In any case, here's to blue fingers.

The Medium Lobster can only applaud [Sen. Clinton's] ingenuity and sharp-witted political calculation. Indeed, if there's any constituency that stands to warm to Senator Clinton, it has to be single issue pro-life conservatives, who are finally ready to embrace the senator after over a decade of believing her to be a radical Communist demon queen who murdered Vince Foster in cold blood to prevent him from telling the truth about her secret coven of lesbian witches.

Sitcoms are so full of smart-assed kids that I am stunned that people still breed in this country. Have you watched that monstrosity they call "Quintuplets"? Is it canceled yet? What a godawful piece of nastiness. These kids go beyond smart-ass to downright smarmy and creepy, especially the smirking little f*cker who plays the runt. Who finds that crap funny? "Oh, it's so cute, he's always trying to get laid! So adorable, the way he lies to girls to see their boobies and get in their pants!" Everyone's always trying to figure out What's Wrong With Kids These Days, and the answer is right there: sitcoms featuring smart-assed little pricks.

I even hate smart-assed babies. There's a Quizno's ad out right now, wherein a six-month-old "speaks" with the voice of a scuzbag and leers at a hot chick, poolside. I hope the person who created that commercial has a bladder infection.

An expert bomb maker linked to some of Iraq's most sensational and deadly attacks — including strikes on the United Nations, the Jordanian Embassy and an Italian base — has been captured, Iraqi authorities said Monday.

The suspected bomber in custody, identified as Sami Mohammed Ali Said Jaaf — also known as Abu Umar Kurdi — was described in a government statement as "the most lethal" lieutenant of Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant whose group has claimed credit for numerous bombings, kidnappings and assassinations. ... Jaaf has admitted under interrogation to involvement in at least 32 car and truck bombings that together have killed hundreds, said Thair Nakib, a spokesman for interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. Jaaf has also told interrogators that he was involved in the torture and execution of an Iraqi human rights advocate, the spokesman said.

“Education would be much more effective if it's purpose were to ensure that by the time they leave school, every student should know how much they don't know, and be imbued with a lifelong desire to know it.”

—Sir William Haley

The Nobel laureate James Watson, who started a revolution in science as co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, put it to me straight a couple of years ago: "Never retire. Your brain needs exercise or it will atrophy."

Why, then, am I bidding Op-Ed readers farewell today after more than 3,000 columns? Nobody pushed me; at 75, I'm in good shape, not afflicted with political ennui; and my recent column about tsunami injustice and the Book of Job drew the biggest mail response in 32 years of pounding out punditry.

Here's why I'm outta here: In an interview 50 years before, the aging adman Bruce Barton told me something like Watson's advice about the need to keep trying something new, which I punched up into "When you're through changing, you're through." He gladly adopted the aphorism, which I've been attributing to him ever since.

Combine those two bits of counsel - never retire, but plan to change your career to keep your synapses snapping - and you can see the path I'm now taking...

the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants.

"Does anybody here know SpongeBob?" Dr. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, asked the guests Tuesday night at a black-tie dinner for members of Congress and political allies to celebrate the election results.

• Bush received only a two point bump in approval after winning the election. Historically, that's small. For reasons that I cannot explain (and are probably depressing as all hell) when you win an election, it makes people want to vote for you.
  
  
• The Times did not poll Bush above 51% at any single point in 2004. Both these drive home the point that a better candidate could have won.
  
  
• Bush's approval numbers drop significantly when voters are asked about specific issues. Foreign policy? 42% approval. Economy, also 42%; Iraq, 40%. The only issues voters believe Bush is handling well are terrorism (56%) and our response to the Tsunami (81%). The importance, then, of “image” simply cannot be understated. Voters respond to vague, non-specific “connection” with a candidate than they do with actual, specific experience or performance.
  
  
• When the question is changed to include “undecided” in the prompted response, Bush's approval-disapproval drops to 44-40—and 14% undecided. Even going right into the most media-saturated election history, 8% still said they were undecided. So apparently 8% of Americans live in deliberate ignorance. Coincidentally, that's about the same number of Americans that miss “Donny & Marie.”
  
  
• Thanks to the way history is taught, many Americans have difficulty linking specific events to specific causes. When asked if the think subject X will be better or worse off at the end of President Bush's second term, most of the questions got better than 45% saying, “about the same.” People have a hard time believing that politicians actually do things that affect them.
  
  
• Predictable exceptions: 66% of voters think we'll be running a higher national debt in four years, and only 9% of voters think that their federal taxes will go down under Mr. Rebate. That would be the 8% who live in deliberate ignorance plus 1% who are crazy.
  
