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Dang, no wonder why work suffers so much this time of year.

Call it a productivity slow down or whatever, but the 2007 NCAA Basketball Tournament will have its day, or shall we say several days starting today (March 15) and continuing to the national championship game on Monday, April 2.

Between now and then 64 teams will be whittled down to 2. This is a loser out affair, only winners advance in what is traditionally called The Big Dance. The 32 winners on Thursday and Friday will play again Saturday or Sunday.

By late Sunday night, the season will have ended for 48 teams as only 16 will advance to the third round next Thursday and Friday. These 16 are known as the Sweet 16. Two days later, 8 more teams will been eliminated and we will have what is known as the Elite 8.

Then the Final 4 and finally the national championship game.

So how will 30 million Americans be involved? Simple, office pools.

Experts estimate that more than $2.5 billion (yes, billion) will be wagered this year. For those of you who are counting, that is more than was bet on the last Super Bowl. And only 4% of the $2.5 billion will be wagered "legally" in Nevada.

Mathematical types will be overjoyed to know the odds of picking a perfect bracket.

Are you ready? It is 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 to 1. Please do not ask me who figured this out.

This number is a tad more than Bill Gates' fortune. It is 9 quintillion to 1, or a billion times as big as 9 billion. Good grief.

You might want to think of it his way: if every man, woman and child on planet Earth randomly filled out 10 million brackets each, the odds would be LESS than 1% that even one would have a perfect bracket.

This thought would be according to one RJ Bell of Pregame.com. If you know who RJ Bell is, you have probably been gambling online at some point in time.

It may be a little late for some advice on who to pick as the winner in the office pool, but RJ Bell offers these pointers:

(Editor's Note: These statistics cover the last 21 years of the tournament, since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985.)

• In Round One, be very selective picking any team below a No. 12 seed to win. No. 16 seeds are 0 for 88 and No. 15 seeds are only 4 for 88.

• If you are looking for upsets, No. 12 seeds have beaten No. 5 seeds in 11 of 24 games the last 6 years, and No. 9 seeds have a winning record against No. 8 seeds.

• In Round Two, advance No. 1 seeds almost automatically, they win their first two games 86% of the time.

• Keep advancing the No. 12 and No. 10 seeds you picked to win in Round One. They win almost half the time in Round Two.

• Only 9% of the teams seeded No. 13 or lower advance past Round Two the first weekend.

• In the Sweet 16, advance exactly three of the No. 1 seeds as only 70% of the No. 1 seeds advance into the Elite Eight.

• No team seeded No. 12 or lower has ever advanced into the Elite 8.

• Advance one or two No. 1 seeds to the Final Four. Amazingly, exactly one or two No. 1 seeds have made the Final Four 18 of the last 22 years.

• Advance no team lower than a No. 8 seed to the Final Four as only 2 of 88 Final Four teams have been seeded lower than No. 8.

• Advance no team below a No. 6 seed to the championship game as not a single one has made it in the last 21 years.

• Pick a No. 4 seed or higher to win it all as a No. 4 seed or higher has won the championship for 18 straight years.

Good luck and stay tuned. I may have more coverage on this exciting tournament in the days ahead.

Copyright 2007 Ed Bagley

Ed Bagley's Blog Publishes Original Articles with Analysis and Commentary on 5 Subjects: Sports, Movie Reviews, Lessons in Life, Jobs and Careers, and Internet Marketing. My intention is to inform, educate, delight and motivate you the reader.

Read my movie review on "Coach Was Color-Blind, He Only Wanted to Know If You Could Play Basketball" and my 4 basketball articles on the 2007 NCAA Basketball Tournament detailing Florida's National Championship.

Find my Blog at:
http://www.edbagleyblog.com
http://www.edbagleyblog.com/Sports.html

In an age of burgeoning childhood cancers and leukaemia it seems only common sense (if not a moral imperative) for parents to reduce the daily toxic burden their kids are exposed to.

Many people are not aware that the vast majority of products we happily use every day in the bathroom - such as shower and bath soaps (especially liquid ones), shampoos, conditioners, toothpaste, and so on (as well as the other 'grown up' stuff such as aftershave and cosmetics) contain a cocktail of synthetic chemicals many of which are known to cause a variety of health problems and in some cases to pose potentially serious health risks.

How can this be? Well the laws relating to personal care products and cosmetics have never required rigorous testing of the long-term effects of their ingredients. Back when the 'rules' were laid down - the powers-that-be still labored under the naive impression that 'you rub something on your skin - you wash it off'...therefore there was no real problem!

They did not consider that laws were necessary to regulate the formulation of bathroom products in the way they did for foods and medicines. Whilst the things you eat, or 'medicate yourselves with' obviously 'gets inside' you - it was not apparent that cosmetics, body, hair and skin-care could be a problem because they were 'on the outside'!

Now, though, it is widely acknowledged that your skin absorbs up to 60% of the 'stuff' you put on it. The skin is, after all, a living breathing membrane, described by some as the 'largest organ' of your body. It is also known that many of literally thousands of chemicals that have been passed as 'safe' to use in personal care products can, in fact, cause problems ranging from simple irritations, to triggering allergies, causing or exacerbating sensitivities and either directly, or indirectly (due to contamination) playing a causative role in the onset of cancers.

Children's delicate young skin may be especially vulnerable to these toxic, synthetic (non-natural) chemicals that are very widely used in today's body care products. Whilst there may not yet be enough rigorous scientific evidence to be able to state categorically how much exposure to toxic chemicals in skin care products may actually cause a specific disease to develop - it is a sad fact that rates of cancer and leukaemia in children are at an all time high. It seems only common sense therefore that parents should look out for, and adopt, safer alternative products for their family's general use.

As adults we may be lucky enough to have 'toughened up' over the last few decades and we may not as yet have registered any detrimental effect from years of using certain products (cosmetics and body care attract long-term loyalty from many users). But it is now known that chemicals used in everyday off-the-shelf products - may even act as 'mutagens' - actually causing 'genetic damage and mutation'. So whilst we may never suffer the results of this damage ourselves, it may yet emerge as health problems to be encountered by future generations of our family.

Most shopper and in consequence their families continue to use the same brands of certain products year after year due to a typical brand loyalty without actually stopping to think about what they are doing. Buying the brands of bathroom products you use is simply a Shopping Habit!

You may even use some brands because your own parents always used them! And now you are setting up your own children to be a future generation of habitual users...

We live in an era of wildfire growth in the number of cases of disease that COULD be related to the synthetic chemical toxins we habitually expose ourselves and our children to. So isnt it about time YOU decided to check the labels of body care products, as well as your foodstuffs, and to choose to break some of YOUR Bad-Shopping-Habits that could potentially be threatening your familys long-term health?

Choosing ONLY natural and certified organic personal care and cosmetics products from TODAY onwards, will not only give you peace of mind that you are reducing the burden of synthetic chemicals your family is exposed to every day, it will also help you educate your children to develop better purchasing habits that could well protect your familys health for GENERATIONS to come!

Article by A. Graham Smith MSc BSc The author has many years experience in the food industry and teaching students studying food production, nutrition and health at degree level. He now regularly contributes articles to the non toxic lifestyle website http://www.GoNandO.com where additional information about skin care, and food related 'Cancer Scare' issues can be found. You can also claim a complementary copy of the latest Toxic Ingredients in Everyday Products 'Desktop-Directory' via the website, prepared by A Graham Smith.