They are trying to remove your weather access

You might want to write to Rick Santorum and tell him why this is such a
bad idea:

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/co...a_wx_0421.html

Essentially, Accuweather has paid Sen. Rick Santorum to put this bill
through the Senate, to force the NWS/NOAA to take a great amount of its
freely available weather offline. This will only have adverse safety
implications for general aviation. Apparently, the Australian experience
of removing free weather access has been a string of weather-related
accidents.

You can write to Santorum he
Santorum, Rick- (R - PA) Class I
511 DIRKSEN
SENATE OFFICE BUILDING
WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-6324

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

On Fri, 22 Apr 2005 10:13:46 -0000, Dylan Smith
wrote in
::

You might want to write to Rick Santorum and tell him why this is such a
bad idea:

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/co...a_wx_0421.html

Essentially, Accuweather has paid Sen. Rick Santorum to put this bill
through the Senate, to force the NWS/NOAA to take a great amount of its
freely available weather offline.

From this it seems that your assertion may have reasonable credence:

But Barry Myers, AccuWeather's executive vice president, said the
bill would improve public safety by making the weather service
devote its efforts to hurricanes, tsunamis and other dangers,
rather than duplicating products already available from the
private sector.

"The National Weather Service has not focused on what its core
mission should be, which is protecting other people's lives and
property," said Myers, whose company is based in State College,
Pa. Instead, he said, "It spends hundreds of millions of dollars a
year, every day, producing forecasts of 'warm and sunny.'"

Santorum made similar arguments April 14 when introducing his
bill. He also said expanded federal services threaten the
livelihoods of private weather companies.

"It is not an easy prospect for a business to attract advertisers,
subscribers or investors when the government is providing similar
products and services for free," Santorum said.

AccuWeather has been an especially vocal critic of the weather
service and its parent agency, the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration.

It would seem that AccuWeather wants the NWS to provide them with tax
payer funded information, so they can charge us for it AND clutter it
with advertising.

"I believe I've paid for that data once. ... I don't want to have
to pay for it again," said Scott Bradner, a technical consultant
at Harvard University.

This will only have adverse safety implications for general aviation.
Apparently, the Australian experience of removing free weather access
has been a string of weather-related accidents.

Are you able to provide a link to information that supports that
change in Australian aviation safety?

You can write to Santorum he
Santorum, Rick- (R - PA) Class I
511 DIRKSEN
SENATE OFFICE BUILDING
WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-6324

The gist of this is... they want to remove information that the US
Government paid for to collect with its own resources from public FREE
sources... and allow a third party to CHARGE for disseminating data that
it didn't pay to collect... Thats how I read it.

Dave

Larry Dighera wrote:

On Fri, 22 Apr 2005 10:13:46 -0000, Dylan Smith
wrote in
::


You might want to write to Rick Santorum and tell him why this is such a
bad idea:

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/co...a_wx_0421.html

Essentially, Accuweather has paid Sen. Rick Santorum to put this bill
through the Senate, to force the NWS/NOAA to take a great amount of its
freely available weather offline.


From this it seems that your assertion may have reasonable credence:

But Barry Myers, AccuWeather's executive vice president, said the
bill would improve public safety by making the weather service
devote its efforts to hurricanes, tsunamis and other dangers,
rather than duplicating products already available from the
private sector.

"The National Weather Service has not focused on what its core
mission should be, which is protecting other people's lives and
property," said Myers, whose company is based in State College,
Pa. Instead, he said, "It spends hundreds of millions of dollars a
year, every day, producing forecasts of 'warm and sunny.'"

Santorum made similar arguments April 14 when introducing his
bill. He also said expanded federal services threaten the
livelihoods of private weather companies.

"It is not an easy prospect for a business to attract advertisers,
subscribers or investors when the government is providing similar
products and services for free," Santorum said.

AccuWeather has been an especially vocal critic of the weather
service and its parent agency, the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration.

It would seem that AccuWeather wants the NWS to provide them with tax
payer funded information, so they can charge us for it AND clutter it
with advertising.

