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Thermal resistant bacteria can survive temperatures are up to 600 degrees in sea vents along the ocean floors and hot springs in Yellowstone.

They just need to evolve in that environment.

Most banks require a minimum balance before they waive the monthly service fee.
In my experience, it's just a matter of finding the right bank that has a relationship with someone you also have a relationship with. I get offers for free checking (no minimum balance requirements) through my alumni associations (undergrad and graduate), my wife's employer, my employer, even through the fact that my father-in-law is retired military. Dun Malg also said:

This is one of the many ways they soak the poor.
I don't really think that is a fair portrayal of the situation. Banks charge fees for accounts that don't keep high balances because they don't make money on them. Banks are not charitable organizations, they are in business to make money.

Excellent advice on how to locate the "free checking" offers. I have a couple of additional tips:
1) Direct deposit. If your paycheck goes directly to your financial institution, you may be eligible for free checking.
2) Skip the "bank" and check-out a local credit union. As the parent poster said about banks, "they are in business to make money". While banks treat their customers like cattle that can be slowly tapped for blood, credit unions treat their customers like...people. I haven't had an account at a "bank" for fifteen years. I am a very happy credit union member.

As you've found out, coming up with an area for continental Europe isn't as easy as it first appears. If you want a comparison with the US, counting just the EU states allows you to compare similar populations (US has around 285 million people, EU has around 300 million) but clearly there are more countries in Europe than are included in the current membership of the EU.

If you're going to compare x, y or z in the US to x, y or z in Europe, comparing the the US to the current EU membership has strong merit.

Comparing the US to the entire continent isn't as valid, if you're concerned about comparing apples with apples: the population of the whole of Europe (as defined by that site) is in excess of 728 million, and a fair chunk of those people, perhaps even the majority, live in former Eastern Bloc countries that are hardly analogous to the US in terms of education, industry, technological development, etc. Some of them them are so poor that they could even be classed as developing nations.

However, let's not talk about that for a second, let's talk about the physical (non-political) geography of continental Europe.

The very site that you link to describes Turkey as being in two continents, Asia and Europe. Istanbul, which lies on the entrance to the Black Sea in one of the most western parts of Turkey is commonly described as being the only city in the world that's in two continents too, so it's fair to say that anything to the south and the west of the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara and the Bosporus (collectively the channels that lead into the Black Sea, and all shown in the top left of this map) is in Asia.

So, very little of Turkey's 769,630 sq km of land mass is actually in Europe. I don't know the exact figure but, if I had to estimate, I'd say that somewhere around the 7 percent of the country is in Europe, give or take a couple of percentage points. So that's roughly 716,000 sq km (769,630 * 0.93 = 715,756) of Turkey that should be discounted.

Similarly, including Georgia and its 69,700 sq km is stretching it a bit too as, apart from the Russian Federation, it's only "European" neighbour is the eastern-most extreme of the Asian portion of Turkey. The other former Soviet states that are in the same region (Armenia and Azerbaijan) are classed as being in Asia, and it seems to me that the only reason for calling Georgia a European country is its small Black Sea coastline.

Politically, these areas might be considered part of Europe but geographically they're clearly not.

Even including Iceland, with its 100,250 sq km, could be considered a stretch, as it's hardly part of the continental geography. Heck, if they had put it in its real location rather than moving it for convenience then it wouldn't even be on that site's initial map of Europe!

716,000 + 69,700 + 100,250 = 885,950 (For simplicities sake, let's call this 886,000.)

So Asian Turkey plus Georgia and Iceland make up a fair chunk of land. If you take them away from the total land mass of Europe, given as 9,938,000 sq km by the same source, then you're left with an area of roughly 9,052,000 sq km.

So it that it? No. It would be nice to be able to say so, but if I've demonstrated anything it's that how big Europe is is very dependent on how you define it in the first place. It's not as unambiguously defined as, say, North America or Africa, as the point at which Europe ends and Asia starts isn't exactly set in stone.

