a great time! But our first race of the year is that weekend, so I'm probably out. I'll keep an eye on this thread, and hope it gets pushed one weekend out. ;-)

First one looks like a football with a lure hanging from it! Nice fish, Jeff.

Sorry, had to LOL at your last statement (bolded), given all the conclusion jumping you did about the guys motives earlier in your post.

What store is that? Will probably be in Springfield in a couple of weeks, so might stop in.

A spinner bait? Say it ain't so, Jeff! :-) Nice looking bass.

Thieves suck. Our RV shed got broken into yesterday in the wee hours and they took upwards of $10k of stuff. We have insurance, but it looks like our rates will go up because of it. What a farce. You pay insurance for years and years and then they punish you when you get robbed. Anyway, very sorry to hear about it. I hope you find your stuff.

I have a hydrowave I'd sell for $150. Have the boxes, manuals, etc. Works perfect.

And it will also send many, many more of our jobs overseas, all while decreasing our standard of living. I think the answer is to continue to do research into viable storage options. Maybe shift the lions share of the R&D money being wasted on Climate Change research, since that is yielding almost nothing but bad science so far. Once that hill has been climbed, assuming it can be climbed, the rest will likely follow suit. Trying to force the issue is only hurting ourselves, IMO.

I never said otherwise, although I'd disagree with the premise about oil and gas. It is made relatively cheaper by comparing it to higher cost green energy sources. The overall problem is storage. Your article mentions another experimental one, molten salt, and I hope that works out, and is economical. But until that nut is cracked, part time power sources will never fill the grid. And until the cost of that eventual storage media is known and figured in, you can't really compare "parity to grid", IMO. I do think we will transition slowly over to greener technologies over time, as they become more economically viable. That makes sense. Trying to force the grid over while the cost of the alternatives is still too high and the storage problem is still not solved is what I object to. Then there is the issue of where do you put all these wind farms and solar fields? Folks don't generally want them in their backyards. Look how hard they fought them off the coast near the Kennedy compound out East. Laughable hypocrisy at its finest, right there. Because they made economic sense. They did more work, you didn't have to have a farm to keep them around, they were faster, etc, etc. I think another thing to look at in your calculations is that you're talking a yearly investment in R&D and comparing it to the total cost of our middle east wars over many years. I'm not by any means trying to justify the cost of those wars, just sayin'.

It's not so much that. It just seems like there is very little interest in that kind of fishing in this forum.

I don't think it's a "program to promote national pride". That's just a by product. But I get your point, and I do understand the budget constraints that makes it hard to justify replacing the shuttle program. And I'd be a lot more okay with that if I didn't see the govt running huge deficits fighting stupid wars and expanding the welfare state. Term limits and a constitutional mandate for a balanced budget are what we need, IMO. Oh, and drastic campaign reforms.

I'm not sure where you're getting your investment numbers, but the ones I see are around $30 billion in the USA. And I very much doubt that takes into account all the govt spending on R&D, tax incentives, etc. At any rate, again, the problem is the economics of it. There needs to be some major advancements in storage capacity, efficiency, etc before it makes any sense from a dollars and cents standpoint. Sure, there may be a few out there that are willing to pay much more for their power to get it from a supposedly greener source, but most will not willing do so. That would be especially true in the competitive international job market. Researchers have been trying to crack those problems for decades now, with very little real results. I tell people when they can get the kind of storage and reserve power of a typical car or boat battery into a package the size of a D cell battery and the cost of it is reasonable, then we can start to make sense of solar and wind. But really, vehicle batteries have changed very little since I started driving back in the mid-70's. Sure, you can drop big bucks on a lighter lithium, and they are more reliable. But the size and capacity have changed very little. And lead/acid is still the most common type. I wonder if we ever will make that leap that is required in the storage area. You can believe the govt, colleges and industry has been trying HARD to do that for a lot of years now. Can you imagine the patent income from a company inventing something like that? As many as could make money doing it. So none. Although some companies made a lot of money helping to get us to the moon. But that was tax payer money. I agree that some new technology was spawned from it. But if were so good for us economically, we'd still be doing it. Heck, the current administration has stripped us of any ability to even get men to space now. Hitching a ride with the Russians is just depressing from a national pride perspective, IMO.

LOL! No, I don't troll lures, or use live bait.

