Santorum Wants to Screw Sailors

Newport Beach was a welcome respite – the fish tacos are amazing and I took a walk along the docks of the Newport Harbor Yacht Club...there’s a beautiful Swan at berth so I spent a few minutes admiring her clean lines and wishing I was out for a sail instead of escaping a conference in Anaheim. Along the way I picked up a copy of the local boating rag (The Log) and on the front page read a piece about Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa), who has proposed legislation to eliminate virtually all free weather information currently provided by the National Weather Service. If you’re not familiar with Santorum he’s been in the press before for his “controversial” views on homosexuality – this unrelated push is his way of catering to Pennsylvanis-based Accuweather, a large private weather company that would dearly love to charge for what our tax dollars already pay for. I say let’s set Santorum adrift in a 20 foot sloop in the Gulf stream during a stiff blow and decline his credit card number when he needs the weather report. It's bastards like this who make the idea of "government for the people by the people" such a farce. Not that free weather forecasts are such an essentail part of sailing culture...but a general antipathy towards corporations that want to raise the cost of boating certainly is.