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The successful trademark registration of “Nordic Model” by Sweden’s Social Democrats has prompted a sharp reaction from the rest of the Nordic region's political establishment. The move has led other political bodies to protest the Social Democrats' move, which has put the question of who created the Nordic Model into ever sharper focus. "We may have understood if they had (trademarked) the 'Swedish Model', but when it comes to the 'Nordic Model' we have no choice but to protest," Jens-Erik Enestam, who heads the Nordic Council representing opposition parties from across the region, said in a statement Tuesday. Sweden's opposition...

Glenn Beck doesn’t see Sarah Palin running for president and said she has done some damage to her political brand. Continue Reading Beck, a constant Palin cheerleader, said flatly on his radio show Monday, “Sarah Palin, I don’t think, wants to run for president.” The outgoing Fox News personality has hosted Palin on his show several times – once for a full hour – and she has frequently lavished praise on him. Still, even with all that good will, Beck was frank in assessing what Palin has done to hurt her own political stock – even though he credited her...

Linda Sanchez may have conflicts of interestBy JOHN BRESNAHAN & JONATHAN ALLEN | 1/28/11 5:57 PM EST Rep. Linda Sanchez has only been the top Democrat on the House Ethics Committee for three days, but there are already questions about whether Sanchez has a conflict of interest involving her chief of staff, a top ethics lawyer and the high-profile Maxine Waters ethics trial that looms before the committee. Sanchez’s chief of staff is Adam Brand, son of top ethics lawyer - and former House general counsel - Stan Brand. The elder Brand is representing Waters (D-Calif.) in the ethics case...

After 84 years, General Motors officially says goodbye forever today to Pontiac. No more Bonnevilles. No more Firebird Trans Ams. No more GTOs.

President Barack Obama should make the most of his "Daily Show" appearance on Wednesday night - charming the pants off Jon Stewart and the crowd, as he did when he showed up there two years ago. It's a terrific show, Stewart is a great interviewer and Obama makes good television. Then, the President should cancel all future trivial media appearances. While they may have kept him personally popular, in broad terms they've degraded the Obama brand. Obama's handlers were supposed to be smarter than this. They were supposed to use his celebrity strategically to advance his agenda. Instead, they've been...

Russia Considers Branding Corrupt Officials Updated: Wednesday, 22 Sep 2010, 2:43 PM EDT Published : Wednesday, 22 Sep 2010, 2:43 PM EDT NewsCore - Lawmakers from the Liberal Democratic Party want to see the letter K -- a symbol for a bribe-taker -- permanently etched on wrongdoers' skin. Party deputies Sergei Ivanov and Igor Lebedev suggested the severe measure in a new law-and-order bill due to go before Russia's parliament, the State Duma. They say the markings would heap shame on corrupt officials and alert Russian employers so they could refuse them jobs. "The authors of the bill believe that...

NASA scientists say they may have discovered a new force of nature, after research showed two of their deep space probes were being inexplicably pulled off course. Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11, which have been in space for over 40 years, are being steadily pulled towards the sun by an unknown power, according to London’s Telegraph newspaper The scientists said it could not be gravity or solar radiation, as they decreased over distance.

INDIANAPOLIS – The NCAA says Myles Brand has died after battling pancreatic cancer. He was 67. The university president turned NCAA chief who pushed for tighter academic standards in college sports and took on Bob Knight died Wednesday.

BRIDGETON, N.J. — Just when it seemed that all the sports-licensing ideas had been exhausted — coffins with team logos, unveiled a few years ago, could have reasonably been the presumed end — along comes something that has been growing in plain sight all along.

LONDON, England (CNN) -- The BBC's highest paid celebrity has lost more than $2 million after being suspended without pay for a series of abusive telephone calls made by himself and another of the broadcaster's stars. Talkshow host Jonathan Ross, 47, and comedian Russell Brand, 33, have been at the center of a row after they attempted to contact comedy actor Andrew Sachs for an interview on Brand's weekend Radio 2 show earlier this month. ... Ross and Brand rang Sachs -- who played a Spanish waiter in John Cleese's 1970s TV comedy "Fawlty Towers" -- but when it dawned...

