April Already?

A West Yorkshire hospital has banned visitors from cooing at new-born babies over fears that their human rights are being breached and to reduce infection.

Surprise!

Airline fuel is untaxed.

Hit List

Top 10 Most Annoying Singers (according to UK retail workers)

1 Britney Spears
2 Usher
3 Kylie Minogue
4 50 Cent
5 Robbie Williams
6 Akon
7 Beyonce
8 Blue
9 Justin Timberlake
10 Michael Jackson

Governate This!

"We are going to terminate obesity in California once and for all!"

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on new legislation banning some junk food from Californian High Schools.

Shopping List

The current cost for piece of mind:

HMS Daring – Type-45 Destroyer - $548m
F-16 – Fighter-interceptor aircraft - $40m
Challenger II – Main battle tank - $6.6m
CBU-87 – Cluster bomb - $13,491
G36K carbine – Automatic rifle - $1,000

By 2015

The Millennium Development Goals:

Halve the number of people living on less than $1 a day
Halve the number of people without safe drinking water
Enable all children to complete primary school
Halt and reverse the spread of Aids and malaria

Helpful

"When the battery pack is fully charged, the battery pack charge indicator will turn green. Note: Because of the characteristics of lithium-ion batteries, when the battery pack charge indicator turns green it does not mean the battery pack is fully charged."

Well That About Wraps It Up For God

Praying for patients undergoing heart surgery does not help to save them, according to a study of heart patients.

Mitchell Krucoff of the Duke Clinical Research Institute in Durham, North Carolina, and colleagues divided into four groups 700 people scheduled to have procedures such as the insertion of a catheter into their heart. Established Jewish, Christian, Muslim or Buddhist congregations prayed for the patients in the first group. The second listened to soothing music, imagined "peaceful, beautiful" places and received a series of 45-second-long "healing touches" from medical staff. The third group got prayer as well as music, imagery and touch therapy, and the fourth nothing.

The researchers found that prayer made no difference at all: the patients were no more or less likely to die, develop major heart problems or be re-admitted into hospital within six months of their surgery (The Lancet, vol 366, p 178). However, the two groups of patients who received music, imagery and touch therapy were slightly less likely to die after six months.