Recently, Brett Favre got into an argument with Vikings coach, Brad Childress, about calling plays on the fly. In essence, Favre wanted full authority to be able to call the shots. But Childress said, "I'm the coach."

So, with all of the requests I've received to start yet another side project that interests only me, yesterday I launched www.newsinsong.com. The idea here is to give people a quick and entertaining to meet their desire of staying up to speed with the world's happenings without interfering with their extraordinary apathy. So, give the first video/song a watch/listen, and post any ideas you have that would make this project something you'd want to pay attention to. Thanks all!

In the philosophically-provocative film, Waking Life (which also explores the idea of stream-of-consciousness mentioned the other day), an animated Ethan Hawke teaches us about a fascinating crossword-puzzle experiment. This anecdote was based off a real London study that proved a person's ability to solve a crossword puzzle is statistically affected by whether or not other people have already solved the same puzzle. Does this imply that, once information is out there, people can pick up on it? This idea has already been popularized with countless inventions and vaccines having been simultaneously created in separate parts of the world within a 3-month period. So, the question becomes, once someone thinks something up, is everyone else just picking up on that? Or is the original idea not coming from the human level in the first place? Ok, I warned you this was going to be "weird week". But, here's the way this becomes less weird to me. We can create these little dinky, incredibly simplistic remote controls that can influence an electronic device from across the room. Why are we opposed to the idea that the incredibly complex human brain can do something similar?

Why don't we WANT to believe the stuff shown in this video is true?

I understand how non-believers find the miraculous simply impossible. But, even Christians who think this stuff USED to happen all the time, and not just by Jesus, but by every dude who hung out with him, don't think stuff like this can happen anymore. Why not?

Acclaimed authors James Joyce and Virgina Woolf both experimented in stream-of-consciouness writing. Meaning, they wrote as they thought - in real-time. No forethought. No plan. They just wrote. It's ALMOST as if they acted as the pen, and either they subconsciously or someone/something else did the writing. Now here's the crazier part. Both Woolf's novel, "Mrs. Dalloway" and Joyce's "Ulysses" are widely acclaimed as two of the greatest fiction books of all time. In fact, "Ulysses" often ranks first on the list.

We began 2009 looking at Sleigh Track Logic and why we we believe the things we do. To refresh everyone's memory, the phrase "Sleigh Track Logic" comes from my friend and oft-contributor Emily's cousin's parents, who go out of the way to make the magic of Santa Claus extra special for her. More than just taking a bite out of the cookies she leaves for him, they go out and create indentations in their front yard, claiming they are tracks from Santa's sleigh. This now 8-year old believer made it through this year once again, after her mother resorted to time travel logic to explain how Santa could visit each house in one night. This girl is going to believe in Santa for the rest of her life. The evidence is overwhelming. (bitten cookies, sleigh tracks, the affirmation of her most trusted authorities). We believe in things with a whole lot less than that. But the reason we stop believing in Santa Claus is because we are given alternative evidence to explain acts we had attributed to him. So this year, let's begin 2010 looking at the things we don't believe in, and ask ourselves why?

#26. Theodore Roosevelt