Notepad

U.S. Col. Harry Summers to North Vietnamese officer: "You never defeated us in the field."

North Vietnamese officer: "That is true. It is also irrelevant."

That story gets repeated a lot as a reminder of what war is not. It is not a sporting event in which the winners of various battles are awarded points, and the team with the most points wins.

Dick Cheney doesn't know this.

"Keep in mind," Cheney told NPR yesterday: "We've never been defeated in a stand-up fight in Iraq in over three years."

This is true. It is also irrelevant.

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You know who I don't like? Whoever it was who conducted the polling that found that a big chunk of white voters A) are adamantly opposed to "amnesty" for illegal immigrants, and B) don't know what "amnesty" means.

This has led to the ugly spectacle of candidates accusing one another of supporting "amnesty," and then, by way of denying it, engaging in a game of who-hates-those-dirty-Mexicans-more?

It is, at least theoretically, in the abstract, possible to advocate stricter enforcement of immigration laws without being ugly and stupid. In practice, however, the ugly and stupid demographic is precisely the target of all those campaign ads condemning "amnesty."

It's a pretty sizeable demographic, too. Just check out the "Story Chat" for any of the articles in the paper relating to immigration. Even when the article in question is explicitly and exclusively about legal immigrants, the comments quickly fill up with angry condemnations of "illegals." Ugly. And stupid.

Anyway, here are some useful numbers from the Inter-American Development Bank: the middle column on that page estimates how much money immigrants contribute to a state's economy (here in Pa., $5.2 billion). The key word there is "contribute."

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Saw an ad on TV for Panasonic bathroom exhaust fans. Odd.

While I don't question the quality of their craftsmanship, I'm not sure that Panasonic understands the function of their product. They're touting their bathroom exhaust fans as the quietest money can buy, naming them things like "WhisperFit" and "Whisper Lite."

That's really not what I'm looking for from a bathroom fan. I don't want the "Whisper Lite" exhaust fan, I want the "Rolling Thunder" or the "Runaway Freight Train" or the "Leaf-blower At Close Range" model.

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WXPN, the best thing on the left end of the dial here in the Philadelphia area, just concluded one of those weekslong, messy countdowns. This time it was the "885 All-Time Greatest Artists."

Such lists are great fun, especially since the tabulating of ballots for these things always produces lots of jarring juxtapositions and rankings you feel ought to be corrected. (Here, for example, a typical series: 45. Tom Petty; 46. Nirvana; 47. Ray Charles; 48. Billy Joel; 49. John Coltrane; 50. Sting; 51. Simon & Garfunkel; 52. The Kinks; 53. The Beach Boys; 54. Phish.)

They also didn't restrict anyone from voting however they liked, regardless of genre, thus producing lovely sequences like this: 96. The Pixies; 97. Ludwig van Beethoven; 98. Patty Griffin …

For at least the first 850 or so, the list is pretty interesting — a great source of recommendations and a great source of arguments. (The end of the countdown was less interesting. It's hard to get worked up over the suspense of whether it will end Dylan-Stones-Beatles or Stones-Dylan-Beatles.)

Not in the countdown: OK, Go. That's probably right, but after seeing this, I'd vote for them.