Welcome to the Overnight News Digest (OND) for Tuesday, February 07, 2012.
OND is a regular
community feature on Daily Kos, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing near 12:00AM Eastern Time.
Creation and early water-bearing of the OND concept came from our very own Magnifico - proper respect is due.
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This diary is named for its "Hump Point" video: Memphis Soul Stew by King Curtis and The Kingpins
Please feel free to browse and add your own links, content or thoughts in the Comments section.
Any timestamps shown are relative to each publication.
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Top News |
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Catholics Do Not Have a Deep Moral Objection to Contraception
By Kevin Drum
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Should secular Catholic institutions (such as hospitals and universities) be required to abide by federal rules that say healthcare plans have to cover contraception? Or should they receive a conscience exemption from this rule, as churches themselves do?
Two new polls today shed some light on this question. The first one, from the Public Religion Research Institute, asked if all employers should be required to offer healthcare plans that cover contraception:
All Americans: broad agreement, 55%-40%
Catholics: broad agreement, 58%-37%
. . .
In both cases, the numbers are much higher for Democrats and Independents. It's really only Republicans who object much, which strongly suggests that most of the objection is rooted in ideology, not religious conscience.
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Why the energy industry is so invested in climate change denial
By Bill McKibben
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. . .
Most of the media pays remarkably little attention to what's happening. Coverage of global warming has dipped 40% over the last two years. When, say, there's a rare outbreak of January tornadoes, TV anchors politely discuss "extreme weather," but climate change is the disaster that dare not speak its name.
. . .
Part of it's simple enough: the giant energy companies are making so much money right now that they can't stop gorging themselves. ExxonMobil, year after year, pulls in more money than any company in history. Chevron's not far behind. Everyone in the business is swimming in money.
. . .
What he and the rest of the energy-industrial elite are denying, in other words, is that the business models at the center of our economy are in the deepest possible conflict with physics and chemistry. The carbon bubble that looms over our world needs to be deflated soon. As with our fiscal crisis, failure to do so will cause enormous pain – pain, in fact, almost beyond imagining. After all, if you think banks are too big to fail, consider the climate as a whole and imagine the nature of the bailout that would face us when that bubble finally bursts.
Unfortunately, it won't burst by itself – not in time, anyway. The fossil-fuel companies, with their heavily-funded denialism and their record campaign contributions, have been able to keep at bay even the tamest efforts at reining in carbon emissions. With each passing day, they're leveraging us deeper into an unpayable carbon debt – and with each passing day, they're raking in unimaginable returns. ExxonMobil last week reported its 2011 profits at $41bn, the second highest of all time. Do you wonder who owns the record? That would be ExxonMobil, in 2008, at $45bn.
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Study: We Love Facebook Because It Tricks Us Into Thinking We’re Doing Something Important
By Kristen Philipkoski
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When you're perusing your Facebook account, your brain might be fooling you into thinking you're doing something incredibly creative and productive that will improve your life. If only that were true!
. . .
We already know Facebook is harder to resist than cigarettes and alcohol. So it's not all that surprising that Facebook is enjoyable. Cocaine is enjoyable! But like an addictive drug, the results suggest the social network might have a sinister effect: Facebook makes you think you're being productive when really you're probably just telling everyone how delicious your lunch was and discovering that your best friend's cousin's baby just ate squash.
That's why perhaps it's important to keep in mind what Harvard's Daniel Gulati said: over time, Facebook is making us miserable. Everyone is a shiny happy person on Facebook. Very few people share their insecurities, misgivings, evenings spent alone in the fetal position. And if you experience any of that you might feel very much alone if your visiting Facebook often. In which case maybe consider playing your favorite instrument, hanging out with your kids, working on that novel, or doing something else that leads to actual flow. [Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking]
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Komen's Karen Handel quits after Planned Parenthood row
By (BBC)
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A senior executive has resigned from Susan G Komen for the Cure days after the charity dropped its plans to cut funding of Planned Parenthood.
