They are trying to remove your weather access

Matt" wrote:
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.


Exactly so. It's obviously a sweetheart deal for the weather venders. In any
case, I wrote to both of my U.S. senators today about this ill-advised
legislation to express my disapproval. Wrote them... not emailed. If I go to
the trouble of writing them, I'll get a reply in the mail. That doesn't always
happen with emails.

Have any of you gone to the trouble of writing? This should be important to all
of us.




--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN

VE

On Sat, 23 Apr 2005 00:38:21 GMT, "Mortimer Schnerd, RN"
wrote:

Matt" wrote:
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.


Exactly so. It's obviously a sweetheart deal for the weather venders. In any
case, I wrote to both of my U.S. senators today about this ill-advised
legislation to express my disapproval. Wrote them... not emailed. If I go to
the trouble of writing them, I'll get a reply in the mail. That doesn't always
happen with emails.

Have any of you gone to the trouble of writing? This should be important to all
of us.

When's the vote? Snail-mail (rather than fax) might not get there
through the screenings before a vote.

"Dylan Smith" wrote in message
...
You might want to write to Rick Santorum and tell him why this is such a
bad idea:


http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/co...21/m1a_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"

Sounds like another case of the R's trying to privatize everything or
working it so that the only groups that benefit from government services are
companies that can turn around and charge us to get what they got for free.

Dylan Smith wrote:

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.

I spent a fair amount of time last night trying to locate a copy of the bill.
Couldn't even locate the bill number. If the language used in the article you
referenced is correct, however, the NWS would not be able to provide info to
Accuweather either. A lot of the NWS could effectively be disbanded; it wouldn't
have to do anything that a private company also does.

George Patterson
There's plenty of room for all of God's creatures. Right next to the
mashed potatoes.

On Sat, 23 Apr 2005 19:23:36 GMT, George Patterson
wrote:

Dylan Smith wrote:

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.

I spent a fair amount of time last night trying to locate a copy of the bill.
Couldn't even locate the bill number. If the language used in the article you
referenced is correct, however, the NWS would not be able to provide info to
Accuweather either. A lot of the NWS could effectively be disbanded; it wouldn't
have to do anything that a private company also does.

http://santorum.senate.gov/public/in...TOKEN=48522178

On Sat, 23 Apr 2005 20:07:41 GMT, Nathan Young
wrote:

On Sat, 23 Apr 2005 19:23:36 GMT, George Patterson
wrote:

Dylan Smith wrote:

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.

I spent a fair amount of time last night trying to locate a copy of the bill.
Couldn't even locate the bill number. If the language used in the article you
referenced is correct, however, the NWS would not be able to provide info to
Accuweather either. A lot of the NWS could effectively be disbanded; it wouldn't
have to do anything that a private company also does.

http://santorum.senate.gov/public/in...TOKEN=48522178

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:s786:

Nathan Young wrote:

http://santorum.senate.gov/public/in...TOKEN=48522178

Great! That got me the name, and a little work with Yahoo! turned that into this.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:s786:

Which clearly states --

"(c) ISSUANCE OF DATA, FORECASTS, AND WARNINGS-

(1) IN GENERAL- All data, information, guidance, forecasts, and warnings
received, collected, created, or prepared by the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration or the National Weather Service shall, to the maximum
extent practicable, be issued in real time, and without delay for internal use,
in a manner that ensures that all members of the public have the opportunity for
simultaneous and equal access to such data, information, guidance, forecasts,
and warnings.

(2) MODE OF ISSUANCE- Data, information, guidance, forecasts, and warnings shall
be issued under paragraph (1) through a set of data portals designed for volume
access by commercial providers of products or services and by such other
mechanisms as the Secretary of Commerce considers appropriate for purposes of
that paragraph."

In other words, the NWS is required to provide everything to commercial
companies as rapidly as possible, and we have to buy it from them. Clear as can be.

George Patterson
There's plenty of room for all of God's creatures. Right next to the
mashed potatoes.

George Patterson wrote:

in a manner that ensures that all members of the public have
the opportunity for simultaneous and equal access to such data,
information, guidance, forecasts, and warnings.

Why doesn't this protect our access?

- Andrew

Andrew Gideon wrote:
George Patterson wrote:


in a manner that ensures that all members of the public have
the opportunity for simultaneous and equal access to such data,
information, guidance, forecasts, and warnings.


Why doesn't this protect our access?

Because of the "mode of issuance" section which follows that. It states that the
data is to be provided to commercial companies, not directly to us.

George Patterson
There's plenty of room for all of God's creatures. Right next to the
mashed potatoes.

George Patterson wrote:
Dylan Smith wrote:


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.


I spent a fair amount of time last night trying to locate a copy of the
bill. Couldn't even locate the bill number. If the language used in the
article you referenced is correct, however, the NWS would not be able to
provide info to Accuweather either. A lot of the NWS could effectively
be disbanded; it wouldn't have to do anything that a private company
also does.

I typed "weather" into THOMAS and the second bill that comes up is S.
786 The National Weather Services Duties Act of 2005.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/.../~c109Wg00yZ::