Competition – Thoughts From The Middle of Nowhere

I caught <a href="http://www.newwest.net/index.php/main/article/1012/" target="_new">this article</a> over at New West and had to speak my piece. n nIt seems that Sen. Rick Santorum has <a href="http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/news/epaper/2005/04/21/m1a_wx_0421.html" target="_new">introduced a bill</a> that would not allow the National Weather Service (NWS) from offering their forecasts to the public. Now I rely every day on the weather and I have seen the forecasts the <a href="http://www.weather.com/index.html" target="_new">Weather Channel</a> and <a href="http://wwwa.accuweather.com/index.asp?partner=accuweather" target="_new">Accuweather</a> offer and to be quite frank, they are a piece of shit!!! To get accurate weather and forecasts the only place to go is the <a href="http://weather.gov" target="_new">NWS</a> and get the weather from people that do a good job for everybody in the nation and not those on the East Coast because the pay services only pay attention to those areas where large numbers of people live, not areas like here in Montana. n nThe NWS provides the products I need in forms that are useful and accurate and I don't want to lose access to them so this whole bill irritates me. The bill is <a href="http://www.nowherethoughts.net/786.html" target="_new">S. 786</a> (I couldn't find a permalink for it so I posted it myself). I had to look at the bill to see for myself that what is being reported is true. Sure enough it is right there. n n<blockquote>(b) COMPETITION WITH PRIVATE SECTOR- The Secretary of Commerce shall not provide, or assist other entities in providing, a product or service (other than a product or service described in subsection (a)(1)) that is or could be provided by the private sector unless</blockquote> n nAnd (a)(1) says: n n<blockquote>(a) NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE- To protect life and property, the Secretary of Commerce shall, through the National Weather Service, be responsible for the following: n n n(1) The preparation and issuance of severe weather forecasts and warnings designed for the protection of life and property of the general public.</blockquote> n nSo the only thing the NWS could provide the public is "issuance of severe weather forecasts and warnings designed for the protection of life and property of the general public." This is horse crap. n nIf the private sector can provide a superior service to the government they should be allowed to do it. There are many package carrier services that effectively compete with the Postal Service and I see no problem with this I just wish the Government allowed these services to provide 1st class service too but that's a discussion for another time. The same goes the other way though. If a Government Agency can provide a superior service to a private sector company they should be allowed to do it (I don't believe I'm said that). It's our tax dollar at work, shouldn't we benefit from it? n nI find it interesting that over at <a href="http://rawstory.com/exclusives/byrne/santorum_weather_ban_accuweather_421.htm" target="_new">the raw story</a> they point out that Accuweather is based in PA, Sen. Rick Santorum home state, and has been a contributer to his campaign. It isn't illegal to have arrangments like this but it sure is unethical. I guess that explains why he is doing it but that doesn't make it right. n nI hope this bill never makes it out of committee. I have all ready wrote both our Senators stating my opposition to this bill. Hopefully the American People can win this battle. n nIt could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress. Mark Twain