(sigh)
This is the comment I was responding to:
Think of it this way: Imagine the entire planet heated up by 20C, we wouldn't expect to see any permanent ice outside of Antarctica. (The North Pole might get some seasonal ice, but the much warmer oceans would melt it fairly quickly.) Now, with all of the oceans that much warmer, think how much additional water vapor would make it into the atmosphere. When the additional water vapor ends up over the South Pole, it will be cold enough for it to freeze and fall as snow. As the snow accumulates, it compacts into ice and we end up with a LOT more ice at the South Pole.

So: Less ice everywhere but Antarctica due to global warming, but a lot more ice in Antarctica due to global warming.

But the point is, when there was LESS ice, it was because of global warming. Now that there is MORE ice, it's because of global warming, per the original comment I replied to.

Yes. There is less ice in some areas due to global warming and more ice in other areas due to global warming.

OK. Maybe you should tell all the scientist this. Be sure to copy Algore as well.
See, they seem to think that the first thing to go is the polar ice. That's why they keep measuring it. See, a few years ago, a lot of the ice melted, and we were told that it was because of global warming. Now the ice is back and growing, and we are told it's because of global warming.

And that is my entire point. No matter what the symptoms are, it's always a symptom of global warming.

Also, if it's colder in Antarctica and warmer in Hawaii, that's not really a sign of global warming. That's a sign of global nothing because the average temperature remains constant.

That would be comment I was responding to:
So much freshwater from melting glaciers that sea level isn't even level anymore, and some people still don't want to believe there might be a climate problem.

So if there's less ice, it's because of global warming. But if there's more ice, it's because of global warming.

Just curious, if global warming were not a thing, what would the ice caps be doing?

OK, so we build a ship that can take us anywhere in a reasonable amount of time. Then what? What's the point without a destination?

Right now, our technical ability allows us to detect planets that may be capable of harboring life. Why don't we go ahead and do what we can do rather than sulking over the fact that we can't do more? Once the day comes when we can actually go there, we'll do that. Until then, let's do what we can, which is detection.

I've never had a wireless cord get unplugged from moving my PC. However, your point is well taken.

So why has every environmental initiative in the past 40 years been pushed by the Democrats and resisted by the Republicans?
You mean like this one?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
Odd. I didn't know Bush was a Democrat.

What about this one?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
Where are the Democrats pushing this bill and Republicans opposing it?

And although I'm stepping outside your 40-year limit, who created the Environmental Protection Agency in the first place? I'll give you a hint:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U...

You forgot to include lifetime costs for VA health care for surviving vets, who tend to have fairly difficult to treat injuries that would have killed people in prior wars.

This is why there's such a backlog in the VA.

No it's not. The majority of the people at the VA are mostly Vietnam vets with a few WWII and Korean War vets hanging on. Most of your Iraq/Afghanistan vets are under the age of 50, meaning they have their own health insurance through the company they work for. For example, ME! I've never been to a VA hospital. Never had to. I always had my own insurance.

As for the total cost, right now, it ranks at about $1.5 trillion for 14 years. Since the expensive part of launching million dollar missiles to blow up a $100 tent and fueling tanks that get gallons to the mile are over, the rate at which the cost is increasing is slowing substantially. It is unlikely that it will reach $2 trillion.

Either way, you said "wastED", meaning past tense. We haven't spent $2 trillion and won't for many years, if ever.

Finance guys are so cute.
I was an IT guy so....

For example a retail bank needs two tables in it's accounts database. One for the account, a second to record the transactions.
The DB needs a customer table (name, address, phone, address, ect), transaction table, account type table, account table, interest rate table, payee table, payroll tables (complete with more account data from other banks, employee names, etc) etc. There's a LOT of data involved, and this still doesn't include the cutesie stuff banks throw in like customer preferences.

The database may be queried by other databases (ie: the guy approving loans), but it is not actually a part of those databases.
Actually, different systems maintain different databases. For example the Internet Banking side will maintain it's own database. the ATM side will have it's own side. Then there's the credit card system, ACH systems, wire systems, the core system itself and others. All of these systems must interact with eachother. For example, the a customer may log into the Internet banking side, which will have to hit the core to get the current balance, EOD balance from yesterday, unprocessed transactions, processed transactions, interest rates, any messages from the bank, and so on. It also has to be able to inject transactions such as payroll into the core system, wires into the wire system and so on.
Of course, all of these systems are different. The ACH system uses a flat text file. The core is usually an UNIX based system with a terminal interface. The Internet Banking is probably an Apache Tomcat connecting to a MSSQL system. Then, there is the bank end that is comprised of DB front-ends, screen scrapers, batch files, transaction injectors and so on.

