Recently kos wrote about how Santorum wants to give Accuweather and other corporate weather thugs a monopoly on weather data by
banning the U.S. government from publishing weather data.
So I say we stop using Accuweather, weather.com, and all the other corporate providers of slow, bloated, advertising-driven web pages and instead use
NOAA.gov.
But how do we popularize the U.S. government's site when it has no marketing budget? That's where the blogosphere comes in.
In the extended text I've included a snippet of HTML that creates a simple form for people to get their local forecast. All you have to do is paste it into the sidebar of your website, and you're off and running!
If we can push enough people away from the corporate sites, we can punish the weather thugs for manipulating the legislative process. Consider it a a small act of protest in the face of monstrous daily corruption -- one that proves bad behavior can backfire.
Here's the HTML code to create a simple form for readers to enter their city and state or zip code and get their weather forecast from weather.gov.
<div style="text-align:center; width:150px; padding: 5px; border: solid 1px #CCC">
Get the ad-free weather forecast Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) wants to make <b>illegal!</b><br/>
Enter "City, ST" or zip code:<br/>
<form method="POST" action="http://www.srh.noaa.gov/zipcity.php">
<input type="text" name="inputstring"
size="12" value="" />
<INPUT TYPE="submit" NAME="Go2" VALUE="Go" />
</form>
<a href="http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/4/22/112939/284">
<i>Learn More...</i></a>
</div>
Here's an
example of what this form looks like.
Comments and suggestions on better code/text most welcome!