And I avoid their other "office" software services. And I use mapquest.

Want to really scare the crap out of Google? Use your only power against them. Vote with your feet. Leave Google as a user. I've used DuckDuckGo ever since the James Damore firing.

Are there other alternatives?

Agreed. From my understanding, most states don't offer vacation pay standards. Minimum wage is low or non-existant. It's a travesty but, hopefully, there are many jobs to help in upward mobility.

It seems so since the average wage is approx. $57000.00 in the US and $42000.00 in Canada according to Wikipedia ( from memory,correct if I'm wrong).

The next questions to research is: who owns these companies lobbying against neutrality and what's their real end game? It can't be to maximize profit. The Internet they're pushing is akin to promoting a full command economy which was an epic failure. We know the best systems that produce wealth for all are:
-free markets,
-free movement of goods and services,
-opportunity for all and the freedom required to enact it,
-reasonable labor laws that don't constrain but empower economic actors with choices,
-environmental standards so your economic actors aren't slowed by a poor quality of life nor by the erosion of the planet's ecosystem, and
-free and fair trade which we don't have completely yet and we're suffering because of it.

Each economic component has their analogous counterpart in Internet standards and activity. You don't want to control the Internet just as you don't want to control world economic activity which is now several factors larger than government budgets. For example, Canada has a reasonably large welfare state with a universal healthcare system. Combined Federal and Provincial budgets only account for one third of our economic activity.

I'll miss those guys. Their offered some free laughs during a dreary workday.

I put them on speaker phone for everyone, laughing in the background while we continued working.

But it wasn't as funny when I was busy at home, running for the phone.

I’m very much against piracy but “end greed?” Is that possible?

If you can do that, I’d also like you to:
-end drunken stupors so people don’t mistakenly impregnate their friends who aren’t ready for parenthood,
-end lust so human trafficking, of mostly women, has no reason to exist.
-end laziness and brokenness so everyone reaches their full potential

Greed isn’t the problem. These people are bored and totally lack imagination. There’s so much to do in the world. Such people seek instant gratification or an escape from life, an escape from their erroneous perception of their life. I know, I was one of those but my depression never led me to steal the games I played. These people are too lazy or broken to go try things which is the reason they have no money to pay for anything.

I haven’t played computer games for nearly a decade. I used to play to forget my controlling and abusive spouse.

Now, life is too much fun! And I’m making money having fun!

After giving a lecture at the U of Washington on the Chengjiang fossil record, Chinese paleontologist, Jun-Yuan Chen said: "In China, we can criticize Darwin, but not the government; in America you can criticize the government, but not Darwin.”

Americans pioneered a safe, free market of ideas, open to all. Why is that eroded to using violent words and suspending civil rights to defend deeply held beliefs?

The moment I feel like winning an argument or repudiating a speaker is the very moment I should be listening for new ideas I could possibly add to my own.

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." -Aristotle

As I read the comments, I see much fear and frustration that Christianity supposedly dominates American politics and the country. As a Canadian born-again Christian, it is difficult to see U.S. leaders as Christian when I hear of the things they do.

Many comments reveal an assumption that all creationists uniformly believe the same hypotheses. I used to be a Theistic Evolutionist and I would easily go back if the big problems with evolution and abiogenesis where resolved, especially amino acid chirality in complete poisonous opposition to the homochiral chemistry of all life.

There are various ways to fit scientific models in the Bible. You would be surprised how open-minded us Christian's are compared to those who throw out the baby Jesus with the bathwater.

It's fascinating to me that flying insects such as these have gyroscopes called halteres which directly feed information to it's autonomic flight correction system which is as well designed as our most responsive fighter planes, if not better.

Some people think all religions are identical and worthless. When we criticize one aspect of a religion, we abase all religions for those people. This is unfortunate but here we go:.

