Should Taxpayers Pay Twice For Weather Data?

theodp writes "Thanks to O.M.B. Circular A-130, taxpayers now enjoy free access to SEC, Patent Office, and IRS data over the Internet. Now the Bush administration must decide whether to order the National Weather Service to make taxpayer-funded weather readings freely available on the Net, ignoring complaints from an industry trade group that doing so violates pre-Internet era agreements."

Comments

Moderation

[Fuck you all, losers]

When moderators are g i ven access, they are g i ven a n u mber of po i nts of i nfl u ence to play w i th. E ach comment they moderate ded u cts a po i nt. When they r u n ou t of po i nts, they are done serv i ng u nt i l next t i me i t i s thei r t u rn.

Moderat i on takes place by select i ng an adject i ve from a drop down l i st that appe ars next to comments contai n i ng descr i pt i ve words l i ke Flamebai t or I nformat i ve. Bad words w i ll red u ce the comment's score by a s i ngle po i nt, and good words i ncre ase a comment's score by a s i ngle po i nt. All comments are scored on an absol u te scale from -1 to 5. Logged- i n u sers start at 1 (althou gh th i s can vary from 0 to 2 based on thei r karma) and anonymou s u sers start at 0.

Moderators can not part i c i pate i n the same d i sc u ss i on as both a moderator and a poster. Th i s i s to prevent ab u ses, and wh i le i t i s one of the more controvers ial aspects of the system, I 'm st i ck i ng to i t. There are enou gh l u rkers that moderate that, i f you want to post, feel free.

Moderat i on po i nts exp i re after 3 days i f they are left u n u sed. You then go back i nto the pool

As Taxpayers, We Already Paid for It

[dmarx]

Taxpayer funded information should be freely avaiable to every citizen. We have paid for this information with our taxes. We should not have to pay twice.

Re:Actually

[dan g]

Now called ForecastFox.