Blizza Blizza

Senator Rick Santorum has officially sold out to corporate interests. He has introduced a bill that would eliminate free weather information as provided by the NOAA’s National Weather Service.

Why?

Because AccuWeather, a very large corporate “constituent” headquartered in Pennsylvania, Santorum’s “home” state, thinks the NOAA’s free information is keeping people from buying the same information from AccuWeather.

AccuWeather doesn’t have anywhere near the data-gathering capacity of the NOAA. They don’t have taxpayer-funded satellites or thousands of taxpayer-funded offshore bouys. They don’t have ten taxpayer-funded WC-130s flying as part of the 53d Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, better known as the “Hurricane Hunters.” They are a private company that, ironically enough, relies very heavily on NOAA data for their business.

Corporate welfare at its finest. This is utterly ridiculous.

Rediculous. I can’t imagine having to pay to check what the weather is going to be like. Are they going to charge for the weather channel, too?

Americans sure love low taxes, but it seems like all the services are being cut to compensate. Perhaps it’s because all the tax dollars are going to — dare I say — the war.

That’s the point. The Weather Channel is the other company besides AccuWeather that’s lobbied very heavily for this legislation.

Apparently Rick Santorum’s copy of the Constitution has a different Bill of Rights from mine. I think his says something like, “Companies have the right to a profit.”

Funny, mine gives rights to people, not corporations.

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