Shame on you Dave for thinking that I initiated it. The topic was already off
of cruising, and I bent it back to something that had to do with cruising
which is the impending loss of the free internet based weather services.

You have the right to your opinion, and you've stated it. Others have
the right to their opinions, and they've stated them. You seem to want
to take things back to where they were before the internet made free
dissemination of government data inexpensive for the government to provide.

Are you being paid to engage in this discussion? Do you have a conflict of
interest that you ethically ought to disclose to the newsgroup?
Are you employed by or do you have a financial interest in one of the for
profit weather services that these new bills would financially help? Are
you employed by one of the congressmen or senators who have introduced these
bills?

Can you explain rationally your objection to the government making tax funded
information that they already collect available over the internet?? The only
additional cost to the governement is for the web sites. Do you really want to
see the US Government provide _less_ services when the services are inexpensive
and arguably save lives of mariners and pilots??

What you seem to be saying is "Lets go back to the good ole days when those with
unlimited pocketbooks had access to all the weather information that they wanted
to pay for. The biz jet and megayacht set never complained about having to pay
for these services. Who cares if Joe Shmoe gets his family killed in his 4-seat
Piper Warrior? Who cares if Bob Smith and his fishing buddies end up missing along
with their 29' bay boat? You know you really shouldn't be out there if you can't
afford to pay the freight for first class weather info. Who cares if Sally Jones
and her family get killed in a tornado when they could have watched it coming in
real time on their DSL connection and known to get out??"

I'm sure that Sally would have signed up for a paid weather subscription if she'd
realized that it was a matter of life or death.

Cmon now... Explain yourself and you'll get a fair hearing. Otherwise shame
on you for insulting the members of this forum and wasting our time with your
blather.

Don W.

Dave wrote:
On Tue, 28 Jun 2005 19:54:56 -0400, DSK said:


Let's try and
keep this one on topic, just a little bit.


Shame on Don W for initiating a political discussion.