You could probably convince a bunch of PHB-English Majors your database is more complicated because you have six different, totally unrelated databases in the same file, but don't try that shit in front of engineers.
Not just different DB's but completely different architectures. And, of course, different states have different laws. For example, all states that take income taxes have a different method to pay them. Then their are business taxes, both federal and for all 50 states, loan laws, interest rate laws etc.

And there is much much more, but this is getting out of hand. Suffice to say that you have no friggin' clue as to what you are talking about when it comes to everything a bank does, much less when it comes to tying all those systems together.

Compare that to the ACA system which involves user data, finance data, what companies are available per state, what plans available per company, and an interface system to communicate between the handful of ACA authorized insurance companies per state and the back-office system. Many states run their own system. The government has claimed that their system doesn't even keep the data!

HealthCare.gov does a lot of actual calculations itself. Once it knows your location it has to ask several other databases for your income level, at which point it compares that income level to the poverty rate. This is step one of determining your subsidy. Step 2 is to query a second database for a list of plans in your area. The second lowest cost silver plan is the "Base Plan" which is the second number used to calculate your subsidy. That's not just a database query, it's executable code.
Everything you described here can be done within a database engine, making HealthCare.gov essentially a database frontend that reinvented part of the wheel.

Moreover the database front-end is probably the most complicated database front-end in actual production anywhere.
No. No it's not, or at least it doesn't need to be. I would say credit card authorization databases would be the most complicated, followed closely by the banks. There are also several customer databases that are outright huge. You have parts inventories for large companies and databases used by engineers designing various components for bridges, air liners, jet fighters, combat vehicles, electric cars, etc. Of course, let's not forget the databases used by Internet companies like Google, government agencies like the IRS, census, and the Fed, and the multitude of databases need to run our phone and communication systems. All of these systems require front-ends. The frontend my bank uses for their online banking system is more complicated than HC.gov and deals with a more complicated system of DB's on the backend.
If this is one of the most complicated database front-ends in existence, that is proof that it is designed and written by incompetents.

it's querying multiple completely different databases, most of whom weren't designed to be compatible with each-other. It all needs damn-near-perfect security. It needs to deal with complex legal questions such as what happens when Louisiana decides some insurer has been cheating a bit on some legal requirement? Is the desired result under Louisiana law different then Ohio?
So, it's the type of system you find running every bank in America, minus the need for international transactions.

(disclaimer: I've worked in Internet Banking Systems and the defense industry)

First, the cost of both wars was less than $2 trillion, making the 's' on the word "Trillion" misleading and dishonest.

Next, we have a government run, single payer, health care system now. It's called VA. How's that working out?

Right. And that is science!

I'm not disagreeing with you. The ISS is the only place to do that kind of science, which the parent you were responding to seems to think there is some cheaper way of doing.

Different bees, no winter to contend with, different ecosystem around the bees
Did you not read the part about Canada? I believe they have a winter on occasion.

Australia uses neonicotinoids and they have no bee collapse problems.

Yes, I know the source is a chemical company, but they have a point. Bee collapse is not a problem in Australia.

There is also this:
On the other hand, in Canada and Australia, there is no sign of Colony Collapse Disorder. ...
Despite the fact that neonicotinoids are widely used in Canada to protect canola from pests, Canadian bee populations have been largely unaffected and produce around 50 million pounds of canola honey. ...
For example, in upland areas of Switzerland where the pesticide is not used, bee colony populations are under significant pressure from the mites; and in France, declines in the bee population in mountainous areas (where neonics are uncommon) are similar to those in agricultural areas (where neonics are widely used).

Think of God as a libertarian. He gives us freedom to make choices. If the only option is the "right" choice, are you truly free? Success doesn't exist without the opportunity of failure. Thus, God expects us to be responsible for our actions as there is no freedom without responsibility.