Karen Handel, vice-president at Komen, had backed the move to stop funding the reproductive health group.
. . .
Critics had accused Komen of succumbing to pressure from groups that oppose abortion - a charge that Ms Handel denied in her letter of resignation.
. . .
Ms Handel unsuccessfully ran for governor of Georgia in 2010, but was hit with accusations that she was soft on abortion because she had previously voted in favour of funding for Planned Parenthood.
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Greek workers strike over public job cuts
By (Al Jazeera)
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Workers in Greece are staging a 24-hour general strike in protest over new government austerity measures which would see 15,000 civil service employees lose their jobs this year.
Tuesday's strike comes with Greece under mounting pressure to agree to a package of tough economic reforms that would give it access to a $170bn bailout payment to avoid a March default on its bond repayments.
Party leaders within Greece's coalition government are due to meet on Tuesday to discuss the proposed measures, demanded by its financial backers - the so-called troika of the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank - after talks continued into the early hours.
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the leaders of the euro zone's two largest economies, are pressing Greece to act fast amid fears a Greek default would jeopardise the economic health of the entire single currency bloc.
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Asthma connected to fizzy drinks
By Denis Campbell
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Consuming too many fizzy drinks increases your risk of developing asthma or the severe breathing condition Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder (COPD), new research suggests.
Researchers in Australia examined the health and soft drink consumption of 16,907 people aged 16 and over in South Australia during 2008-2010.
. . .
"The amount of soft drink consumption is associated with an increased chance of asthma and/or COPD. There exists a dose-response relationship, which means the more soft drink one consumes, the higher the chance of having these diseases", the researchers, led by Zumin Shi of Adelaide University, report in the journal Respirology.
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International |
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Argentina will take Falklands claim to the UN, says president
By Rory Carroll
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President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has accused Britain of "militarising" the south Atlantic, and said she would seek UN intervention to prevent a war against Argentina for its natural resources.
. . .
Fernández summoned politicians and veterans of the 1982 Falklands war for her speech on Las Malvinas. "I have instructed our foreign minister to protest at the UN [against] the militarisation of the south Atlantic which implies a grave risk for international security, precisely when we see in other countries situations that become unmanageable. The coming wars will be for natural resources and Argentina is one of the richest regions in world in those resources," she said. The president also promised to lift secrecy over a 1982 military report, named after General Benjamin Rattenbach, which was commissioned by Argentina's former military dictatorship.
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After a decade of relative calm, tension flared last year when Argentina protested at oil drilling in Falkland waters. Two weeks ago, Argentina's official news agency, Telam, started a Malvinas page with banner pictures of Argentinian jet fighters, helicopters, tanks and soldiers.
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Fall from grace for Maldives' democratic crusader
By Olivia Lang
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. . .
It was the country's first-ever multiparty election, and the 41-year-old former political prisoner had won out against an incumbent who had ruled autocratically for three decades.
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In recent years, Mr Nasheed had also attracted worldwide attention for his campaign for action on climate change, even holding an underwater cabinet meeting to highlight his cause.
But domestically, he appeared to lose his footing as a series of crises shook his government.
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Last month he asked the army to arrest Abdulla Mohamed, the chief judge of the Criminal Court, in a move condemned by critics as unconstitutional.
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Some regard the unrest as a war between Mr Nasheed and Mr Gayoom's proxies, some of whom have faced allegations of corruption.
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Beijing finds vulnerable ally in Berlin
By Jian Junbo
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. . .
Merkel's China visit is the latest in numerous official exchanges over the past two years. The frequency with which officials shuttle between Beijing and Berlin highlights that relations between the world's largest exporter nations have never been closer, nor have the two held so many shared interests.
. . .
The most important is perhaps economic ties and common financial interests. Bilateral trade volume between China and Germany is expected to reach US$160 billion this year, up from last year's US$142 billion, and makes up one third of China's total trade volume with the EU. That underlines how the two countries become even more dependent on each other's market, especially during a global economic recession and when the EU is suffering through its debt crisis.
