Looking back on so many of the stupid things I've said over the years online, I've recognized a disturbing pattern. I have this reflexive cynicism about pretty much anything popular and thoroughly enjoy poking holes in things that everyone else seems to love.

It's time for me to stop being so compulsively negative, and see if I can try the opposite: To find things to love about something everybody hates.

Evolution is just a theory. Don't believe it. I don't care how logical it is or how much evidence you can show me. I've come to a strange sort of epiphany over the past few years that makes me really despise the whole idea of believing in evolution. Hell, while we're at it, let's throw out global warming and special relativity, too. It's time to clean house.

You may have seen the "Spinning Dancer" illusion floating around the web, one instance of it residing here. It's also called the Left Brain vs. Right Brain test. If you are having trouble seeing her spin both ways, you're not alone. I've broken this down in my typical nerdy fashion.

No, they really don't, but that idea's been bugging me ever since I caught a rerun of Bill Maher's latest show from April 13. Even though Bill's opening skits and monologues are generally weak, the meat of the show is usually quite good. Maher has a very low tolerance for bullshit, and calls people on it without hesitation.

What's bugging me though is that in this episode he posed a question to Sheryl Crow and Laurie David via satellite that they all but ignored because the premise was, to be fair, ludicrous. The point, however, wasn't the premise, and it's something I wish they'd explored with more depth.

Bill asked something like this: If we could put a stop to global warming by simply having everyone give up remote controls, do you think people would do it, or would they eventually just say "oh, fuck it."

Can you hear the outrage?

The U.S. doesn't reserve torture for enemy soldiers and foreign citizens anymore. As the case of Jose Padilla shows, a U.S. citizen can be detained on U.S. soil without due process, held for years without an indictment, and tortured. There's outrage over this. Peaceful, quiet outrage.