Have Russell Brand and Gordon Brown damaged Barack Obama's chances? An alarming number of Americans have been saying it is possible - that's how much their countrymen hate being told how to vote by the British. Mr Brown didn't exactly endorse Mr Obama, but he certainly suggested a preference in a magazine article. Brand, a comedian who is almost as unknown in the US as the British Prime Minister, was more blunt as he exhorted - "on behalf of the world" - the audience of the MTV Video Awards to vote Democrat. George Bush, he added, was a "retarded cowboy"....

As the Huffington Post reports, Russell Brand, British comedian, hosted the MTV VMAs, which is not really political news. However, it's what he said that has everyone astir. Here's one of the ridiculous things Brand had to say: Again and again, Brand _ a confessed former sex addict _ poked fun at young sex and abstinence. Speaking of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's daughter's boyfriend and would-be father, Levi Johnston, Brand sympathized with him: "That is the safe sex message of all time. Use a condom or become a Republican! I don't know why a European metrosexual is in America asking...

Were Mesopotamians the first brand addicts? 25 April 2008 From New Scientist Print Edition. Jeff Hecht Product branding first emerged in ancient Mesopotamia, the birthplace of cities and writing. So claims David Wengrow, an archaeologist at University College London, who says that bottle stops stamped with symbols some 5000 years ago are evidence of the first branded goods. Around 8000 years ago, village-dwelling Mesopotamians began making personalised stone seals, which they pressed into the caps and stoppers used to seal food and drink. Originally these goods would have been traded directly with neighbours and travellers. But when urbanisation began -...

Last summer I was the poster girl for New Orleans . My picture ran in the Sunday paper with the headline Generation K. I smiled, flanked by hot pink oleander and golden hibiscus. In the interview I praised the city for its social warmth and tropical elegance. I declared my goal to tell stories about its stumbling, slow recovery. I'd quit bussing tables at an Uptown bistro so I could report full time. I've reported for this network and others on crime, housing, insurance and tourism. But unlike most reporters who fly in for a few weeks at a time,...

Stewart Brand has become a heretic to environmentalism, a movement he helped found, but he doesn’t plan to be isolated for long. He expects that environmentalists will soon share his affection for nuclear power. They’ll lose their fear of population growth and start appreciating sprawling megacities. They’ll stop worrying about “frankenfoods” and embrace genetic engineering. He predicts that all this will happen in the next decade, which sounds rather improbable — or at least it would if anyone else had made the prediction. But when it comes to anticipating the zeitgeist, never underestimate Stewart Brand. He divides environmentalists into romantics...

Famous Buildings Become Branding Tools The entire five-story Ferrari showroom in Chungdam-dong, Seoul is wrapped in glass, its interior structure, and its expensive cars, on full display. Illuminated by powerful white lights, the building is an extraordinary sight at night. The facade of Galleria Department Store in Apgujung-dong radiates with high-tech glass discs mounted on the building's concrete surface. Equipped with special LED-lights, the discs generate a mother-of-pearl effect during the day and a continuously changing pattern of colors in the evening. Galleria Department Store in Apgujung-dong, Seoul These are examples of a trend called "Building Marketing" that employs...

Royal Navy sells White Ensign as 'cool' brand By Stewart Payne (Filed: 16/08/2006) The Royal Navy is selling its trademark White Ensign logo to appear on products ranging from clothes to computer games in what it says is an attempt market its "quality brand" to potential young recruits. The White Ensign could appear on clothing and computer games The Senior Service hopes that by licensing the use of images, including those of the Royal Marines Commandos, Fleet Air Arm and Submarine Service, on high street merchandise it will raise awareness of the Navy as a career prospect among a target...

LAKE QADISIYAH, Iraq (Feb. 14, 2006) -- Without a moon and with temperatures below freezing, more than 80 Marines with Mobile Assault Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, began their three-day operation seeking out terrorist activity in remote villages here Jan. 29-31. Operation Brand Iron consisted of searching nearly 100 kilometers of shoreline and remote villages surrounding the massive Lake Qadisiyah. They looked for weapons caches and gathered information about the people living in the area. “We did some area reconnaissance, which is getting a census on the people in the area,” said Sgt. Alexander M. Murray, a Portland, Ore.,...

