text: Did you know that washing your hands is a very effective way to reduce the spread of germs that cause infection?
  Follow these simple hand washing steps to ensure that your hands are clean before you handle food in the kitchen. A good length of time for each hand washing session is approximately 20 seconds.
  Try making up your own hand washing song while you follow the steps above to make hand washing a fun exercise.
  Mix gelatin with the cold water until combined. Dissolve in the boiled water. Add the liquid hand soap, and any colors or scents you wish to add.
  Add a toy to the center of each egg (*optional). Close the egg properly. Tape the center of the egg molds and any holes securely. Leave one hole open, and using a syringe, add the gelatin mixture to the mold through the hole. Tape up the remaining hole, and place the filled eggs into the fridge till set.
  The Portland Trail Blazers are enduring a trying season at 18-19 and changes could be on the horizon. One Blazer who is garnering a lot of interest in particular is shooting guard Jamal Crawford.
  Sources confirm to HOOPSWORLD that Crawford, who was signed as an unrestricted free agent this offseason to be retired shooting guard Brandon Roy’s replacement, is on several team’s radar. The Los Angeles Clippers and Minnesota Timberwolves are pursuing him the strongest, but the Sacramento Kings, Toronto Raptors and Milwaukee Bucks have also expressed interest.
  The Clippers have been searching for a replacement for Chauncey Billups ever since the veteran guard suffered a season-ending Achilles injury, and the Timberwolves are currently only a game and a half out of the 8th and final playoff seed in the West. Crawford is making $5 million this season, and there has been speculation that the 31-year old guard will use his opt-out clause after this season and become an unrestricted free agent.
  Crawford, an archetypal backcourt gunner who was recently inserted into Portland’s starting lineup, is averaging 14.5 points on 40.6%/36.0%/92.2% shooting this season.
  But it’s not like that, it wasn’t what you think, reports CSNPhilly.com. This simply may have been a courtesy call.
  Besides, much like Phil Jackson, if Brown returns to the NBA he doesn’t want to do the grind of coaching, he wants to have the power to run a team.
  The source wasn’t certain how serious the interest is, or if teams are just paying respect to the Hall of Famer. The source said Brown is happy with his head coaching position at SMU but would be interested in possibly running an NBA franchise, calling the Sixers a natural fit because of Brown’s Philly connections.
  The odds of anything happening with Brown are about as good as the Clippers hiring Vinny Del Negro back. Brown will be on the bench at SMU again next season.
  It's always a thrill to see a major TV drama take a detailed swipe at topics like creationism or climate change denial, and I was especially excited to see the lengthy discussion in last night's episode of The Newsroom. In an interview based on the real candidate Santorum's comments, the fake news anchor (Will McAvoy) in Aaron Sorkin's The Newsroom mixes it up with a Santorum-pumping fake spokesman for the League of Catholic Voters (Randall Dell). The show is set 2 years in the past, when Santorum was a leading candidate for the presidency.
  Transcript (omitting control room chatter where the guys behind the scenes are pulling up graphics for the show):
  McAvoy: The common wisdom is that political candidates shouldn't be asked about their religious beliefs.
  McAvoy: Does he say so every day in campaign speeches? He does. Let's put this quote up on the screen. It's Rick Santorum speaking at a Tea Party event in Columbus. He said this in regard to President Obama's climate change agenda: "It's not about your quality of life. It's not about your jobs. It's about some phony ideal. Some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible. A different theology." Mr. Dell, one of Rick Santorum's problems with the president's plan to combat climate change is that its roots can't be found in the Bible.
  Dell: We have a lot of reasons to be concerned with Obama's plans, but you're plainly distorting Rick Santorum's words—
  McAvoy: I don't think I am, but let's go to this instead. This is Rick Santorum's statement at the Press and People of Faith in Politics Forum in 2008: "I think there are a lot of problems with the theory of evolution and I do believe it is used to promote a world view that is antitheist, that is atheist. You should have academic freedom in the classroom when teaching about life."
  Dell: That was 2008. Mr. Santorum made those remarks when he didn't hold office. He was speaking as a private citizen.
  McAvoy: He was speaking in defense of an amendment he offered in 2001 when he was a US Senator, making it a federal law that "where topics are taught that may generate controversy (such as biological evolution) the curriculum should help students to understand the full range of scientific views that exist." By "full range of scientific views," he's including Genesis, right.
  McAvoy: It seems like far from objecting to religious views being brought up in political campaigns, he's insisting on it.
  McAvoy's (and writer Sorkin's) point is about the shifting role of religion in presidential politics, a reversal from the days when John F. Kennedy argued he could be trusted with the White House by promising not to be driven by his religious beliefs, but by the secular beliefs he shared with the citizenry.
  Of course, those of us who follow the creationism/evolution struggle were especially thrilled to see the infamous Santorum Amendment get airplay, and to see the absurd creationism claims about "academic freedom" called out for what they are.
  It's important to remember, as we've reported since 2002, the Santorum Amendment never became law. The Newsroom gets that wrong, and while it isn't an important error in their plot, it's important for school administrators and teachers to understand. In many instances, policymakers, parents, and teachers have wrongly claimed that the Amendment represents federal law, and that creationist lessons therefore may not be excluded.
  The Amendment was drafted by Phillip Johnson, known as the godfather of intelligent design creationism, and Santorum added it to the Senate's version of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001. When science education advocates realized what had happened, they worked with the conference committee sorting out differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill to rub out Santorum's handiwork. In the end, the amendment persisted only as a passing reference in the conference report, not in the binding text of the law itself.
  Santorum's attempt to smear evolution education has had long-term consequences, and serves as a reminder to us all that vigilance is a constant necessity. While Santorum's role in the creation/evolution battle played little role in the frothy mix of the 2012 presidential race, we can be glad that The Newsroom is not letting that part of the story be forgotten.
  Last week saw the release of the highly anticipated Netflix app for the iPhone and iPod Touch. I downloaded it as soon as I heard it was available.
  Noel and I have been enjoying our Netflix subscription immensely. We have the least expensive unlimited plan. Comes to just under $10 per month, we get one DVD at a time and unlimited access to their Watch Instantly selection. We’ve been making full use of the watch instantly. There is a good selection of movies available and the technology works well.
  I was very excited to try Netflix on my iPod. That way I can view shows that Noel doesn’t necessarily want to see and she can use the laptop.
  I’ve been using the app pretty heavily over the past two days and I have to say I’m very impressed. I have encountered some issues with the app crashing or refusing to play but overall the selected video loads quickly and plays with little or no noticeable buffering.
  And these results come from a connection with download speeds topping out about 500 kbps, and with at least one other person using the same network. The feature of the app that analyzes your connection speed and automatically delivers appropriate video apparently works.
  Now if the rumored 3G iPod appears next month and this app works as well on that device, I’ll be very happy.
  PS- And I’m thrilled with the battery life. On a full charge, I watched three episodes of Stargate: Atlantis and I still had more than 20 percent charge left. It seems to me watching videos stored on the iPod itself uses power at a far greater rate than this app does.
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