A Book, A Blog Guru, and my favorite Website

I am reading a book called Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. This is not a book I would normally read. It was recommended in an email from Copyblogger, a website with a wealth of information about blogging, especially for business but also for writing in general. Not only informative but also entertaining.

Back to Freakonomics, I have learned so many freaky, weird and interesting things. Statistics show that there is a correlation between Roe vs. Wade and the drop in the American crime rate. Explanation: the babies that would have been born instead of aborted would have been raised in hostile homes by parents ill equipped to raise children they didn't want who then would have grown into people who commit crimes. I know, insulting in so many ways.

A lot of talk about cheating, in schools by students and teachers, in business at all levels, and imagine this headline, "500,000 Children Vanish." That's exactly what happened when the government began requiring social security numbers for all dependents on a person's income tax form. Add income tax fraud to the list.

A lot of what we do is based on incentives. An interesting example is the real estate agent. They normally take longer to sell their own homes than when they are hired to sell someone Else's. They will wait to get the bigger price for themselves but encourage their clients to sell at the first reasonable offer. Why would they want to wait and do more work for you to make an extra $3000 when it will only increase their take $150? Anybody out there sell houses for a living? Got a comment to make?

It is tidbit after tidbit. Did you know you can buy a casket online? I thought you had to buy them from a funeral home. That's what they want you to think. The Internet has been the great equalizer of information. We can all become somewhat of an expert and find out things that were hitherto only available to "experts."

This brings me to a final question: What is your favorite website? Mine is, hands down, Google. You can get to all the other websites from Google. They have great Google art. I can store and share my pictures, use their document makers, have email, and be part of Big Brother all at the same time.

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