Free Republic

Fears are growing for the health of Barry Manilow in light of the singer’s recent drastic weight loss. According to US magazine Globe, the Copacabana crooner has dropped to around seven stone – a dangerously unhealthy weight for his six foot frame. The 65-year-old singer, who has a residency in Las Vegas, is not known to be ill but has shocked fans and friends with his increasingly gaunt appearance. Although he may not have any current health problems Manilow's new skinny frame is a cause for concern. The singer was spotted in LA where he was enjoying a shopping trip...

Guillen stressed the Sox wouldn't be interested in free-agent home run king Barry Bonds if one of their sluggers was injured for an extended period. "No," Guillen said firmly. "Barry can't play for my team. Maybe Barry changed the way [Josh] Hamilton changed. But I don't like a player like Barry Bonds on my club, with all respect to Barry, a Hall of Famer. To me he's the best in the history of baseball, no matter what. "But he's not the type of player we're looking for in this organization. It's all about the team. It's all about teammates." Guillen...

<p>I decided to go scout the Miami Dolphins on Monday, to see how they look this year. This is important, because the Dolphins represent South Florida's manhood, and last season we had the same community testosterone level as the audience for a Barbra Streisand concert. The Dolphins lost 15 games and won only one, which I believe was against Princeton.</p>

<p>When we think of Wisconsin, we think of it as the nation's Heartland -- a placid place where you can park your car anywhere and leave it unlocked, with the key in the ignition, knowing that no matter how long you're gone, when you return your car will be covered with cheese.</p>

Jim Geraghty takes a look at longstanding blog buzz over Barack Obama’s birth certificate, which the campaign refused to release to the St. Petersburg Times in April: We tried to obtain a copy of Obama’s birth certificate, but his campaign would not release it and the state of Hawaii does not make such records public. Has anyone seen it? Why shouldn’t the record be in the public domain for presidential candidates? Geraghty walks through various rumors now circulating in the wake of the Obama campaign’s birth certificate blackout, including this one: Rumor Three: His mother did not want to name...

His name's Barack Obama Music: Theme from Blazing Saddles His name’s Barack Obama He is a rising star His job: To offer prattle To bad guys near and far. He’ll meet Ahmadinejad He’d greet Bejing any day His name’s Barack Obama He’ll give it all away. His name’s Barack Obama He is a rising star He thinks Iraq’s a quagmire, A war gone on too far. He’ll pull out troops and declare defeat He’ll give Bin Laden his way Barack Hussein Obama Iraq’s doom is his play. His name’s Barack Obama He is a rising star The unborn have no...

Dear Barry, I've been watching your campaign with great interest. I am proud to see a black man win the Democratic nomination for the presidence. I regret to inform you, however, that I cannot endorse you. While on earth, I had a dream that a man would be judged not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character. Barry, you are a great dissappointemnt to me. Look, back in the 1960s, we had the KKK. It was a horrible organization that did horrible things, but at least they made no bones about what their intentions...

June 5 (Bloomberg) -- Barack Obama's campaign is open to paying off some of the more than $20 million in debt accrued by defeated rival Hillary Clinton, a top adviser said...

A comparison can be made between Obama’s popularity among blacks and the popular support – among blacks – of OJ’s Simpson. Despite all the evidence, both of these men are held up to be symbolic heroes and great hopes for their race. What’s going on here? Perhaps – maybe driven by our national racial divide, perhaps the cause for this similarity is the utter abandonment of reason – among blacks –for the hope of the gaining something for the race: one injustice served makes payment against the many judicial injustices served on blacks since the 17th century and the mere...

Block the road all nite BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published Oct. 15, 2000.) According to a recent newspaper article that I carefully clipped out and then lost but I remember the gist of, traffic gridlock in the United States is very bad. It's getting to the point where many commuters arrive at work, use the bathroom, then immediately begin commuting home. FACT: The average American commuter whose car radio is tuned to a ''Classic Rock'' station spends more time singing along to the Kiss song ''Rock And Roll All Nite'' than talking with his...

BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published Sept. 2, 2002.) It's time for another installation of ''Ask Mister Language Person,'' the penultimate authority on grammatorical issues; the column that puts the ''p-u'' in punctuation; the only language column that was endorsed by both Jane Austen and William Shakespeare just before they died together in a romantic car crash. Today we regret that we must begin our column with this: TERRORIST THREAT WARNING We have received some alarming information from very high sources in the federal government. Q. How high were they? A. They were wearing their...

BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published Nov. 5, 2000.) Recently, I had a great idea while waiting on hold for Customer Service. That's pretty much all I do these days: wait for Customer Service. My call is important to them. They have told me this many times in a sincere recorded message. They can't wait to serve me! They will answer my call just as soon as they finish serving the entire population of mainland China. It's my own darned fault that I need to speak to Customer Service. We made a really stupid homeowner...

I think a significant problem that Obama has, which will come to light, is a personal characteristic of his seeking to to avoid difficult choices and take an EASIER way out of a situation. Here are just five examples. (1). As a child and young man, he was called Barry, not Barack. That was EASIER for him and for the people who knew him. (2). In 1988, at the age of 27, he became a Christian to enable a career in politics and to enable a relationship with Michelle Robinson, who later became his wife and the mother of his...

Get me rewrite! BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published June 10, 2001.) On behalf of the newspaper industry (new, cost-cutting motto: ''All the News That''), I am announcing some changes we're making to serve you better. When I say ''serve you better,'' I mean ''increase our profits.'' We newspapers are very big on profits these days. We're a business, just like any other business, except that we employ English majors. To help you better understand our current situation, let's review the history of newspaper finances: The earliest known newspaper, published in 59 B.C. in Rome,...

Dave Barry: How your taxes turn into manure Apr. 13, 2008 BY DAVE BARRY Taxpayers: It's almost April 15, and you know what that means. It means the Miami Dolphins already have been mathematically eliminated from the playoffs. But it's also time to file your federal tax return. Yes, this is a pesky chore, but remember that paying taxes is not a ''one-way street.'' When you send your money to the government, the government, in return, provides you with vital services, such as not putting you in prison. The government also uses your money to pay for programs that benefit...

We all know we can't call Obama by his middle name, Hussein, because it's racist. We can't criticize him in any way because it's racist, and now calling him Barry, which is the name he went by years ago, is now also a "thinly veiled racist comment". So, no nickname, no middle name, no criticism..exactly HOW is McCain supposed to say anything during the GE WITHOUT being labeled a racist? The only people injecting race into this contest aren't Republicans, or Democrats, Independents or "bitter" people, but Obamas OWN supporters who choose to see racism in every comment, every look,...

BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published Dec. 31, 2000.) Today's topic for homeowners is: how to install a tile floor. Any home decorator will tell you that there is nothing quite like a tile floor for transforming an ordinary room into an ordinary room that has tile on the floor. But if you're like most homeowners, you think that laying tile is a job for the ''pros.'' Boy, are you ever stupid! Because the truth is that anybody can do it! All it takes is a little planning, the right materials and a Fire Rescue...

Newsweek Reconstructs Time When Obama Moved from Using 'Barry' to Formal Barack and Impact it Made on Him 'It was when I Made a Conscious Decision: I Want to Grow Up,' Obama Says NEW YORK, March 23 /PRNewswire/ -- When Sen. Barack Obama moved from using the name Barry to Barack, his formal name, it was part of his almost lifelong quest for identity and belonging -- to figure out who he is, and how he fits into the larger American tapestry. Part black, part white, raised in Hawaii and Indonesia, with family of different religious and spiritual backgrounds --...

Dave Barry: Put Florida primary in prime time -- and text in your vote Mar. 21, 2008 I got to thinking about the Florida primary election mess the other night when I was watching TV with my wife. Actually, she was reading a book, because she hates the way I watch TV. I follow Standard Guy Remote Control Procedure (SGRCP), which requires you go to the next channel the instant that the current channel commits one of the Deadly Channel Sins, such as showing a commercial, or people redecorating a house, or Howie Mandel. Anyway, I was whipping through the...

Nearly three decades ago, Barack Obama stood out on the small campus of Occidental College in Los Angeles for his eloquence, intellect and activism against apartheid in South Africa. But Mr. Obama, then known as Barry, also joined in the party scene. Years later in his 1995 memoir, he mentioned smoking “reefer” in “the dorm room of some brother” and talked about “getting high.” Before Occidental, he indulged in marijuana, alcohol and sometimes cocaine as a high school student in Hawaii, according to the book. He made “some bad decisions” as a teenager involving drugs and drinking, Senator Obama, now...

