The Who2 Blog

LIFE magazine and Google have teamed up to offer “millions of photographs from the LIFE archive” via Google search.

Mickey Mouse turns 80 today. 18 November 1928 is Mickey’s official birthday, according to the Walt Disney Company. That’s the date of the cheerful rodent’s first public appearance in the cartoon short Steamboat Willie (below).

“The fest wrapped up with the awarding of trophies. The man in the iron lung — who came as the incapacitated father of the brat who steals the Dude’s car — picked up his costume prize with a White Russian balanced on his apparatus, while the furthest-travelled award went to a Jesus from Croatia.”The Guardian on the just-completed Lebowski Fest 2008.

Reading that the best barbecue in Texas was at Snow’s, in Lexington, I felt like a People subscriber who had picked up the “Sexiest Man Alive” issue and discovered that the sexiest man alive was Sheldon Ludnick, an insurance adjuster from Terre Haute, Indiana, with George Clooney as the runner-up.I had warned the Texas Monthly crowd that if they were looking for confirmation of their ranking by an objective outlander, someone from Kansas City was not likely to provide it.

“I think we were just back into the routine. Our hopes are to just to keep the girls moving. It’s like okay, Daddy’s president-elect, okay, we can get to school by 10.”Jovial interview by 60 Minutes with Barack and Michelle Obama. They sure come off as a fun, connected couple.

Cruel, funny, probably true. February 17th is the Day of Confusion.

William Ayers appeared on the chat show Good Morning America today, talking about the fairly hysterical accusations that Barack Obama “launched his political career” in the Ayers living room.Campaign Boogeyman William Ayers Talks to GMA is how ABC News headlines its story, and it’s hard to tell whether that’s being ironical, aggressive, or just telling it like it is. Perhaps it’s always hard to figure that these days.

Barack or Vlad? (Or Nic?)

Best First Dog video so far: (Nice shout-out to Scrappy-Doo at the end, too.)

The Times of London is way, way on the James Bond bandwagon.Dig their giant 007 supersite. The map of Bond haunts is especially terrific. Ditto the reader’s guide to Bond and Ian Fleming.

He’s back!

Headline of the day on the First Dog watch.Here’s the photo.Some of them have mohawks.

I’m still steaming over the nutty code names the Secret Service has given to Barack and Michelle Obama. Renegade and Renaissance? Are you kidding me?Since the Obamas are occupied elsewhere these days, I am taking up the issue on their behalf.

Here’s a salute to the soldiers, sailors, generals, flyboys and even parachutists who got us to where we are today. Thanks, old friends.

Renegade. Renaissance. Radiance. Rosebud.Those, says the Chicago Tribune, are the Secret Service code names for Barack Obama and (respectively) Michelle, Malia and Sasha Obama.

Michelle Obama’s big brother has a new job too.

Actress Doris Day and activist Dorothy Day have little in common besides similar names — and the challenges they pose to anyone trying to document the details of their early lives.The trouble spots are Doris’s name and age, and Dorothy’s daughter’s birthdate.

By popular demand, we’ve profiled the as-yet-unknown First Dog of the Barack Obama administration.Obama told his daughters Malia and Sasha in his election-night speech that they had “earned the new puppy that’s coming with us to the White House.”This set off a public First Dog Frenzy, with a question about the dog even popping up at Obama’s first press conference on Friday.

Evangelist Billy Graham turns 90 today.”A blond, trumpet-lunged North Carolinian” Time called him in its 1949 article about his breakthrough “Christ for Greater Los Angeles” tent revival.