Is the US bigger than continental Europe? I'd say so, for the reasons I've given above, and so would most others, but you're free to disagree.

Even so, the point I was making to the AC to whom I was originally replying to was that comparing the US to any one country in Europe is not comparing like with like, and that's plain for any fool to see.

As you've found out, coming up with an area for continental Europe isn't as easy as it first appears. If you want a comparison with the US, counting just the EU states allows you to compare similar populations (US has around 285 million people, EU has around 300 million) but clearly there are more countries in Europe than are included in the current membership of the EU.

If you're going to compare x, y or z in the US to x, y or z in Europe, comparing the the US to the current EU membership has strong merit.

Comparing the US to the entire continent isn't as valid, if you're concerned about comparing apples with apples: the population of the whole of Europe (as defined by that site) is in excess of 728 million, and a fair chunk of those people, perhaps even the majority, live in former Eastern Bloc countries that are hardly analogous to the US in terms of education, industry, technological development, etc. Some of them them are so poor that they could even be classed as developing nations.

However, let's not talk about that for a second, let's talk about the physical (non-political) geography of continental Europe.

The very site that you link to describes Turkey as being in two continents, Asia and Europe. Istanbul, which lies on the entrance to the Black Sea in one of the most western parts of Turkey is commonly described as being the only city in the world that's in two continents too, so it's fair to say that anything to the south and the west of the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara and the Bosporus (collectively the channels that lead into the Black Sea, and all shown in the top left of this map) is in Asia.

So, very little of Turkey's 769,630 sq km of land mass is actually in Europe. I don't know the exact figure but, if I had to estimate, I'd say that somewhere around the 7 percent of the country is in Europe, give or take a couple of percentage points. So that's roughly 716,000 sq km (769,630 * 0.93 = 715,756) of Turkey that should be discounted.

Similarly, including Georgia and its 69,700 sq km is stretching it a bit too as, apart from the Russian Federation, it's only "European" neighbour is the eastern-most extreme of the Asian portion of Turkey. The other former Soviet states that are in the same region (Armenia and Azerbaijan) are classed as being in Asia, and it seems to me that the only reason for calling Georgia a European country is its small Black Sea coastline.

Politically, these areas might be considered part of Europe but geographically they're clearly not.

Even including Iceland, with its 100,250 sq km, could be considered a stretch, as it's hardly part of the continental geography. Heck, if they had put it in its real location rather than moving it for convenience then it wouldn't even be on that site's initial map of Europe!

716,000 + 69,700 + 100,250 = 885,950 (For simplicities sake, let's call this 886,000.)

So Asian Turkey plus Georgia and Iceland make up a fair chunk of land. If you take them away from the total land mass of Europe, given as 9,938,000 sq km by the same source, then you're left with an area of roughly 9,052,000 sq km.

So it that it? No. It would be nice to be able to say so, but if I've demonstrated anything it's that how big Europe is is very dependent on how you define it in the first place. It's not as unambiguously defined as, say, North America or Africa, as the point at which Europe ends and Asia starts isn't exactly set in stone.

Is the US bigger than continental Europe? I'd say so, for the reasons I've given above, and so would most others, but you're free to disagree.

Even so, the point I was making to the AC to whom I was originally replying to was that comparing the US to any one country in Europe is not comparing like with like, and that's plain for any fool to see.

As you've found out, coming up with an area for continental Europe isn't as easy as it first appears. If you want a comparison with the US, counting just the EU states allows you to compare similar populations (US has around 285 million people, EU has around 300 million) but clearly there are more countries in Europe than are included in the current membership of the EU.

If you're going to compare x, y or z in the US to x, y or z in Europe, comparing the the US to the current EU membership has strong merit.

Comparing the US to the entire continent isn't as valid, if you're concerned about comparing apples with apples: the population of the whole of Europe (as defined by that site) is in excess of 728 million, and a fair chunk of those people, perhaps even the majority, live in former Eastern Bloc countries that are hardly analogous to the US in terms of education, industry, technological development, etc. Some of them them are so poor that they could even be classed as developing nations.

