[kach22i]

FYI: Boaters beware,

http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/showthread.php?t=9681

...courtesty of Yachting magazine...

Good weather information has saved many a boater from wet passages and indisposed passengers, but it is much more than that —nothing less than a matter of life and death. Fortunately, the United Stales has the best public-access weather information system in the world, thanks to the National Weather Service and its parent, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, better known as NOAA.

Unfortunately that fact seems to be lost on U.S. Senator Rick Santorum (R., Pennsylvania, who has introduced a bill to put a stop to your tax-paid buoy, satellite, ground station and meteorologist information stream—saying, in essence, to boaters: drop dead

Oh, and in case you’re wondering why a U.S. Senator would want to wreck a jewel of a system like NOAA, just follow the money. His bill would seem to benefit only Pennsylvania-based AccuWeather, a major contributor to the Senator’s PAC and re-election campaign

Is there another side to this story? Let's hear it, looks like bad news for the boating public to me.