February 2007

All Italian football is in limbo after the death of a policeman during a riot at Friday night's Catania v Palermo game.

For a league still recovering from the match-fixing traumas of recent uears, this level of crowd violence sinks its reputation even further.

I have linked to a report from The Guardian. I dare say we'll hear more over the weekend.

La Gazzetta's website has more, in Italian of course.

John Howard, the self-styled "cricket tragic" who takes seems blissfully unaware of either one-day cricket or Twenty20, made a cameo appearance at Maroubra Beach this morning to toss the bat prior to the Australia v England Beach Cricket international. England won.

Of course he does. What's the problem?

Outreach Media, a subsidiary of the non-denominational FEVA Ministries, produces a monthly series of colourful signs with attention-grabbing Christian messages, which it syndicates to churches around the country (mostly in Sydney, though I saw one in Newcastle recently).

Some examples of their handiwork, including a very clever Telstra parody, can be seen on their website. Last month, the theme, timed to coincide with the Ashes, was "Would you worship Jesus if he scored 10,000 Test runs?"

If you were told that this man was planning to visit Australia, would you let him in?

"On 22 December 2006, the delegate of the Australian Electoral Commission wrote to the following political parties to advise them they would be deregistered on 27 December 2006, as required by Schedule 3 of the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Electoral Integrity and Other Measures) Act 2006..."

- Media release, Australian Electoral Commission, 22.12.06

Molly Ivins, that wonderful, savage but witty writer about Texan culture and American politics, died on Wednesday of breast cancer at the age of 62. I've quoted her on one occasion in my blogs, and I really enjoyed reading "Shrub", her account (co-authored with Lou Dubose) of GW Bush's career prior to the 2000 Presidential election (which he lost, but was awarded anyway).