Dave Barry: A journey into my colon -- and yours OK. You turned 50. You know you're supposed to get a colonoscopy. But you haven't. Here are your reasons: 1. You've been busy. 2. You don't have a history of cancer in your family. 3. You haven't noticed any problems. 4. You don't want a doctor to stick a tube 17,000 feet up your butt. Let's examine these reasons one at a time. No, wait, let's not. Because you and I both know that the only real reason is No. 4. This is natural. The idea of having another human,...

This time, music failed to soothe the savage beast BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published March 11, 2001.) It is a chilling question that we have all asked ourselves: What would we do if, God forbid, we had to get a squirrel out of a piano? This very question confronted an animal-control officer in Fairfax County, Va., recently, according to a news report from the Washington Post sent in by roughly two million alert readers. According to this report, the officer was responding to a report of ''a squirrel running inside a residence.'' When the...

Che Guevara, the chief executioner of Fidel Castro’s brutal revolution, was a bank robber, a cold-blooded murderer, an enthusiastic torturer and generally an evil, sociopathic bastard. He’s quite literally the poster boy for everything wrong with socialism. One of Che’s lauded diaries recalls the execution of a suspected counterrevolutionary: “I ended the problem with a .32 caliber pistol, in the right side of his brain…. His belongings were now mine.” Kooky economic theories, class warfare and forced redistribution of wealth — it’s not just a Cuban phenomenon. The revolution has finally spread to the brand new Barack Obama office right...

The lord of the dance doesn't have anything on me BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published Dec. 22, 2002.) I am not a fan of ballet. Now, before you members of the Dance Community get your leotards in a bunch, let me stress that I KNOW I AM WRONG. I know that ballet is a beautiful artistic form that requires great dedication and skill. I'm just saying that I, personally, would rather watch a dog catch a Frisbee. My problem -- and it's MY problem, NOT ballet's problem -- is that, because I am culturally...

Gender gap is a true gift Dave Barry This is the time of year when a lot of women (by which I mean my wife) complain that women do WAY more holiday stuff than men do. Which is true. On any given day during the holidays, my wife wraps more presents than I have wrapped in my entire life. In terms of cubic footage of stuff wrapped (CFSW), she has basically wrapped the planet Saturn. So she is definitely carrying more than her share of the holiday load. HOWEVER, when she was complaining about we were discussing this today, I...

I am working on a book for publication next year (in April 2008, if all goes well) about the late Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, who served for thirty years in the United States Senate and was the 1964 Republican Party presidential nominee. His son Barry Goldwater Jr., who is my longtime friend, and I discovered a lot of unpublished first-person material in the Senator's papers at the Arizona Historical Foundation as the archivists were completing the processing of his collection. Because we found this material remarkably revealing about the man and his thinking, we hope others might find it...

BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published Feb. 6, 2000) We have some important news for those of you who've been harboring an urge to eat poinsettias. This news comes from an article in the Harrisburg, Pa., Patriot-News, sent in by alert reader Karen Durkin. The article makes this fascinating statement: ''Despite persistent rumors, poinsettias are NOT poisonous. Ohio State University testing has found that a 50-pound child could eat more than 500 poinsettia bracts with no ill effects other than possibly a sick stomach from eating that much foliage.'' The two questions that immediately come...

<p>I just thought I'd start a thread for anyone who wants to discuss it.</p>

I (cough) was a teenage smoker! BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published Sept. 17, 1995.) As a ranking national opinion-maker (currently in 1,539th place), I would like to do my part to get teenagers to stop smoking cigarettes. Ready? Here goes: You teenagers stop smoking right now!! There! Did that do the trick? I didn't think so. Your modern teenager is not about to listen to advice from an old person, defined as ``a person who remembers when there was no Velcro.'' I can understand this. I was a young person once, shortly after the...

Average people are tired of it. This country is already stacked toward the wealthy (mortgage interest is tax deductible; rent is not) and the privileged (the last president without an Ivy League degree was elected nearly 30 years ago).

Great American turkeys BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published Nov. 17, 1996.) Thanksgiving is a time of traditions, and there is no tradition more meaningful than the annual U.S. Department of Agriculture warning about fatal food-dwelling bacteria. This year, I'm pleased to report, the department has outdone itself: For the first time ever, the department has officially advised Americans not to stuff their turkeys. Many alert readers sent in an Associated Press item in which the manager of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Meat and Poultry Hot Line -- whose name is (I am not...