As the EU takes 60% of Germany's exports, Germany as an export-oriented economy has had to seek out new markets. China has naturally become an ideal destination for German products. Germany is also an important investment market for China, and a significant partner in technological cooperation.
Beijing and Berlin also have common positions in international affairs. Both China and Germany oppose protectionism, which is on the rise as countries use formal or informal trade tariffs to "protect" their domestic markets.
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Treatment plan for Libya war victims turns into scandal
By Jonathan Head
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One of the first announcements made by Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC) after the fall of Tripoli last August was a promise to all those wounded in the fight against former leader Muammar Gaddafi.
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Then-Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril announced in September that the NTC would set aside $400m (£250m) to fund medical care for wounded fighters in overseas hospitals.
It established a Global Health Programme which covered the cost of treatment in several countries, using insurance companies. Soon after that, Libyans began showing up at hospitals in Tunisia, Jordan, Turkey, Egypt, and some European countries.
Four months later, the scheme has been suspended. With no central oversight, it turns out it was being abused on a massive scale.
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USA Politics, Economy, Major Events |
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Bishops vow fight over healthcare policy
By (UPI)
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Catholic bishops threatened legal action if the Obama administration doesn't change a policy that Catholic entities cover birth control in health plans.
. . .
Carney said there were exemptions for churches and houses of worship, where it was more a matter of hiring people of like faith, rather than larger institutions, such as hospitals or universities, where "you are going to have folks of all faiths."
The rule, Carney stressed, doesn't require an individual or institution to provide contraception, but requires "coverage for women who work there of different faiths, or of any faith."
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Bain execs spend nearly $5 million on Romney's White House runs
By Anne Farris Rosen
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Of all the investments made by the super-wealthy partners at the private equity firm Bain Capital, perhaps none has a greater potential return than the one they've made in Mitt Romney.
Current and former Bain executives and their relatives have given about $4.7 million to organizations that are dedicated to making Romney the next president of the United States, according to a Center for Public Integrity investigation.
. . .
Many candidates and elected officials establish PACs to contribute to other candidates and to advance the party agenda, but few were as prolific as Romney's, especially at the state level. In total, current and former Bain executives and their relatives contributed more than $1 million to the state and federal PACs from 2004 to 2011, when Romney wasn't an official presidential candidate.
Much of the Commonwealth money came from 16 current or former Bain executives and their wives, some of whom contributed tens of thousands of dollars in a single day to multiple PACs.
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Death penalty case puts racism on trial in North Carolina
By Kate Dailey
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In 1991, 18-year-old Marcus Reymond Robinson and a friend convinced Erik Tornblom, 17, to give them a ride home from a gas station.
Robinson and his friend then pulled a gun on Tornblom, forced him to drive to a field, took his car and his money and shot him in the head.
A jury later convicted Robinson, who is black, of pulling the trigger on Tornblom, who was white. The prosecution presented evidence that Robinson said he wanted to kill a "whitey".
. . .
Last week, he appeared in a North Carolina courtroom as the first death row inmate to present evidence under North Carolina's Racial Justice Act (RJA), a controversial law designed to compensate for bias in the judicial system.
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Welcome to the "Hump Point" of this OND.
News can be sobering and engrossing - at this point in the diary, an offering of brief escapism:
Random notes related to this video:
. . . King Curtis, was an American saxophone virtuoso known for rhythm and blues, rock and roll, soul, funk and soul jazz. Variously a bandleader, band member, and session musician, he was also a musical director and record producer. Adept at tenor, alto, and soprano saxophone, he was best known for his distinctive riffs and solos . . .