I doubt it. But this brings up a good point. The green energy agenda is being sold to the public as a "it won't hurt YOU" thing. They're being told it will all be very painless, evil companies will have to pay more taxes, the govt will subsidize it for you, it'll all be okay. But I guarantee you when the pain hits John Q Public and he/she are told they can only afford enough energy to keep the lights on, no more "smart phones, netflix and hbo" as you put it, there will be a political revolution in this country. There won't be any jobs left here either, so they'll have plenty of time to get involved at that point.

Yep, I think we all know what their opinion is. The fly in the ointment though is the fact that they hang their hat on CO2 emissions being the trigger. And it's now quite evident that rising CO2 levels do not bring with them the "alarming" rises in global temperatures they were predicting. So they need to come up with a better theory to support their opinions, and start getting the science on their side. That is a nice dream, I agree. But reality is the problem. The reality is that we've been on the path you describe for a number of years already, and it is not bringing those benefits. The reason is those green energy technologies make no economic sense at this point in time. All we're doing by forcing this on ourselves is making us less competitive on the world market for jobs. One of the sad things is that many of the jobs we hoped it would create here are going overseas, like building our solar panels and wind turbines. The irony of our current "leadership" in trying to force fossil fuel energy prices higher (to make green energy more competitive) is that it's made extracting oil and NG from formerly marginal sources economically viable. There is quite a fossil fuel boom going on in North America thanks to those policies, and the current world reserves are very impressive. We're just not living in the same world we were 20+ years ago. We were the kings and everyone knew it. The aftermath of WWII was very good to us. But as our current president has made pains to point out over the years, there was no good reason for it. We are no more exceptional than anyone else, is how he put it, I believe. So it was just a matter of time until we were dethroned. It's been a sad thing to watch happen. Forcing higher energy costs and more regulations on ourselves has proven to be the wrong path back to greatness, IMO, and has hastened the decline. You got that right. What smart person would want to run for office in this political environment? And even if they did start out with integrity, the process of getting elected to any federal office is an absolutely corrupting one these days.

They seem to prefer the clearer water down by the dam. I caught a 3lb smallie in Ventris yesterday, according to the Boga Grip. So they seem active. Only SM I caught out of 16 black bass. Rest were spots and LM, many of them on top water.

If you want to talk about twisting, I'd take a strong look at your assumption that anthropogenic forcing has anything to do with it. The results of the science do NOT back up that assumption. It is immensely more logical that it is just part of the natural climate change between glacial periods. And the real world data at this point is baring that out as well.

I hope they do too. It takes a pretty biased read to think it paints a different picture than what I presented, though.

I think so. Is a trend something like 95% of the AGW models being wrong? 150 years? You're way off on that. Climate change has ALWAYS been occurring, from long before man ever showed up. And it will continue long after we're gone. Sure, that's possible. But the point is that pretty much all the consensus science TOLD US that would NOT be the case. We were suppose to continue warming at an "alarming pace". So they were wrong, and now they're clutching at straws like deep ocean warming to still be able to hang on to their now demonstrably false conclusions. And I don't mind them being wrong. This branch of science is quite obviously very, very crude at this point and has a long way to go, unfortunately, to place any real faith in. And, again, that's okay. The problem comes in when all the chicken littles take it as gospel and "settled science" and insist we throw money at it when we have A ) no idea if the money will actually help one iota and B ) do not have the money to throw at to begin with. We need to quit crippling the developed world's economies chasing a boogie man and get our financial house in order before tilting at these windmills, as borne out by the output of the science itself at this point. And, again, ad nauseam, I'm all for continued research, and I'm for a cleaner planet and better ways to do things. But we need to be smart about it. And basing decision on this science at this point in time is not smart at all. Quite the contrary, really. Yes, I know that's what consensus scientists believe. The problem is the real world evidence does not agree with them in any way, especially when contrasted with their own dire predictions. Hardly. I'm not sure where you even get off saying something like that. I suggest you look at the facts instead of the emotions. I've never mentioned one or two years of weather indicating any kind of trend. It's been about 20 years of no rise in global temps now. And, again, more to the point, that is NOT what the consensus scientist predicted. It makes it kind of hard to believe them now about whatever conjecture or theory of the month that come up with. Especially when they are proven wrong again and again, this time by an agency that has been pretty much in their corner from the start (see the NASA link I posted in just above). It boggles the mind to hear someone say the issues are still the same in the face of all the evidence to the contrary. But I guess it is as some say, much like a religion. You have to be a devout believer, because there is no evidence to support it.