The debate dominatrix knows how to rattle Obambi. Mistress Hillary started disciplining her fellow senator last winter. She has continued to flick the whip in debates. She had to do it again in Vegas, this time using her voice, gaze and body language to such punishing effect that Obama looked as if he had been brought to heel. Other guys, like Rudy, wouldn’t even be looking for a chance to greet Hillary, as Obama always does. Other guys, like Rudy, wouldn’t care if she iced them. But she can tell that Obama does care, ...that he responds to the sort...

WASHINGTON - A Pulitzer Prize-winning music critic for The Washington Post has apologized for sending an angry e-mail in which he called District of Columbia Council member Marion Barry a "crack addict." Tim Page wrote to Barry's aide last week after receiving a press release about the former mayor's views on the financially troubled Greater Southeast Community Hospital. "Must we hear about it every time this crack addict attempts to rehabilitate himself with some new — and typically half-witted — political grandstanding?" the e-mail said. "I'd be grateful if you would take me off your mailing list. I cannot think...

'Einstein Gap': It's all relative BY DAVE BARRY Recently, I received a phone call from my son, Rob. It was a phone call that every parent dreads. That's right: My son told me that the universe does not exist. Or at least it does not in any way resemble my concept of it. According to Rob, I understand the universe about as well as a barnacle understands a nuclear aircraft carrier. I blame college. That's where Rob is getting these ideas, which have to do with Einstein's Theory of Relativity and something called ``quantum physics.'' Rob and his roommate, Hal,...

Mr. Language Person: Watch your language BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published 0ctober 25, 1998) At this juncture in the time parameter, we once again proudly present ''Ask Mister Language Person,'' the No. 1 rated language column in the United States according to a recent J.D. Power and Associates survey of consumers with imaginary steel plates in their heads. The philosophy of this column is simple: If you do not use correct grammar, people will lose respect for you, and they will burn down your house. So let's stop beating around a dead horse and...

Lost in space BY DAVE BARRY I think I might know where the missile launcher is. I'm referring here to the $1 million missile launcher that our armed forces apparently misplaced, according to a recent audit of the U.S. government (motto: ''We Do Have a Motto, But We Don't Know Where It Is''). You might have missed the news stories about this audit, which didn't get a whole lot of media attention. Way back in 1994, Congress decided that there should be a complete audit of the entire federal government. This seemed like a good idea, since the U.S. government...

The Trojan Twinkie caper BY DAVE BARRY I'll tell you when I start to worry. I start to worry when ''officials'' tell me not to worry. This is why I am very concerned about the following Associated Press report, which was sent to me by a number of alert readers: 'RICHLAND, WASH. -- Radioactive ants, flies and gnats have been found at the Hanford nuclear complex, bringing to mind those Cold-War-era `B' horror movies in which giant mutant insects are the awful price paid for mankind's entry into the Atomic Age. Officials at the nation's most contaminated nuclear site insist...

Feeding your worst fears By DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published March 29, 1998.) I have received some important information via a letter from Claire Nordstrum, 13, a student in Wisconsin (state motto: "Moo"). Claire states that her science teacher told the class that "it's a proven fact that on average a person eats six spiders in a year." Another science fact this teacher revealed, according to Claire, is that "wood ticks breathe through their butts." This sounds logical to me, since if a wood tick had its whole head burrowed into your body, it wouldn't...

Does public art make sense? BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published Sept. 7, 1997.) Like many members of the uncultured, Cheez-It-consuming public, I am not good at grasping modern art. I'm the type of person who will stand in front of a certified modern masterpiece painting that looks, to the layperson, like a big black square, and quietly think: ''Maybe the actual painting is on the other side.'' I especially have a problem with modernistic sculptures, the kind where you, the layperson, cannot be sure whether you're looking at a work of art or a...

Modern medical mysteries BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published Sept. 8, 1996.) We here at the Bureau of Medical Alarm hope you had a restful, carefree, fun-filled summer. But before you get back into ''the swing of things'' for fall, we'd like to take just a moment to remind you that practically everything can kill you. At the moment, we are particularly concerned about: LATEX GLOVES OF DEATH. We have here a Health Advisory issued June 27 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (motto: ``We Have Not Yet Determined That Our Motto Is Safe'')....

