The Who2 Blog

So far today, 53 of our top 100 famous people are figures from black history.

A question we often get at this time of year: “Was Saint Valentine a real person?”The short answer: We don’t know, and nobody really does. Even the Catholic Encyclopedia says there were at least three different St. Valentines associated with February 14th.

August 20: Eric tells me about his summer with the Rolling Stones, or Ronnie Wood, mainly. He likes Ronnie — he’s good company and a laugh — but is more guarded about Jagger (very sharp business mind) and Keith (pleasant, but so doped-up Eric reckons he has only a year to live).A choice 1976 entry from Michael Palin’s Diaries 1969-1979, published in 2006.

Why is Tina Turner at the top of the Who Popular? list today?The 68-year-old “sizzled” while performing with Beyoncé at the Grammy Awards last night. According to Reuters, “By the end, Beyoncé looked exhausted, but Turner seemed ready for more.”

Actor Roy Scheider, star of the movies Jaws and All That Jazz, has died at age 75. The New York Post quotes his wife, Brenda, as saying Scheider died “of a staph infection, brought on by complications of the multiple myeloma with which he was diagnosed in 2004.”

We’ve been looking for a simple, up-to-date display of GOP and Democratic delegate counts. Turns out that Yahoo News has one: the Election 08 Political Dashboard.Click the “States” tab in the upper right to see a state-by-state breakdown.For those curious about so-called superdelegates, The Nation recently tried to explain the whole deal.

Actor Gary Coleman turns 40 today.Should we say “only” 40? Seems like he’s been around a lot longer than that. (Turns out he’s the same age as another great pop culture figure, Dr. Cornelius.)Speaking of sci-fi, Jules Verne today turns 180.

Benazir Bhutto was killed by a bomb, not by gunfire. That’s the conclusion of Scotland Yard, which has been investigating her assassination. Detectives decided that a gunman fired a shot and hen detonated a bomb, which killed Bhutto when the blast thrust her head against the roof hatch of her car.

“I must now stand aside, for our party and our country.”Mitt Romney is out of the presidential race.

The New York Times points out today that a sitting U.S. senator has not been elected president since 1960. This could be the year! John McCain (Arizona), Barack Obama (Illinois) and Hillary Clinton (New York) all seem to have a healthy shot.

Actor Heath Ledger died of an accidental overdose of prescription drugs, according to a report by the New York medical examiner’s office. The Associated Press quotes the examiner’s office as saying Ledger died of “acute intoxication by the combined effects of oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam and doxylamine.”

Shades of Tom Brady: Mitt Romney looked exceedingly clumsy as he lost Super Tuesday to John McCain, 9-7.

Tom Brady looked exceedingly clumsy as the New England Patriots lost Super Bowl 42 to the New York Giants, 17-14.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has married the model and singer Carla Bruni in Paris, report the BBC and the IHT.It’s Sarkozy’s third marriage. He and his second wife, Cecilia, were divorced last October, and he reportedly met Bruni shortly afterwards. He’s been president only since May, and already he’s been divorced, courted a new woman, and remarried.

Six more weeks of winter, says Punxsutawney Phil. Dude saw his shadow.We’ve learned to trust Phil. He is, after all, over 100 years old.Punxsutawney loves that groundhog. Even the local paper, The Punxsutawney Spirit, has a (Pilgrim?) groundhog in its logo.

Some truly inventive fun with album covers.(Props to Mr. Hehn for the link.)

Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and CEO Eric Schmidt say they have agreed to work together for 20 years. The three told Fortune magazine that they made the agreement before the company went public in 2004. Schmidt will turn 69 in 2024; Page and Brin will both turn 51.

When Rudy Giuliani called it quits On Wednesday afternoon, he also brought a merciful end to 2008’s clumsiest campaign URL: JoinRudy2008.com.No surprise: The four top remaining candidates all are masters of their own domains:MittRomney.comHillaryClinton.comJohnMcCain.com

It’s been 60 years since the 1948 death of Mohandas Gandhi.