Government, on the whole, can martial resources more quickly and get them to where they are needed faster than can civilian institutions. However, that requires that both parties not be at each other's throats during the process.

Maybe the government can, but the government doesn't. Wal-Mart stationed tractor trailers all around the outside of the area expected to be flooded by Katrina, so that they could immediately bring in supplies. FEMA wouldn't let them inm because their "plan" didn't account for it.

Given a choice between doing nothing, and doing something that might not work out, the Government chooses wait-and-see. Better to not act, and not be blamed, than act and clearly be accountable if something goes wrong.

A coworker provided me this formula, and it's the only thing that works. Take your normal estimate, let's say one week. Double the number, that gives you two weeks. Then, increase the timescale to the next unit, that gives you two months. That's your estimate.

1 hour -> 2 weeks
2 weeks -> 4 months
4 months -> 8 years

Done!

How else are you supposed to learn when to walk it off, and when to rub some dirt on it?

Actually, even the observations are in question. Check out surveystations.org where a bunch of volunteers are physically surveying the United States Historical Climatology Network's stations. Most of these have heat biases of a significantly greater magnitude than the warming they're trying to detect. Only 11% of stations have a bias of less than 1C according to the USHCN's own standards.

Windows has consistently failed to deliver what customers want, but free software does that by definition

No, free software delivers what commiters want. Commiters are only some of the users.