Santorum is a swine

Thanks to Lono for turning me on to a piece of news I hadn't heard before. It seems that Rick Santorum, everybody's favorite cuddly right-winger, has sponsored a bill in the Senate that would prevent the National Weather Service from providing free weather forecasts.

According to Santorum, his bill will make the NWS focus on providing severe weather forecasts to the public. Of course, the NWS already does this. It gathers vast quantities of weather data and then uses that to forecast weather patterns and events. Having completed these forecasts, NWS then makes them and their underlying data available free to the public. The problem, of course, is that this conflicts with atleast two major companies that provide these same services at a fee: Accuweather and the Weather Channel.

Now, far be it from me to impugn the motives of the Honorable Santorum, but think there's any connection between his sponsorship and the fact that Accuweather is based in Pennsylvania?

[Libertarian Everett raises his ugly head]

It seems to me that if the market (which brings us all things good and useful) is going to work efficiently here, then Accuweather and The Weather Channel should compete without legislative help. If they're really so good at what they do, then their products should outshine NWS' and garner them growing profits. If they're really threatened by NWS' work, then I would posit that they suck at what they do and deserve to go bankrupt.