I love my Muslim co-worker. He is moderate, and respectful, with a smiling demeanor. We have amazingly deep conversations that I enjoy compared to the empty conversations with a hedonistic-type co-worker, as an example. When he got into more direct comparative discussion on religion, his face briefly saddened when I showed the Holy Qur'an verse on beating wives:

Men are in charge of women by [right of] what Allah has given one over the other and what they spend [for maintenance] from their wealth. So righteous women are devoutly obedient, guarding in [the husband's] absence what Allah would have them guard. But those [wives] from whom you fear arrogance - [first] advise them; [then if they persist], forsake them in bed; and [finally], strike them. But if they obey you [once more], seek no means against them. Indeed, Allah is ever Exalted and Grand. And if you fear dissension between the two, send an arbitrator from his people and an arbitrator from her people. If they both desire reconciliation, Allah will cause it between them. Indeed, Allah is ever Knowing and Acquainted [with all things]. Surat An Nisa' ( the women) 4:34-35 ( http://quran.com/4/34 http://quran.com/4/35 )

We continue to talk about religion in peace. I get a sense that the majority of Muslims are like him. We both have a rich heritage from which we can extract some good. I would not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Well said

True

The question "and where did God come from?" assumes a universe without a distinct beginning and without an end. Physics shows the opposite. The expansion of the universe is accelerating into a cold death. There will be no compression and rebirth. We know the Big Bang required some sort originator of energy and originator of the laws of physics. We know this originator is independent of our space-time system. We know that, at some point, there exists an originator without a beginning. Why? simply, when you draw a time line from the Big Bang into the eternal past, something eternal has to fill it. Otherwise, you ask the question, "ok but what created that?" in an endless "eternal" loop. Ok, the originator must be eternal but is it a sentient entity like a God? C.S. Lewis helped us with that: "If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning."

>>(...) evolution has been an insanely successful theory. We literally wouldn't have today's understanding of biology without it.

If you and the previous commenter give some documented examples, you might make me believe in macro-evolution again. I already believe DNA allows certain variation within species ( micro-evolution ).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macroevolution

      >> You seem to be terribly confused. First, there has been no "retraction", just publication of two papers which disagree with the original one.

I'll trust you on that one

        >> the actual claim was "We found this bacterium living in an arsenic-rich environment on earth , (....) That never meant "OMG BACTERIA CAN GROW ABSOLUTELY ANYWHERE IN THE UNIVERSE!!!!!".

You're quite alone in your opinion. I googled hundred of major magazines, newspapers and blogs. They somehow made the same association I did:

Time magazine: “Scientists who hope to discover alien life someday”
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2034601,00.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/8174040/Life-as-we-dont-know-it-discovery-could-prove-existence-of-aliens.html
http://news.yahoo.com/scientists-nasas-form-life-untrue-015324767.html
http://gizmodo.com/5704158/nasa-finds-new-life

        >>You're parroting a really stupid creationist lie () that Zadel's fraud had anything to do with evolution or abiogenesis.(...)nobody outside of creationists ever thought Zadel's paper had any implications for abiogenesis.

On the hoax, the reputable Science magazine stated:
"they initially hailed the result, which appeared to have major implications for the pharmaceutical industry as well as for understanding of the origins of life."
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/pdf_extract/265/5168/21

        >> failed fruit fly experiments ( ) you've grossly misinterpreted the meaning of the results as a fatal failure for evolution. (The abstract you linked pretty clearly indicates that evolution took place!)

The abstract states: “We conclude that, at least for life history characters such as development time, unconditionally advantageous alleles RARELY arise, are associated with SMALL net fitness gains or CANNOT FIX because selection coefficients change over time.” [ emphasis mine ] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20844486

        >> nothing more than an example of creationist quote mining

I did not mine for quotes. I was informed of many problems of abiogenesis at a presentation by Dr. Wing Sung. Such as lack of protection from UV damage in reducing atmospheres and from oxidation reactions in atmospheres like ours.

