accuweather

I first started this blog almost 14 months ago. I was not one of the political bloggers that came from a site like Daily Kos or MyDD, instead I just went out and did it.

I have always had a deep passion for politics, and that was one of my motivations to jump into the world of blogging. I have also taken a great interest in the weather, which should be obvious - I mean what other blog offers current weather conditions, forecasts and weather maps. When these two passions collided, IntoxiNation was born.

One of my first posts was regarding a bill sponsored by Rick Santorum, S.B. 786, which attacks the National Weather Service. This bill is meant to remove all the free data the National Weather Service has available via their website. Santorum's argument is that "the NWS should focus on Hurricanes". Of course they also focus on other issues like tornadoes, floods and forest fires.

The actual motivation behind this bill lies in one of Santorum's contributors. Joel Myers, the President of AccuWeather is a Santorum contributor and a major contributor to the Republican Party as a whole. He has donated close to $50,000 to Republican's and Republican PACS.

This bill is so absurd that it doesn't even deserve debate in this do nothing session of Congress. Santorum feels the NWS should only focus on actual hurricanes, yet as anyone with a little intelligence knows, you must forecast the good weather to know when the bad weather is coming. Further, constant forecast models add to the accuracy of future forecasts and also help decrease the time needed to issue life saving warnings. This was evident last year when Katrina hit and it was the NWS that was sounding the alarms. The President and other's were the ones who chose to ignore those warnings.

Santorum is putting blame onto NOAA for not giving a good enough warning in
the lead up to Katrina's disastrous landfall. Here is what
WITF is reporting:

Santorum has critical words for forecasters in wake of Katrina 09/09/2005
Damon Boughamer (Washington) -- U.S. Senator Rick Santorum is suggesting
that early mistakes in predicting the path of Hurricane Katrina may be a
symptom of lost focus at the National Weather Service. Santorum, who
introduced legislation earlier this year to curb the output of government
weather forecasters, says tracking life-threatening weather must be central
to what the agency is doing.

Asked about Katrina by WITF, Santorum described weather service warnings
for Florida, where the storm first made landfall, as, quote, “not
sufficient.” Santorum’s bill instructs the government to abandon weather
prediction and data reporting efforts that duplicate private-sector
activity. He came under fire when it was revealed that the head of State
College-based AccuWeather, which would benefit, has given his campaigns
thousands of dollars.

In the wake of a disaster, Santorum once again has taken the argument to a
politically funded level. I

posted a couple months ago on this bill Santorum is trying to get through,
and it is a joke. It is meant as another way to only help businesses.

The whole argument started when NOAA started releasing forecast and
conditions for the country via an XML feed. They were just releasing data that
they already had, but Accu-Weather was upset over it. Why? Because it would lead
to further competition for them.