EVRY, France (AP) - Prostrating himself and touching his forehead to the ground, Mathieu Pawlak put his demons to rest. Once a practicing Catholic tormented by a spiritual void and the searching questions of youth, Pawlak embraced Islam and, he says, found peace. "I'm the same on the outside, but inside everything has changed," said the 25-year-old restaurant cook who converted 4 1/2 years ago. He took a Muslim name, Abderrahman, and last year married a Muslim woman who cloaks herself in a dark veil. "I found the way that Muslims pray to be truly profound. It links the body...

Re.: "The presidents and chancellors who serve on the NCAA Executive Committee have adopted a new policy to prohibit NCAA colleges and universities from displaying hostile and abusive racial, ethnic, and national origin mascots, nicknames or imagery at any of the 88 NCAA championships."

Centerville Mayor Ronnie Brand won’t run again After 15 years of public service, Brand to bow out A Houston Home Journal Exclusive By WILLIAM JOHN HAGAN HHJ Staff Writer In an exclusive interview with The Houston Home Journal, Centerville Mayor Ronnie Brand announced his decision not to seek re-election. After over 15 years of dedicated service to the City of Centerville, first as a councilman and then as mayor, Brand served the people of Centerville through a period of exceptional growth. During Brand’s tenure, he shepherded the city through a long phase of unprecedented development. The Centerville population more than...

A WOMAN WHO was branded with part of Con Edison's logo after falling onto a burning hot Manhattan manhole cover is suing the utility. A lawsuit filed yesterday in Manhattan Supreme Court accuses Con Ed of allowing the manhole cover at E. 13th St. and Second Ave., to become excessively hot through a buildup of steam under it. Elizabeth Wallenberg, 27, suffered "excruciating pain, disability and grotesque cosmetic disfigurement," according to the suit, which seeks unspecified damages. The fall left Wallenberg with a "C" and "O" and part of the manhole grid burned onto her back, just above the buttocks,...

Sweden "best brand in the world" Sweden has topped the rankings in an international survey of the top nation brands. People around the world see the Swedish government as the most trustworthy administration in the world, the Swedish people as the world's most hospitable, and think of Sweden as the best place in the world to live and work. The findings were made in the Anholt-GMI Nation Brands Index, a survey of 10,000 consumers in ten countries. They were asked for their impressions of the United States, Britain, Sweden, China, Italy, Germany, South Korea, Russia and Turkey. The report's author,...

Jeff David: Democrats respond to GOP with more of Brand X Let's pretend for a moment. Let's make believe we're all Democrats here. I know that's a stretch of the imagination in a parish that went for Bush with 77 percent, but even if you're a dyed-in-the-wool Republican, try to think for one moment like the opposition. Here you are. You're in Louisiana. You're an active Democrat. You got Mary Landrieu elected. You got Kathleen Blanco elected. But there's a strange feeling creeping over you. Like something is slipping away. Creeping old age? Yes, but everyone suffers from that. The...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

<p>In 1905, in a backyard factory in Cleveland, workers began making vacuum cleaners for a company that became known as Royal Appliance Manufacturing Co.</p> <p>Almost a century later, Royal, which established the popular Dirt Devil brand, stopped making almost all of its vacuums in Cleveland because it realized it was cheaper to pay a Chinese company to do it.</p>

BERLIN (Reuters) - "Kalashnikov" has long set the standard for powerful rifles, but if elderly Russian inventor Mikhail Kalashnikov gets his way the famous name will soon be linked to umbrellas, watches and even aftershave. The inventor has formed an unlikely alliance with a small German company that wants to attach the Kalashnikov brand to a range of ordinary consumer goods that could also include snowboards, halogen lamps, pocket-knives and energy drinks. Kalashnikov, 83, has been living on a state pension in a two-room Russian apartment and never saw any royalties on his famous AK-47 assault rifle, which he developed...