hammercarp

From CNN news Corker said the two sides were very close to a deal and stumbled on the deadline for the union to agree to the reduced pay. The unions have accepted wage wage cuts so your first statement is false. It's when they take place that is the sticking point. Your last staement is also not true. CNN news The benefit costs are significantly greater for U.S. automakers, though, because they have to pay health care costs for hundreds of thousands of retirees. The union agreed to close much of that gap in the 2007 labor agreements by shifting responsibility for retiree health care to union-controlled trust funds. But those changes won't take effect until 2010. Does not look like greedy unions to me. Looks to me like they are helping the company and looking out for their own. Anyways it looks like they are going to get the funds anyway. So the name calling is uncalled for.

Nonsense. They in fact make 1/600th of what their CEO's make. We cannot afford to have the big three disappear all at once. The shock to the economy and the resulting job losses would be something that the north american economy would not recover from in our life time. There would be no rebirth of the car industry here. Car companies from across the planet would simply jump in to take over the market. This is make it or break it time.

Blasphemy! They'll get you for dissing the sacred cow of north america.

Somewhere in this whole mess there has to be a viable balance between production efficiency and cost effectiveness. The problem is it may not pander to those who wear their vehicle like an emblem of their success in the world, or at least how they want to be perceived. The problem is we are a consumer society. You are what you buy. So it isn't some people, it is the vast majority.

Flying squirrels. http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZgcBUx0Vwg

All I wanted to know is,if the big three built basic and just one big one, would it be better? No I don't think so. What about the imports? We live in a consumer society and Toyota and the rest would simply take over completely.

It's seems it was a tough fall for all bank fishers. But those are some nice fish. Congradulations and thanks the post.

Haven't you learned anything. Your so called free market got us into this mess. The second thing is the "free market" is just as much crap as Marx's communist utopia. It does not work. I have personal real world experience with this and believe a "free market" sucks. I dug this up from a post I made on another forum. Have any of you experienced or seen a "free market"? I have and the results were bad for everybody. I work in the sign business and have been involved with portable signs. Those are the tempory signs used by businesses to advertise generally on the side of the road. They are supposed to be used for a short period of time and then taken down. Here is what happened here.These type of signs were a new thing here about fifteen years ago. One company, the one I am currently working for was one of the first to offer them to businesses. After awhile the city of Hamilton tried to regulate then by passing some by-laws. The guy I currently work for took the city to court and got an injunction against the by-law. The city did not want to spend any more money on this and so there were no laws governing the use of these signs. It was now a defacto free market. In a few years this was the result. The company I work for basically quit doing portables in Hamilton because prices spiralled downward and it was no longer profitable. They never made back any of the money they spent on lawyers. There were so many portable signs out there that they were virtually useless as advertising media. They were so crowded together that nobody could read them. The merchants only used them because they were cheap so everyone had one out and they didn't want to lose their spot. Everybody that could slap some boards together had a portable sign business and plenty went out of business. They left their junkie signs sitting there. Some merchants bought their own portable signs. These deteriorated and became derelics because there was no maintainance done on them. Property managers and landlords either banned their use or let their tenants do what ever they wanted. Certain sections of the city really started to look like crap. The result of a completely free market was bad news for everyone. The city looked like hell. Merchants spent money on advertising that provided no return. Portable sign companies had large numbers of signs that made no profit and they could not get rid of them do to the money they had tied up in their inventory of signs and letters. The company that I work for ( the one that created the free market) did business in other cities and towns that had by-laws regulating portable signs. And guess what? The business thrived in a regulated market and has greatly expanded into other aspects of the sign and graphic business. The city of Hamilton, where I live has passed new sign by-laws and the mess is being cleaned up. The sign business I work for is doing more business in the city. At a profit. This is the real world that I have worked in for the last ten years. So much for "free markets" I say you can keep em. Laissez faire business died a hundred years ago and I hope it stays buried.

I target carp and they definately get old and big. This whole issue of world records is getting murkier and murkier. The latest world record carp was caught in France. It was stocked into a 25 acre pond. It was selected from a brood stock of large fish and was fed to increase it's size. The whole thing is completely artificial. Guys have posted that they would not consider a stocked fish to be a world record and I agree. We are in a time when the hand of man is on everthing. We really don't know anymore if a fish reached it's size "naturally" or if it was the result of us manipulating factors to get a fish that big. I looked at the picture of the latest monster musky to be caught and I could imagine what the guy felt when he first got a good look at it and realised it's size. What a buzz!. I believe he did the right thing in releasing it. Especially in light of what has been posted on this thread. I believe that the efforts to release the fish as quickly as possible should far outway any concerns over it's actual weight. Personally if you catch a fish and want to weight to ten decimal places that's your business. But I can tell you this, the Ontario record for common carp is broken all the time and by guys that are targeting them. They refuse to kill the fish just to get on the record books. I feel the same way.

Another peculiar aspect of people is the belief that eating part of another creature will impart to the eater some of their victums power. I can state positively in this case that it is utterly untrue and a hopeless endeavour.

Ever read Gulliver's Travels. The Lilliputians go to war with eachother over which end of an egg to crack open first because it's disgusting to eat an egg opened at the "wrong end." It was written about a couple of hundred years ago, some things never change.

