Sweet, new Chinese food?

I stumbled on a blurb on a local news website about Dunkin' Donuts opening its first franchise in mainland China. Buried deep in that story (well, as deep as possible in a seven paragraph blurb) was the comment, "The shops also will serve items customized for local tastes such as green tea and honeydew melon doughnuts..."

I can't speak for the local tastes of Shanghai, but I for one would like to try honeydew melon doughnuts--those sound good!

Some questions for Rudy...

In a recent commercial of his, as well as on his campaign website, Rudy Giuliani promises the biggest tax cut in history. As a libertarian who sincerely believes in lower taxes with fiscal responsibility, I feel someone should ask Giuliani a few questions:

1. What recourse will we have if you don't present meaningful tax cuts to congress? For example, would you be willing to sign a sworn affidavit that you will do this, and that you'll support any effort to impeach you for perjury if you fail to do this?

2. How do you propose to get Congress to pass those tax cuts? President Bush's much more modest tax cuts faced strong resistance and ended up watered--down despite the fact he had a more cooperative congress than you're likely to have.

3. What programs are you going to end to lower government spending to responsibly fund the tax cut? Since meaningful tax cuts would likely require whole cabinet departments to be shut down, might you follow through with Reagan's and Gingrich's promises to abolish the Department of Education? I must point out that tax cuts funded through deficit spending are nothing of the sort--since they defer the taxes to later generations.

4. Assuming you can get a meaningful tax cut passed, how, in any way, does this mitigate your questionable track record as mayor of New York City?

It's a shame no one will ask Giuliani these questions on camera.

Hall of Fame strikes out

I recognize the controversy around McGwire. I'm not convinced he did violate the rules; I also like the guy. The fact of the matter is I see it as black-and-white: you get 70 home runs in a season, you belong in the Hall of Fame.

A cranky wordsmith reacts to being told "no."

OK, I'm the first to admit some words are overused. From a year and a half in the computer industry in the late '90s, I still have a hatred of the word "robust"--which I still feel better describes spaghetti sauce than software.

However, I am disinclined to alter my writing because of similar opinions from Lake Superior State University. Some of their over-used words, such as "a perfect storm," "back in the day," or "give back" are over used. "Give back" is particularly grating to me--call that a side-effect of reading too much Ayn Rand.

However, some, such as "post-9/11" or "webinar" (which I don't consider overused since I've never heard it) would seem to have a proper place.

I'm left to conclude that I should ignore the expert opinions in this case. To invoke another phrase I find myself using a lot in casual conversation, sure to invoke the ire of the list-makers, it is what it is.