"I believe I've paid for that data once. ... I don't want to have
to pay for it again," said Scott Bradner, a technical consultant
at Harvard University.


This will only have adverse safety implications for general aviation.
Apparently, the Australian experience of removing free weather access
has been a string of weather-related accidents.


Are you able to provide a link to information that supports that
change in Australian aviation safety?


You can write to Santorum he
Santorum, Rick- (R - PA) Class I
511 DIRKSEN
SENATE OFFICE BUILDING
WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-6324

It would probably be more effective to write to your own senator. Too
late for Santorum, I'm sure.

-Jim

Not to mention most Senators do not accept mail or email from people not in
their own district. Your snail mail would more than likely end up in the
trash and not even opened.

Patrick
student SPL
aircraft structural mech

"Jim" wrote in message
ups.com...
It would probably be more effective to write to your own senator. Too
late for Santorum, I'm sure.

-Jim

On 22 Apr 2005 07:31:27 -0700, "Jim" wrote in
. com::

It would probably be more effective to write to your own senator. Too
late for Santorum, I'm sure.

-Jim


I wrote the following to the author of the Palm Beach Post article
inquiring how the senator's proposed act would impact aviation safety:


Larry Dighera wrote:

Dear Mr. King:

Thank you for your insightful and informative article regarding
Sen. Rick Santorum's National Weather Service bill.

Have you any information about how the proposal might affect
weather forecasts and observations disseminated to pilots. As an
FAA certificated Commercial Pilot, I am concerned that it would
negatively impact aviation safety.

Best regards,
Larry Dighera




and received the following:


Message-ID:
Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2005 10:54:17 -0400
From: "Bob King"
Organization: The Palm Beach Post
To: Larry Dighera
Subject: Feds' weather information could go dark

Hi, and thanks for writing.

I'm afraid I don't know the answer to your question. The bill says
the weather service could continue to provide information that's
required under international aviation agreements, but I'm not sure
if that would cover all the information you're concerned about. I
was unable to get anyone from Santorum's office to discuss the
bill with me, although they were kind enough to send me the text.

I will try to find out more on that question for any followup
articles I write.

Thank you again.

-- Bob King
The Palm Beach Post


I'm still waiting for a reply from Senator Santorum.

W P Dixon wrote:
Not to mention most Senators do not accept mail or email from people not
in their own district. Your snail mail would more than likely end up in
the trash and not even opened.

Patrick
student SPL
aircraft structural mech

"Jim" wrote in message
ups.com...

It would probably be more effective to write to your own senator. Too
late for Santorum, I'm sure.

-Jim


They way I look at it is our taxes go to the government to
pay for such services. We shouldn't have to pay twice.

I can see it now, your inflight and you need a weather update
and you hear the breifer say "how are you going to pay for this?".
I wonder if this idea is just riding on the moementum of FS21.

Matt

Larry Dighera wrote:

SantorumÂ*madeÂ*similarÂ*argumentsÂ*AprilÂ*14Â*whe nÂ*introducingÂ*his
bill.Â*HeÂ*alsoÂ*saidÂ*expandedÂ*federalÂ*services Â*threatenÂ*the
livelihoodsÂ*ofÂ*privateÂ*weatherÂ*companies.

Makers of gas lamps and horse buggies should be bribing this guy next.
Something needs to be done about the threat of automobiles (and government
funded highways) and electric lights.

- Andrew

"Matt" " no email wrote in message
...

I can see it now, your inflight and you need a weather update
and you hear the breifer say "how are you going to pay for this?".

(Under government, it's the IRS that collects the "fee")

Have your heard about the new system they use for toll roads?

"Andrew Gideon" wrote in message
online.com...
Larry Dighera wrote:

Santorum made similar arguments April 14 when introducing his
bill. He also said expanded federal services threaten the
livelihoods of private weather companies.

Makers of gas lamps and horse buggies should be bribing this guy next.
Something needs to be done about the threat of automobiles (and government
funded highways) and electric lights.

And HHS threatens the United Way, Salvation Army....

Social Security threatens savings and investment institutions.

Is Santorum willing to unload HHS, Social Security? As a typical statist,
I'm betting NOT!