Randy I hope you don't mind. But I was there and I would like to add my post from another thread. I think it fits in. I dove out to pay my respects today. I live in Hamilton and work in Burlington so I had to drive through Toronto to get there. I like to think that I have a feel for the pulse or mood of the traffic. Today I did notice a difference. People were very well behaved and patient on the 401. It was like everybody knew what was coming down the highway and they would have died of shame if they were the cause of something that interfered with it. My first glimpse of people gathered on the brigdes was at Morningside and then I saw something stuck me as very poignient. Off to the side of one of the bridges standing to the inside of an on ramp were a woman and child, a girl I think. They stood there patiently waiting by themselves for the motorcade to pass by. I was filled with emotion at that site. No parade no flags just a mother and daughter silently waiting to say thanks and pay their respects. I kept driving until I was in Pickering and I heard over the radio that the motorcade had passed Oshawa . I pulled off on Brock road but came back west to Liverpool. I parked at a Tim Hortons and grabbed a coffee. I walked across the the street and started up the bridge . People along the way said hello. I got to where the people had gathered. A firetruck was there with lights flashing. I took up my place beside a gentleman who introduced himself and said that he had been here many times. I said I was from Hamilton . There was a young man beside and we exchanged greetings as well. In about five minutes flashing lights were visilble under the next bridge as the motorcade drew near. As the procession got nearer the man beside me saluted. I slipped my hood off and removed my hat and held it over my heart. Everything got quiet as everone stood still and our attention was on the four funeral hearses that went by. A few more cars and then it was over. The crowd began to leave the bridge. I felt like a wieght had been lifted of of me. I was worried on my trip there that I would get caught in traffic and would not get to do what I had set out to do. A lot of things went through my head on the drive back. Feelings of sadness and pride in my fellow Canadians. I never thought that in my lifetime someone would lay down their life for me. And these soldiers had. They had stood for me and my country and I was glad to have stood for them just for a tiny bit.

That guy is good. No doubt about that.

My lamprey! Jeez, thanks there. I think you would be much more likely to get a really horrific disease from eating maggots as opposed to lamprey. Maybe Danbo you could do a test and post the results.

Beats is right and let's face it, all fish do things which we find disgusting.

Well said.

Wow what a pictoral odessy. Thanks

WTG! Nice pictures. Thanks for sharing.

I dove out to pay my respects today. I live in Hamilton and work in Burlington so I had to drive through Toronto to get there. I like to think that I have a feel for the pulse or mood of the traffic. Today I did notice a difference. People were very well behaved and patient on the 401. It was like everybody knew what was coming down the highway and they would have died of shame if they were the cause of something that interfered with it. My first glimpse of people gathered on the brigdes was at Morningside and then I saw something stuck me as very poignient. Off to the side of one of the bridges standing to the inside of an on ramp were a woman and child, a girl I think. They stood there patiently waiting by themselves for the motorcade to pass by. I was filled with emotion at that site. No parade no flags just a mother and daughter silently waiting to say thanks and pay their respects. I kept driving until I was in Pickering and I heard over the radio that the motorcade had passed Oshawa . I pulled off on Brock road but came back west to Liverpool. I parked at a Tim Hortons and grabbed a coffee. I walked across the the street and started up the bridge . People along the way said hello. I got to where the people had gathered. A firetruck was there with lights flashing. I took up my place beside a gentleman who introduced himself and said that he had been here many times. I said I was from Hamilton . There was a young man beside and we exchanged greetings as well. In about five minutes flashing lights were visilble under the next bridge as the motorcade drew near. As the procession got nearer the man beside me saluted. I slipped my hood off and removed my hat and held it over my heart. Everything got quiet as everone stood still and our attention was on the four funeral hearses that went by. A few more cars and then it was over. The crowd began to leave the bridge. I felt like a wieght had been lifted of of me. I was worried on my trip there that I would get caught in traffic and would not get to do what I had set out to do. A lot of things went through my head on the drive back. Feelings of sadness and pride in my fellow Canadians. I never thought that in my lifetime someone would lay down their life for me. And these soldiers had. They had stood for me and my country and I was glad to have stood for them just for a tiny bit.

I went to the other board and clicked on todays posts. There were six of them and two were non fishing. Kinda weird that the guy would post on that site that there's too many NF posts here.

How about this one.

I agree. If you want to discuss our commitment in Afganistan, please start another thread. To do so on this one is wrong.

Holdfast The news paper article is the Toronto Star and the No Frills grocery store is in the GTA so I don't think you have any worries out in North Battleford Saskatchewan. I have had smoked eel before and it's good. As far as exotic stuff available in our grocery stores, I think carp is pretty mundane. Anybody see or hear of any real strange stuff?

I have listened to this stuff about autoworkers having it too good. I wonder how you would feel if somebody from outside your work enviroment told you that you make too much money, that your pension was too generous or that your benifits package was too good for you. Do you know that the big 3's sales force outnumbers their labour force. That's right more people make a living selling cars than making them. I don't hear any complaints about them.

Carp-starter I think your math is a bit off to. Canada may be 1/10th the size of the states but our auto industry exports 90% of the vehicles they produce to the states. Also even though not all citizens pay income tax nearly all of us pay GST and there are other federal taxes as well. Also farm equipment is just not comparable to the automotive industry. The scale is vastly different. The collapse of the automotive industry would be catastrophic to our economy. We need it to change without disappearing.