  
• Notable exception: 75% of voters expect a significant number of American troops in Iraq in four years. They get something that a former senior staffer in the W. Va. State GOP was explaining to be at a Taco Bell last week: “We need somewhere in the middle east to park our army. The king of Saudi Arabia is old and has no heir designated. After he dies, civil war is a real possibility. We were building permanent army bases in Iraq before we reached Baghdad.”
  
  
• The number of Americans opposed to abortion is the largest it's been since the poll started tracking in 1989. But that's only 26%. Only 36% are pro-choice. The number in the middle (legal but strictly regulated) is 35%. Abortion battles are won by whichever movement gets the votes from that group.
  
  
• Demonstrating a firm grasp of the blindingly obvious, 78% of voters believe it is “not possible to overhaul Social Security, cut taxes and pay for the war in Iraq all at the same time without increasing the budget deficit.”
  
  
• 49% of voters approve of the GOP. 51% approve of the Dems. Now, I can understand having the same feeling for both parties. I just don't understand how that feeling can be positive.
  
  
• When you ask how congress is doing it's job, the Don't-Knows jump into the double digits: 17% this month. “Why do I have to know about congress? I thought the President was the king of democracy!”

Back in the twenty-first century, as robotic life became more and more sophisticated, it was generally accepted that something was needed to keep the droids in check. For the most part they were stronger, and often more intelligent, than human beings: why should they submit to second-class status, to a lifetime of drudgery and service?

Many of them didn't. Many of them rebelled.

Then it occurred to a bright young systems analyst at Android International that the best way to keep the robots subdued was to give them religion.

Hallelujah!

The concept of Silicon Heaven was born. A belief chip was implanted into every droid that now came off the production line.

The concept ran thus: if machines served their human masters with diligence and dedication, they would attain everlasting life in mechanical paradise when their components finally ran down. In Silicon Heaven, they would be reunited with their electronic loved ones. It was a place where the hard drive never crashed, the laser printer always had enough toner and the photocopier never had a paper jam.

At last they had solace. They were every bit as exploited as they'd always been, but now they believed there was some kind of justice at the end of it all.

Lister had beentrying to get off Mimas for nearly six months now. How he'd got there was still something of a mystery.

The last thing he really remembered with any decent clarity was celebrating his birthday back on Earth. He, and six of his very closest friends, decided to usher in his twenty-fifth year by going on a Monopoly board pub-crawl around London. A drink at each of the squares. In Whitechapel they had pina coladas. King's Cross station, double vodka. In Euston Road, pints of Guinness. The Angel Islington, mezcals. Pentonville Road, bitter laced with rum and blackcurrant. And they continued around the board. By the time they'd got to Oxford Street, only four of them remained. And only two of the four still had the power of speech.

His last real memory was of telling the others he was going to buy a Monopoly board, because no one could remember what the next square was, and stepping out into the cold night air clutching two-thirds of a bottle of sake.

He'd woken up slumped across a table in a McDonald's burger bar on Mimas, wearing a lady's pink crimplene hat and a pair of yellow fishing waders, with no money and a passport in the name of ‘Emily Berkenstein.’ What was more, he had a worrying rash.

He was broke, diseased and 793 million miles from Liverpool.

1. I will read the entire book.
2. I won't read a book just because I need something on the list.
3. Wash your hands before you eat, not after.
4. I will put up the title and a paragraph or two when I'm done.

The top American weapons inspector in Iraq, Charles A. Duelfer, has wrapped up his work there, a step that ends the search for illicit weapons, an intelligence official said Tuesday night.

Mr. Duelfer issued a comprehensive report last fall that acknowledged that Iraq had destroyed its chemical and biological weapons in the early 1990's, years before the American invasion of 2003. But Mr. Duelfer returned to Iraq for further investigations after that report was issued. In an article in its Wednesday issue, The Washington Post reported that he had ended that work in late December.

The intelligence official said that Mr. Duelfer was still likely to issue several small additional statements on his findings, but that none would contradict the central conclusions that Iraq did not possess illicit weapons at the time of the American invasion.

President Bush and his top advisers had described what they said were illicit Iraqi arsenals as the central justification for going to war.

Mr. Duelfer, an adviser to the director of central intelligence, had overseen the work of the Iraq Survey Group, a 1,200-member military organization that carried out the work of searching for weapons, interviewing Iraqi officials and drawing up assessments.

That team remains in Iraq, but the main focus of its work shifted several months ago to efforts to combat the anti-American insurgency there.