In 1965, he moved to Atlantic Records and recorded his most successful singles, "Memphis Soul Stew" and "Ode to Billie Joe" (1967). He worked with The Coasters, led Aretha Franklin's backing band The Kingpins. The Kingpins opened for The Beatles during their 1965 performance at Shea Stadium. Curtis produced records, often working with Jerry Wexler and recorded for Groove Records during this period.
In 1970, he appeared with Aretha Franklin and The King Pins on Aretha Live at Fillmore West, and another record, Live at Fillmore West, which included a version of "Memphis Soul Stew" and covers of Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love", Isaac Hayes' "I Stand Accused" and Stevie Wonder's "Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours". . . In July 1971, Curtis recorded saxophone solos on "It's So Hard" and "I Don't Wanna Be a Soldier Mama I Don't Wanna Die" from John Lennon's Imagine. Along with The Rimshots, he recorded the original theme song for the 1971 hit television show, Soul Train, titled "Hot Potatoes."
Back to what's happening:
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Environment and Greening |
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Gas Boom Goes Bust
By Jonathan Callahan
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The current boom in drilling for ‘unconventional’ gas has helped raise US production to levels not seen since the early 1970′s. This has been an incredible boon to consumers and has kept spot prices contained below $5 per million BTU for the past year, recently dropping below $3/mmbtu. Unfortunately, this price is below the cost of production for many of these new wells. When the flood of investment currently pouring into natural gas drilling operations dries up, the inevitable bust will be as scary as the boom was exciting.
. . . The general trend toward increased energy consumption is obvious as are dips due to the 1973 and 1980 oil crises as well as the economic crash in 2008. Initial data for 2010 show a return to increased consumption following the massive injection of Federal stimulus money. We can also see that oil is the primary source of energy in the United States and that natural gas has recently outpaced coal in importance. In 2010, natural gas accounted for 30% of total energy use.
. . .
Clearly, low prices are going to affect many in the industry. But that is not all. Low gas prices put pressure on other sources of energy used to produce electricity. Natural gas competes against coal and wind and solar photovoltaics and is now the lowest cost provider. We should expect 2012 to be a year in which we see a variety of knock-on effects . . .
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Study measures concern in polar issues
By (UPI)
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Americans' knowledge of the world's polar regions has increased since 2006 but has not translated into more concern about polar environments, a study has found.
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While concern about climate change in the polar regions showed no up or down trend, and there were no changes in support for reserving the Antarctic for science, the researchers said there has been an increase in political disagreement between Democrats and Republicans on climate-related questions.
"Among the environment-related issues, all but reserving Antarctica for science show increasing political polarization -- and even support for reserving the Antarctic divides along party lines," Hamilton said.
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Technology |
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How to Predict the Spread of News on Twitter
By The Physics arXiv Blog
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. . . Huberman and his colleagues examined the content of news stories during a single week in August last year as measured by the news feed aggregator Feedzilla. They scored each article based on four criteria: the news source that generates and posts the article; the category of news; the subjectivity of the language; and the people and things named in the article.
They then measured the way these news stories spread across the Twitter network to see which became popular and how quickly. They used this to work out how an article's score in each criterion is linked to its eventual popularity
Finally, having worked out what factors make an article successful, they used this to predict how popular other articles would be.
Here's their conclusion: "Our experiments show that it is possible to estimate ranges of popularity with an overall accuracy of 84% considering only content features."
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Brazil sues Twitter users over speed traps
By (UPI)
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Brazil has sued to suspend accounts of Twitter users who use tweets to warn people about radar locations, speed traps and DUI checkpoints, officials say.
The attorney general of Brazil filed for a preliminary injunction to block tweets and suspend the accounts, claiming Twitter users are putting people in danger because police can't properly do their jobs, CNET reported.
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Last week, Twitter announced it would selectively remove tweets and block Twitter users at a government's request, a decision strongly opposed by many as censorship.
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Why Lady Gaga Deploys a Sound Only Your Smartphone Can Hear
By Eliot Van Buskirk -
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Audio tags are looking more and more like the new QR code - not only are they way less ugly than those jagged black-on-white squares, but you don't need to take a picture of anything in order for them to work.
