If cancer, heart attacks, accidents, murder and all that other stuff kill about two million people a year, why do we have a population problem? I mean, is there anybody here at all?

Existentially speaking, you're alone.

Have you ever tried to get a doctor's appointment in a big city? You can't. They're all attending conferences on tropical islands, thinking up new arguments about why nobody dies a natural death.

Remember when caffeine was Satan herself? Then it turned out decaf caused cancer and caffeine was good for your heart. Or, how about them eggs? Over two a week could puck up your blood. The AMA now reports four eggs a week are just peachy. Thanks.

Now, about that bacon: Take red meat, p-l-e-a-s-e. Doctors claim it can clog a five-o'clock freeway, despite pork being so lean you can't find it sideways.

Then there's our friend, the chicken. Have you actually tried to lift a chicken wing lately? These blubber balls are only healthy when exploded.

Let's talk about secondhand smoke (but quietly). Does secondhand smoke mean you can't afford to buy first-hand smoke? Actually, simply believing secondhand smoke is a serious health threat is like believing self-abuse causes blindness. You can't just believe, you have to have a grudge.

Face this problem head-on: If secondhand smoke kills, then folks living in L.A. are doomed to the cutting room floor, DuPont smokestacks deserve a shellacking, and Georgia Pacific paper mills need to be cut down to size. Firewood should come with a Surgeon General's warning.

Okay, let's dink with the statistics. Because underweight and overweight people are more apt to die before normal weight folks, do we factor in that most weight-challenged people smoke? Are skinny people more at risk crossing a street than large people? And so on.

Really, what happens to cross-pollinated percentages?

Let the facts speak for themselves: More than 99 percent of all home accidents happen in the home. Did you know that? Me neither.