Bored games BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published Jan. 26, 1997.) OK, here's a nostalgia question: What childhood game does this remind you of? ''Colonel Mustard in the library with a candlestick.'' If you answered, ''Spin the Bottle,'' then I frankly do not want to know any more about your childhood. What I'm referring to is, of course, the classic board game ''Clue,'' in which you try to solve a murder by using a logical process of deduction to narrow down the various possibilities until your sister has to go to the bathroom, at which...

Dave's field of nightmares BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published March 5, 2000.) When I was a boy, playing Little League baseball, I dreamed -- as most boys did back then -- of someday getting a call from the Major Leagues. ''Son,'' I dreamed the Major Leagues would tell me, ''you stink. We're kicking you out of Little League.'' I would have been grateful. I was a terrible player. I was afraid of the ball and fell down a lot, sometimes during the singing of the national anthem. So in 1960, I hung up my...

Lewis and Clark stepped here! BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published Sept. 14, 1997.) We went West for our summer vacation. Our idea was to follow in the footsteps of the hardy explorers Lewis and Clark, who traveled 8,000 miles through hostile, uncharted wilderness, a feat that was possible only because of their great courage and the fact that they left their children at home. Otherwise, they would have quit after maybe 200 yards. On our trip, we encountered numerous families that, after many hours together in the minivan, had reached Critical Hostility Mass. At...

The ultimate water gun BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published May 5, 1996.) Just when you're starting to lose hope that the younger generation will ever amount to anything; just when you're asking yourself: ''Where are the leaders of tomorrow? Where is the next John Kennedy, the next John Wayne, the next John Denver, the next John LeMasters, who attended Pleasantville High School with me and was very good at math?''; just when you're starting to think that the most significant contributions that today's young people will make to society will be in the field...

Poetic license, with no rhyme or reason BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published Nov. 6, 1994.) Recently, I got a very nice computer-generated letter from an outfit called The National Library of Poetry. ''Dear Dave,'' the letter begins. ''Over the past year or so, we have been reviewing the thousands of poems submitted to us, as well as examining the poetic accomplishments of people whose poetry has been featured in various anthologies released by other poetry publishers. After an exhaustive examination of this poetic artistry, The National Library of Poetry has decided to publish a...

Standing up for snakes BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published April 21, 1996.) A question that more and more Americans are asking, as they become increasingly fed up with crime, is: What, exactly, are the legal rights of accused snakes? Consider the case of a snake that recently ran afoul of the law in Virginia. According to a story in the Fredericksburg, Va., Free Lance-Star, written by Keith Epps and sent in by alert reader Venetia Sims, this particular snake, a four-foot Burmese python identified only as ''a Spotsylvania County snake,'' was apprehended by an...

Great moments in science BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published March 16, 1997.) Settle back, because today I'm going to tell you the dramatic true story of what happened when some Japanese researchers decided to re-create the historic discovery of the law of gravity: As you recall, this discovery occurred in an English orchard in 1666, when, according to legend, Isaac Newton, the brilliant mathematician, fell out of a tree and landed on an apple. No, hold it. Upon reviewing the videotape, I see that in fact the apple fell out of the tree and...

One giant leap for frogkind BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published June 8, 1997.) Get ready to dance naked in the streets, because scientists have finally done something that humanity has long dreamed about, but most of us thought would never happen within our lifetimes. That's right: They have levitated a frog. I swear I am not making this up. According to an Associated Press article sent in by a number of alert readers, British and Dutch scientists ''have succeeded in floating a frog in air.'' They did this by using magnetism, which, as you...

Barry Lynn and the Hypocrisy of Separation Americans United for the Separation of Church and State (AU) purports to be a non-sectarian, non-partisan organization with no religious affiliation and its Executive Director, the Rev. Barry Lynn, is prominently featured on television news programs whenever issues of religion and government cross. Although Lynn prides himself as an independent arbiter of where the line between church and state meet, his silence on his own denomination’s encroachment on Jefferson’s wall of separation is not only hypocritical, it ultimately undermines his own mission. Lynn and Americans United issue dozens of statements each year regarding...

The perfect storm BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published July 9, 2000.) If you're one of the millions of people planning to travel by air this summer, here's some important information from the Association of Commercial Airlines: (Silence.) UH-oh! Apparently the airlines are unable to give us any information at this time! Probably they are experiencing thunderstorms. No institution experiences as many thunderstorms as an airline. Huge, violent clouds surround airline employees at all times. They cannot hold company picnics, because the death toll from lightning strikes would be in the hundreds. If we want...