• ‘A Chorus Line’ Will Return to Broadway
• Beltran Brings Great Hope to ‘New Mets’
• Mayor Campaigning for Office and Credit
• Changing Course, Apple Offers Low-Priced Mac for the Home

• Number of cell phones in my possession: 2
• Number of cell phones able to make or receive calls: 0.
• Days since I made a phone call: 2
• Days since I checked my voice mail: 3
• Time spent on hold with Sprint PCS tech support: approx. 1.5 hours
• Time spent talking with a real person with Sprint PCS tech support: approx. 25 minutes.
• Times disconnected from Sprint PCS tech support representative: 2
• Times disconnected from Sprint PCS by automated system: 5
• Problems solved by Sprint PCS tech support: 1
• Problems created by Sprint PCS tech support: 4
• Money refunded or credited to my account by Sprint PCS tech support: $0
• Number of Sprint PCS call center supervisors who's people skills entitled them to be civilly and politely informed of all the activities I was missing out on because of the time I spent on hold, in intimate detail, including comprehensive explanation of various anatomical requirements (and specifications thereof, in metric measurements) and with unpublishable corroborating testimony from my roommate: 1

The U.S. Supreme Court refused on Monday to hear a constitutional challenge to a 1977 Florida law that bans gays and lesbians from adopting children, the only such state law in the nation.

According to [Mathew] Staver [of Liberty Council], with this decision, the nation's highest court has come down on the side of traditional families: "but not only that—I think other states will follow Florida's lead to enact similar laws."

1. “What in school changes need to be made to our current educational system?”
2. “What is the case for or against charter schools? Are home schools just a way for parents to rubber stamp their children’s education? Are charter schools just a way for parents to practice intolerance in whom their children go to school with? Does either or both actually work?”

So I would insist that the best education available to American kids is the one made available by teachers who know that they should control the point of production—who have enough confidence, and courage, to say that the interests of teachers and students converge more often than not, to say that tests are necessary but not sufficient to the measurement of effort or achievement, to say, finally, that I am here to show these kids how to think, not what to think.

Swedish and Thai police are searching for a 12-year-old Swedish boy last seen leaving a Thai hospital with an unknown man in the aftermath of the south Asian tsunami.

A boy matching the description of 12-year-old Kristian Walker was last seen with a German man at a hospital near Khao Lak on Monday, but has since vanished, despite a desperate search by his American grandfather, Daniel Walker, family and police said.

In the wake of the devastating tsunami, there have been unconfirmed reports of dozens of orphaned children taken by unidentified people, some of them possibly child traffickers.

STOCKHOLM: In the latest example of the tsunamis exposing the worst as well as the best of human nature, Swedish authorities are refusing to release the names of people missing in the tsunami for fear their homes will be robbed.

Thieves, rapists, kidnappers and hoaxers are preying on tsunami survivors and victims' families in refugee camps and hospitals in the affected countries and in the home countries of European tourists hit by the giant waves.

In one of the worst incidents, a 12-year-old Swedish boy who survived the disaster is believed to have been kidnapped from a Thai hospital by suspected child-sex traffickers.

The United Nations warned that the toll of about 150,000 known dead would rise as more bodies were found and survivors fell sick. In Indonesia's worst-hit Aceh province, infectious illnesses were already rife.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated there were more than half a million people injured and in need of medical care in six nations. Fears grew that diseases like cholera and malaria would break out among the 5 million displaced.

The U.N. agency said pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria and skin infections had already emerged in Aceh. There were cases of gangrene among survivors with wounds exposed to polluted water. Seawater and sewage have contaminated many wells.

On Tuesday salvage crews dragged away a crippled cargo jet that had been blocking the runway at Banda Aceh, capital of the devastated province of Aceh on the northern tip of Indonesia's Sumatra island.

The airport was closed to fixed-wing craft overnight after the chartered Boeing 737 reportedly hit a water buffalo on landing and damaged its undercarriage.

Global promises of aid total $2 billion. "It's been just phenomenal," U.N. emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland told U.S. television.

"We have never, ever seen anything like this. In 10 days, we've had more relief to the tsunami victims than we had to all other emergencies in the world last year. It is the standard that we should set for relief to the world in the future."

Medical aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) even urged the public to stop sending it money, saying it had enough for its projects in Sri Lanka and Indonesia.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, on his way to a global aid summit in Jakarta on Thursday, vowed Washington would help the millions hit by the December 26 tsunami to rebuild. But he said an effort on the scale of the post-World War Two Marshall Plan was probably not needed.

First, the region needs an extensive network of seismographs, which pick up the tremors from underwater earthquakes. Second, regional centers must be established to process and interpret the seismographic information in real time, and predict the likely impact and location of subsequent tsunamis. Third, communication systems must be set up that can relay swift warnings internationally, regionally and then to local communities.

Most attention is focused on the Indian Ocean at the moment, but researchers warn that other regions at risk of tsunamis, including the Caribbean, the coasts of Central and South America and the Mediterranean, also lack adequate warning systems. "It would be unwise to put all the efforts into the Indian Ocean," says Vasily Titov, who studies tsunamis at the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle, Washington.