However, let's not talk about that for a second, let's talk about the physical (non-political) geography of continental Europe.

The very site that you link to describes Turkey as being in two continents, Asia and Europe. Istanbul, which lies on the entrance to the Black Sea in one of the most western parts of Turkey is commonly described as being the only city in the world that's in two continents too, so it's fair to say that anything to the south and the west of the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara and the Bosporus (collectively the channels that lead into the Black Sea, and all shown in the top left of this map) is in Asia.

So, very little of Turkey's 769,630 sq km of land mass is actually in Europe. I don't know the exact figure but, if I had to estimate, I'd say that somewhere around the 7 percent of the country is in Europe, give or take a couple of percentage points. So that's roughly 716,000 sq km (769,630 * 0.93 = 715,756) of Turkey that should be discounted.

Similarly, including Georgia and its 69,700 sq km is stretching it a bit too as, apart from the Russian Federation, it's only "European" neighbour is the eastern-most extreme of the Asian portion of Turkey. The other former Soviet states that are in the same region (Armenia and Azerbaijan) are classed as being in Asia, and it seems to me that the only reason for calling Georgia a European country is its small Black Sea coastline.

Politically, these areas might be considered part of Europe but geographically they're clearly not.

Even including Iceland, with its 100,250 sq km, could be considered a stretch, as it's hardly part of the continental geography. Heck, if they had put it in its real location rather than moving it for convenience then it wouldn't even be on that site's initial map of Europe!

716,000 + 69,700 + 100,250 = 885,950 (For simplicities sake, let's call this 886,000.)

So Asian Turkey plus Georgia and Iceland make up a fair chunk of land. If you take them away from the total land mass of Europe, given as 9,938,000 sq km by the same source, then you're left with an area of roughly 9,052,000 sq km.

So it that it? No. It would be nice to be able to say so, but if I've demonstrated anything it's that how big Europe is is very dependent on how you define it in the first place. It's not as unambiguously defined as, say, North America or Africa, as the point at which Europe ends and Asia starts isn't exactly set in stone.

Is the US bigger than continental Europe? I'd say so, for the reasons I've given above, and so would most others, but you're free to disagree.

Even so, the point I was making to the AC to whom I was originally replying to was that comparing the US to any one country in Europe is not comparing like with like, and that's plain for any fool to see.

Heck, do you even know how much larger the US is than the entire European continent?

Um, 8% smaller? I've tried to find the area of Europe on line, coming up with figures ranging from 6.7 to 9.9 x10^5 square kilometers. The smaller number may be a total area of "European" countires (not including the European part of Russia, perhaps?). The CIA world factbook lists the US area as 9,629,091 sq km, but has nothing about Europe. The wonderclub.com site has information about both:

Information about Europe

Information about the US

But are we talking about land area only (because who lives in water?) or should we include water, too, because some boats have computers? Wasn't there something recently about the USS Umpty-Squat having its email servers 0wned by spammers?

On the other hand, this is trivia, not "stuff that matters."

Heck, do you even know how much larger the US is than the entire European continent?

Um, 8% smaller? I've tried to find the area of Europe on line, coming up with figures ranging from 6.7 to 9.9 x10^5 square kilometers. The smaller number may be a total area of "European" countires (not including the European part of Russia, perhaps?). The CIA world factbook lists the US area as 9,629,091 sq km, but has nothing about Europe. The wonderclub.com site has information about both:

Information about Europe

Information about the US

But are we talking about land area only (because who lives in water?) or should we include water, too, because some boats have computers? Wasn't there something recently about the USS Umpty-Squat having its email servers 0wned by spammers?

On the other hand, this is trivia, not "stuff that matters."

My point is, that compared to a Planet Killer kind of meteor this things are like fire-crakers ...

Now if we only had a movie of the Yukatan hit ... ;-)