Threats from the Weathermen

Do We Really Need a National Weather Service? My husband wrote this article over the weekend and he has gotten threats and insults for this article including a call to our home at 10:30pm on a Sunday which is unacceptable.

By the way, I name and shame. The call appears to be from a man named Bill Martin from Wilmington, DE according to call-back information and an Internet search.

But the important thing about this article and the reaction too it is if the National Weather Service were abolished, these meteorologists could get far better jobs without it.

Right now there is just one service which all industries use. Imagine the job competition among industries like insurance and airlines, oil exploration and construction companies if they all had to hire their own meteorologists.

Take the archeology. It is easy to think of an archeologist's job as one for professors and museum public-sector folks. But there are good archaeologist jobs out there working for private sector development companies and the cell phone industry. I know this because certain of my family members did. So why can't meteorologists?

In short, my husband's recommendation opens up the playing field for meteorologists to specialize or generalize as much as they wish. There would be certain advantageous cross-pollination of thinking and a real requirement for both accuracy and a better understanding of how humans interact with the climate.

And yet, these close-minded weathermen think it is okay to insult, threaten and disrupt the man who dared suggest these ideas. For shame.

For the record, we are now going to trace and record all our phone calls from unlisted or unknown numbers. If we are threatened or harassed in any way (and I have a very broad definition of harassment), I will call the police and file charges.