Kids today don't know the Bible. Republicans blame our SCHOOLS.

Every Sunday the stupidest newspaper in the world, the New York Post, publishes the stupidest comic strip in the world, Mallard Fillmore. Actually, it's less of a comic strip than a right-wing lecture delivered by a large, frequently bemused duck in a tweed suit. This duck spouts off about all the bizarre left-wing conspiracies running rampant in the world today -- recycling, global warming, minimum wage -- and makes unfunny, logically-questionable declarations about them. It's rather less a comic strip than an animated visit with your crazy grandpa.

This week's work, if we can call it that, consists of two pictures. In the first, we see the duck from over his shoulder, reading a newspaper. "According to this new book," he's thinking -- since apparently it'd be dumb to think a fully-clothed duck who reads newspapers can talk -- "fifty percent of U. S. high-school seniors think that Sodom and Gomorrah were married. . . . "

In the second part, the duck is looking out at us, bemused. "Apparently," he thinks, "the people who want to 'keep religion out of our schools' are doin' a heck of a job. . . . "

Now, maybe Republicans throughout the world will shake their heads and tsk-tsk and say this is another example of the world going to hell in a handbasket. But a second's thought -- apparently an unrealistic deadline with the comic's creator, Bruce Tinsley -- reveals the reality behind this declaration. Let's phrase the statistic in another way:

More than half of American parents don't teach their kids Bible stories.

Handy to know, isn't it? I mean, because if most adult Americans aren't teaching their kids religion, why on earth should our schools?

Wait . . . is the stuff in the Bible supposed to be TRUE?

Thousands of years ago in a desert far, far away, there was a judge who was renowned for his wisdom. Two women came to him with a baby that each claimed was hers, and it was up to him to decide who'd get custody. He thought and thought and finally announced his decision.

"Let's cut the baby at the waist," he declared, "and each of you will get half."

One of the women immediately went pale. "NO!" she screamed. "DON'T KILL MY BABY! Give it to that other woman, but don't cut the poor thing in half!"

"AHA!" the judge said, glowing with insight. "Then you must be the child's mother, because you love it so much you'd rather give it up than see it hurt. I award the baby to you!"

The spectators cheered and everyone came away happy, and from here until the end of time this story will be used as an example of judicial wisdom. Except, well, it's got just a small flaw. It leaves out the response of the other woman to the judge's decision. When we make up her dialog the whole thing starts to sound, well, preposterous:

"Cut the baby in half?" she'd reply. "Why, that's . . . that's . . . fabulous! Sure, ideally I wanted a whole baby, since partial ones tend to have health problems and leave their sheets rather spotty. But half is better than nothing! I'm thinking bookend, or paperweight, or hand-puppet. Okay, buddy -- hack away! I got dibs on the upper half!"