. . .
[SonicNotify] transmits a high-frequency sound wave through speakers - we can't hear the frequency but smartphones can hear it, so we're able to unlock content at live events, TV shows, and through the web," said Jesse Israel, co-founder of Cantora Records + Labs, a record label at NYC Music Tech Meetup. "We've closed deals with Lady Gaga for The Monster Ball Tour, we're doing Coachella, we're doing stuff for Fashion Week next week powering 32 stages, college sports, partnerships with Twitter and Spotify - so it's kind of a cool example of how we're able to put pieces together and help a technology get off the ground.
. . .
"With Sonic, we can unlock anything that your iPhone or Android can do, as long as the SonicNotify SDK is built into an app that's running in the background on your phone," explained Israel. "For example, some of the stuff we're doing with Gaga is when she is performing, mid-set, everyone in the arena gets a notification which lets them choose which song she plays for her encore."
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See How Much Camera ISO Has Improved Over the Years
By Casey Chan
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The picture on the left (if you can't tell by the young and spunky Britney Spears) was taken at the 2001 Super Bowl with a Nikon D1H at 2.7 megapixels and 800 ISO. That was PRIMO technology back then! The picture on the right was taken at this year's Super Bowl with a Nikon D3s at 12MP and 12,800 ISO. Yep, thing's done got better. |
China Prepares to Fine Apple, Possibly Ban iPad for Trademark Abuse
By Jason Mick
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Chinese holding company Proview International Holdings ltd. (HKG:0334) sold Apple the Chinese market rights to use the trademark for a mere $55K USD in 2006, via an Apple subsidiary IP Application Development. Apple has increasingly turned to using shell companies to sue people and buy patents, a traditional method of the patent troll.
Of course Proview, ostensibly had no idea that it was really dealing with Apple, or that Apple would use the trademark towards a billion dollar product. Of course Apple did exactly that, and today the tablet is a much-coveted piece of electronics in the world's largest nation -- one that some people would (literally) trade a kidney for.
Proview looked to settle with Apple out of court, but Apple's lawyers apparently did not take the company's threats seriously. So Proview called Apple's bluff and sued it in Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court over the trademarks iPAD (China Trademark No. 1682310) and IPAD (China Trademark No. 1590557). Proview sought 10B yuan (RMB) ($1.586B USD) in damages [source].
. . .
But the local court did not see Apple's logic, ruling it to be in infringement. It is on the verge of ordering a 240M yuan (RMB) ($38.07M USD) fine [source]. Emboldened, Proview has filed more lawsuits against Apple's retail partners, including one that will be heard in court in the Pudong district of Shanghai later this month.
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Cultural |
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A Pulpit For The Masses: YouTube, Christians Click
By Barbara Bradley Hagerty
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. . .
The video is called "Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus" and it's a YouTube sensation. In the four-minute poem, which Bethke and his friend shot in a couple of takes, Bethke takes apart religion and religious people for what he sees as their hypocrisy — building churches but not feeding the poor, caring more about rules than about grace.
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But Bethke, who graduated from college last year and now works as an athletic director for public schools in Bellevue, Wash., says his Christian friends feel the same way: The church is losing Jesus amid rules and partisan politics. He believes that's why his video went viral.
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Liberals are relative newcomers to YouTube Christianity. The path was pioneered by conservatives, notably Molotov Mitchell, a martial arts teacher and the founder of Illuminati Pictures. His video challenging Barack Obama's birth certificate drew about 4.5 million viewers. His short videos, called "For the Record," are highly produced, always caustic, and often offensive.
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Kinnaman has surveyed young Christians extensively, and he notes that creating videos is as natural as breathing for young people. So forget about seminary: YouTube allows a martial arts teacher like Mitchell or a recent college graduate like Jefferson Bethke to broadcast their interpretation of Christianity to the world.
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