Some context: Ballmer was born in Detroit; he was the son of Beatrice Dworkin and Frederic Henry Ballmer (Fritz Hans Ballmer), a manager at the Ford Motor Company. His father was a Swiss immigrant, and his mother was Belarusian Jewish. Through his mother, Ballmer is a second cousin of actress and comedian Gilda Radner. Ballmer grew up in the affluent community of Farmington Hills, Michigan.
On March 6, 2008, Seattle mayor Greg Nickels announced that a local ownership group involving Ballmer made a "game changing" commitment to invest $150 million in cash toward a proposed $300 million renovation of KeyArena and were ready to purchase the Seattle SuperSonics from the Professional Basketball Club LLC in order to keep the team in Seattle. However, this initiative failed, and the SuperSonics relocated to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, where they now play as the Oklahoma City Thunder. In June 2012, Ballmer was an investor in Chris R. Hansen's proposal to build a new arena in the SoDo neighborhood of Seattle and bring the SuperSonics back to Seattle. On January 9, 2013, Ballmer and Hansen led a group of investors in an attempt to purchase the Sacramento Kings from the Maloof family and relocate them to Seattle for an estimated $650 million. However, this attempt also fell through. Following the Donald Sterling scandal in May 2014, Ballmer was the highest bidder in an attempt to purchase the Los Angeles Clippers for a reported price of $2 billion, which is the second highest bid for a sports franchise in North American sports history (after the $2.15 billion sale of the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2012). After a California court confirmed the authority of Shelly Sterling to sell the team, it was officially announced on August 12, 2014 that Ballmer would become the Los Angeles Clippers owner. On September 25, 2014, Ballmer said he would bar the team from using Apple products such as iPads, and replace them with Microsoft products. It has been reported that he had previously also barred his household family from using iPhones.
Did he purchase a team as well?
A: were ready to purchase the Seattle SuperSonics from the Professional Basketball Club LLC in order to keep the team in Seattle.
Some context: Bernhard was born Bernhard Leopold Friedrich Eberhard Julius Kurt Karl Gottfried Peter, Count of Biesterfeld in Jena, Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, German Empire on 29 June 1911, the elder son of Prince Bernhard of Lippe and his wife, Armgard von Cramm. He was a grandson of Ernest, Count of Lippe-Biesterfeld, who was regent of the Principality of Lippe until 1904. He was also a nephew of the principality's last sovereign Leopold IV, Prince of Lippe.
Bernhard met then-Princess Juliana at the 1936 Winter Olympics at Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Juliana's mother, Queen Wilhelmina, had spent most of the 1930s looking for a suitable husband for Juliana. As a Protestant of royal rank (the Lippe-Biesterfelds were a sovereign house in the German Empire), Bernhard was acceptable for the devoutly religious Wilhelmina. Wilhelmina left nothing to chance, and had her lawyers draft a very detailed prenuptial agreement that specified exactly what Bernhard could and could not do. The couple's engagement was announced on 8 September 1936, and they were married at The Hague on 7 January 1937. Earlier, Bernhard had been granted Dutch citizenship, and changed the spelling of his names from German to Dutch. Previously styled as Serene Highness, he became a Royal Highness by Dutch Law. His appropriateness as consort of the future Queen would later become a matter of some public debate. Prince Bernhard was father of six children, four of them with Queen Juliana. The eldest daughter is Princess Beatrix, former Queen of the Netherlands, (1938). His other daughters with Juliana are Irene (1939), Margriet (1943) and Christina (1947). He had two illegitimate daughters. The first is Alicia von Bielefeld (born 21 June 1952), whose mother has not been identified. She is a landscape architect and lives in the United States. Prince Bernhard's sixth daughter, Alexia Grinda (a.k.a. Alexia Lejeune or Alexia Grinda-Lejeune, born in Paris on 10 July 1967), is his child by the French socialite and fashion model Helene Grinda. Although rumours about these two children had already spread, it was made official after his death. In December 2008, Dutch historian Cees Fasseur claimed that former British Conservative Cabinet Minister Jonathan Aitken was the result of a wartime affair between Prince Bernhard and Aitken's mother, previously Penelope Maffey.
Was Juliana's mother pleased with Bernhard?
A: Bernhard was acceptable for the devoutly religious Wilhelmina.
Some context: Kennedy was born in Inverness, the son of Mary and Ian. He was brought up as a Roman Catholic, and was educated at Lochaber High School in Fort William. He went on to study for a Master of Arts degree in Politics and Philosophy at the University of Glasgow. At university he became politically active, joining the SDP, as well as the Dialectic Society.
In his last general election as leader, in May 2005, he extended his strategy from the 2001 election targeting the seats held by the most senior and/or highly regarded Conservative MPs, dubbed a "decapitation" strategy. The expectation was that without these "key" figures, the Conservatives would be discredited as the official opposition allowing Kennedy and the Liberal Democrats to claim that they were the "effective opposition". At the same time they also hoped to capture marginal Labour seats attracting (particularly Muslim) Labour voters who were dissatisfied because of the invasion of Iraq which Kennedy's party had opposed. They had succeeded with this tactic in by-elections, taking Brent East and Leicester South from Labour. Just before the election, it had been anticipated by the media and opinion polls that the Liberal Democrats could win up to 100 seats and place them close to the Conservatives in terms of seats as well as votes. They won 62 seats (22.1% of the vote), their greatest number of seats since 1923 but significantly less than most observers had expected the party to win. They made a net loss of seats to the Conservatives, only managing to win three seats from them (Solihull, Taunton and Westmorland and Lonsdale) with their biggest "scalp" being that of the Shadow Education Secretary Tim Collins. They failed to unseat leading Conservatives such as the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer Oliver Letwin, Shadow Home Secretary David Davis, Shadow Secretary of State for the Family Theresa May and the Leader of the Opposition Michael Howard. The "decapitation" strategy was widely seen to have failed. They won significant numbers of seats from Labour, winning particularly in student areas such as Bristol, Cardiff and Manchester, but did not see the breakthrough in areas with large Asian populations that some had expected, and even lost Leicester South. They succeeded in regaining the seat of Ceredigion, their first gain from the Welsh party Plaid Cymru. Kennedy heralded the Liberal Democrats, who now had a total of 62 seats, as the "national party of the future", but in the wake of the general election, Kennedy's leadership came under increased criticism from those who felt that the Liberal Democrats could have surged forward with the official opposition Conservative Party having been relatively weak. Many pointed the finger of blame at Kennedy for failing to widen the party's appeal. Others, like the former Deputy Chairman of the Federal Liberal Democrat Party, Donnachadh McCarthy, resigned, citing the party's shift to the right of the political spectrum under Kennedy in pursuit of Conservative votes.
What did he try
A:
In his last general election as leader, in May 2005,