So much for the deep ocean warming theory. Yes, they try to dance around it a bit, but it's hard to dispute the results are not in the favor the "consensus scientist" community on this one: http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/october/nasa-study-finds-earth-s-ocean-abyss-has-not-warmed/#.VDUklxYym1l The cold waters of Earth’s deep ocean have not warmed measurably since 2005, according to a new NASA study, leaving unsolved the mystery of why global warming appears to have slowed in recent years. The temperature of the top half of the world's oceans -- above the 1.24-mile mark -- is still climbing, but not fast enough to account for the stalled air temperatures.

Out of context? It was totally in context. The only debate is if the accuracy of the science has changed since then. Given the results thus far of the latest and greatest from that branch of science, the answer is clearly that they are still just guessing. That goes both ways. You can't see the obvious because you're so invested in your believes. And that is kind of the rub. If neither side can prove their theories correct, what are we doing talking about saving the world from some boogie man that likely does not even exist? You're wrong about that. Things like Obama's EPA recently declaring war on fossil fuel power is doing tremendous damage to our economy in many ways. Loss of jobs, more folks on the govt teat, higher cost of power making us less competitive globally, scaring off investments, etc. The folks that do those kinds of things to our economy say "well, it's just a little more money, the consumer will suck it up.". That's just not the case anymore. We have to compete on a world wide basis, which means companies have to move jobs overseas in order to still be profitable when faced with ever increasing regulation and cost. Like what, specifically? And exactly how much will your ideas cost and exactly how will they actually help? Remember, the very draconian restrictions in the Kyoto treaty were said to only be able to bring down the global warming by like 1/2 a degree over the next century. This is not a turn the extra lights off kind of problem, if you listen to the alarmist. This is a get off the grid completely kind of problem. How many here are ready to unplug? You're fooling yourself if you think China is going to follow anyones lead. They are laughing at us as they suck ever more jobs and money away from us. As I said earlier, they only thing China will pay attention to is if we pull jobs away from them. And the only way that is going to happen is to make it easier for companies to produce goods in the developed countries. Instead, we throw up ever more road blocks for companies to be able to do that. And that's a darn shame. I don't doubt they will gradually start to adopt some meager pollution controls, especially in the larger industrialized areas. I understand the jobs our govt has shipped them have caused untold pollution issues. But they'd only do as little as required, and probably only if we pay for it. Did you see their demands at the latest UN conference last week? Go look them up and tell me they aren't just laughing at us. They'll only change, they said, if someone else pays for it. And they want a reliable, govt imposed, dedicated tax stream from the developed countries before they'll agree to it. Look, I'm all for trying to find a better way and energy that pollutes less. But first and foremost, it has to make sense. We've already done a tremendous job of cleaning up the environment in the States, as most developed countries have. But we have to stay competitive, too. We can't just decide that we're going to pay twice as much or more for our energy because we feel better about it and expect to have any kind of thriving economy left.

Even your article says the warming has stopped, or is on "hiatus". No good explanation of why it has stopped while C02 levels have continued to rise is offered, other than the oceans are getting warmer instead, which is just the latest thing for the AGW crowd, er, consensus scientist to gather around. I think the best quote from the link is in the opening paragraph: All of them agreed that their knowledge was primitive and any prediction was guesswork. And it still is, as evidenced by the almost total failure of their models and predictions so far. Again, I support some research into the field and hope that it someday becomes even mildly reliable information. But it is not there today, and most likely has a LONG way to go to get there. The problem I have with this primitive guesswork, as your article calls it, is assuming it is accurate enough to impose draconian laws on ourselves, and further damaging our economy and world wide competitiveness in the process, especially given its very dismal track record thus far. It's no better than Don Quixote tilting at wind mills at this point. At some point, common sense has to kick in. Let's see, they were wrong about the hockey stick thing, wrong about CO2 directly causing warming, wrong about it getting it warmer at the rates they predicted, etc. But now they are asking us to believe they have it right about oceans getting warmer and its effects on the climate. Yeah, not so much. None of it really passed the sniff test to begin with. But now you have to ignore an awful lot to still buy into it, IMO.

That's why I said right or wrong. And the vast majority claiming there is does not prove anything. At this point, they all just look bad given the incorrectness of their models/hypothisis thus far. When did I say it was not called/considred a GHG? My point was, as I stated above, that if it is such a key GHG, why have the increases not been matched with increased global temps, as was foretold? Global temps have overall been on the rise since the last ice age receeded. Doesn't take trillions of dollars of research to see that truth. But for the last 15-20 years, they have held pretty much steady, against all the chicken little predictions of the consensus sceientist.