Background on Dr. Sung: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoVZe1NhmOI

I still have photocopies of his presentation slides with sidenotes in Mandarin. I can scan and email them to you if you like.

        >> (...) have to expect from people who have decided that anything which contradicts their interpretation of a religious text must ipso facto be false. (...) They're not in it to discover reality, they're in it to preserve their delusions.

Before seeing Dr. Sung's presentation, I used to be a theistic evolutionist. I accepted your “reality”, sir. I accept the gap theory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theistic_evolution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gap_theory

My Biblically-based worldview has, so far, been open and flexible to all so-called scientific progress.

Quantum Mechanics and String Theory opened the greatest scientific minds to multiple compactified dimensions and multiple universes, previously the subject of science fiction and religious legends. Is your worldview open and flexible to physics?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation#Reception
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compactification_(physics)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_theory#Extra_dimensions

In countries such as China, you cannot question the government but you can question Darwinism and other established theories. In North America, you can question the government but you can't question Darwinism. The frustration in my original comment stems from the arrogant attitude here. Your insulting tone and the outright vulgar wording of the previous commenter supports that view.

        >>Speaking of which, it's ironic that you claim the Standard Model and the Higgs boson as evidence of the lasting value of Dalton's premises. One of his premises was that atoms are indivisible.

I’ll trust you on that one because I don’t know his initial research, only that he got the atom “rolling”.

        >> Anyone who claims religion offers truth about the origins of life and that science is really a religion is a fool.

I did not say that science is a religion. Science is a pure method of discovery of reality. I am saying that powerful explanatory ideas about origins can slowly become religions by lack of factual evidence.

Science mag asks: Is Evolution a Secular Religion? In the conclusion: “this popular evolutionism—often an alternative to religion—exists.”

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/299/5612/1523.full

There is nothing wrong with believing in a religion. Competition of ideas serves science well to get at the truth ( reality). If the tone can become civil among scientists, evolutionists will keep the non-evolutionists honest and vice versa. They might even find something useful the other did not. If you’re not willing to look at the counter evidence to evolution and question the weak evidence so far ( such as the fossil record), you have in inflexible worldview.

Thank you for the article, Timothy. I would have never seen the retraction without it. I would have kept on believing that bacteria can grow in any planetary environment. In 1996, NASA claimed Cyanobacteria where found in Meteorites - debunked in same magazine ( http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2057461,00.html ). I am tired of scientists who foist their beliefs on us. In 1994, at the University of Bonn, Guido Zadel was found spiking the chemical solution in an experiment "proving" earth's magnetic field could select the correct building blocks of life. (Science, July 1, 1994). To explain, all living organisms are built out of left-handed amino acids enantiomers (See 1). But in a theorized prebiotic soup, right handed D (dextro) amino acids are ever-present in the solution 50/50. Like a poison to life, they produce useless malformed proteins because the amino acid chains fold in the wrong direction when proteins are manufactured. Currently, only fully-formed life can efficiently select L amino acids on the scale required to feed a living ( reproducing ) manufacturing plants of manufacturing machines that we call a cell. Breitmaier and Zadel were trying to "solve the problem" with a hoax and gain notoriety for doing so. Hoaxes require a motive. I think they are desperately trying to prop up their dead theory until they find that elusive evidence that exonerates it. In 1808, John Dalton started modern atomic theory. Decade after decade, it opened up avenues of research. We consistently generated scientific laws based on the initial premise — ultimately finding the Higgs Boson to complete the standard model. Darwin proposed evolution in 1859. By now, we should have scientific laws culled from the initial premise. We should not be finding lethal problems with the initial theory. Scientists are still mucking about with failed fruit fly experiments. They are on the 600th generation ( see 2 ). Anyone who claims to know the truth about the origins of life is following a religion no matter if it is disguised in the language of science. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enantiomer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiral#Chemistry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amino_acid#Isomerism 2. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20844486