Fedora Security :: Iptables To Deny All Except Localhost?

i was hoping that someone in here could possibly help me out with my iptables rule set. First here is what i would like iptables to do, i want iptables to deny all packets or traffic from the outside coming in and for output allow the things i need like web and irc etc... Also, i would like iptables to deny access to all services like sendmail and ssh except i would like localhost to have access to everything. What i mean by localhost is that when i run my iptables script it loads fine except when i try ssh from localhost i get this output:ssh -l user localhostssh_exchange_identification: Connection closed by remote hostI know what most of you are thinking, why do i need to ssh into localhost from localhost just open another terminal, well i am getting myself familiar with iptables i want all services logged and blocked but not from localhost. I cant seem to figure out this problem and i have tried several different things. Here is my iptables script, I am hoping that someone out there can tell me what i am doing wrong...

#!/bin/bash
iptables -v -F;
iptables -v -A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT;

[code]....