'I have two children,' she said while arrogantly sticking her chin out, nodding vigorously and pointing both her thumbs toward herself, 'THAT I KNOW ABOUT.'

She was, of course, skewering males who make that same statement in a twisted attempt to get someone to think they are indiscriminate sexual studs. It was hilarious.

Not quite so funny is that in 2005, my newspaper ran 155 items requiring corrections or clarifications ...

... That I know about.

I'm certain we made many more mistakes that were never brought to our attention and thus weren't corrected. But I'm equally certain that we made every effort to set the record straight.

My favorite Daily Star correction of 2005 ran on Oct. 21, when we owned up to misspelling the name of Snidely Whiplash, the villain in all those Dudley Do-Right cartoons. Mr. Whiplash had never complained, but we still felt running a correction was the right thing to do.

Our 155 corrections or clarifications were nine fewer than we ran in 2004, and five more than were required in 2003.

Of the corrections we ran last year, 15 involved getting someone's name wrong. Nothing destroys a newspaper's credibility more than misspelling a name, so I guess that kind of correction eats at me more than others.

Not at all helpful to an editor's morale are those folks who look over your shoulder and clear their throats until you notice that they know you blew it.

There's a website called 'Regret The Error' (www.regrettheerror.com) that is devoted to just such an endeavor and annually awards 'Errors of the Year.'

The Reuters news service won the website's 2005 'Typo of the Year' award after reporting on a recall of 'beef panties' instead of 'patties.'

This gem from the Dallas Morning News took second place:

'Norma-Adams-Wade's June 15 column incorrectly called Mary Ann Thompson-Frenk a socialist. She is a socialite.'

I worked at the Morning News about 20 years ago, and it is as fine a paper as there is in the country. If something that embarrassing could happen there, it could happen to any publication.

An early favorite for a 2006 prize has to be this little beauty from one of our sister papers, The Wall Street Journal, as noted on the Regret website.

'Under one of Israel's Basic Laws, Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has assumed authority from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. A page-one article Thursday about Mr. Sharon's incapacitation due to illness incorrectly said the transfer of authority to Mr. Olmert was based on Israel's constitution. The state of Israel doesn't have a constitution.'

The thing is, what every newspaper has in common is that we try to get it right. When — I'm realistic enough to say 'when' rather than 'if' — we make a mistake, it's a good, honest mistake that we take pains to point out to our readers.

The same cannot usually be said for the increasingly popular computer entity known as a 'blog.'

'Blog' is an abbreviation for 'web log,' which is sort of a personal journal that anyone with a computer can create to offer any number of opinions about whatever he wants.

Some are valuable, with erudite assertions and information. Others offer needed and intelligent criticism of the mainstream media. A few are popular and get a lot of attention.

Most, however, aren't, and that is a very good thing, indeed.

That's because so many are filled with filthy language and unproved accusations that don't have to pass any editor's ethical or accuracy standards.

Syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker, with whose opinions I rarely agree, got it absolutely right in the Dec. 28 Daily Star when she bemoaned bloggers 'bereft of adult supervision' who 'shriek 'Gotcha!' when they catch some weary wage earner in a mistake or oversight.'

'Some bloggers ... offer superb commentary,' she wrote, 'but most babble, buzz and blurt like caffeinated adolescents competing for the Ritalin generation's inevitable senior superlative: Most Obsessive-Compulsive.

'... Many bloggers seek the destruction of others for their own self-aggrandizement.'

Fortunately or not, The Daily Star hasn't gotten a whole lot of attention from bloggers, but it's probably inevitable that we will someday be the subject of some poor wretches baying at the moon and taking cheap shots at our errors — real or imagined.

Meanwhile, we'll continue to point out all our mistakes ourselves.

That I know about.

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Sam Pollak is editor of The Daily Star. He can be reached at spollak@thedailystar.com or (607) 432-1000, ext. 208.