Anna Nicole Smith is dead, according to the news. Bloggers all over the country are pausing at their keyboards, pondering whether to meditate on the tragedy/waste-of-life angle or just go with the cheap joke. And having decided, they’re trying to keep the option they chose from bleeding over into the alternative.

I know what to say. I knew a woman once, a relative, who was caring and giving in every way. She hated herself utterly and used various kinds of chemicals to kill the pain. She didn’t die young, but she died long before she had to, as a result of a life-long effort to get this torturous business of living over with, without actually committing the sin of suicide.

I don’t know much about Anna Nicole, but I suspect some of the same dynamics were at work here. So I say rest in peace, and pray she found it in the only place where it’s available.

I feel like I have a cold in my brain. Not in my head, except insofar as my head contains my brain. I’m not physically stuffed up, but my brain feels like it’s congested in a couple layers of cotton batting. I don’t have a headache but my thoughts hurt. I’m not coughing or sneezing, but that little guy with Tourette’s who lives in my skull is doing his Bobcat Goldthwaite imitation a couple clicks louder than usual.

And yet I persevere, because that’s the kind of mug I am.

Here’s a suggestion, for those of you who share my skepticism about Global Warming. Next time you get in a fight with a True Believer, ask them why they’re afraid of change.

“For years you liberals have been telling us that Change Is Good,” you can say. “The only reason anybody could possible resist any kind of change is because they’re bigoted and cowardly. So how come change became a bad thing all of a sudden?”

I offer you this gambit free of charge. Use it as you will, with my blessing.

Not that it will help. The argument will end with your opponent calling you a Nazi, because that’s how these arguments always end.

But at least you’ll have added a little variety to the script.

Unless you thought of this before me, of course.