NCAA's Brand dies after battling pancreatic cancer

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.

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Yankees Grass - A Sod Sod Story

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.

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BBC's top star loses $2.4m in phonecall row (Jonathan Ross, Russell Brand)

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...

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Americans do not like Britons telling them who to vote for

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"....

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Video: Euro-star Russell Brand Endorses Obama and Smears Palin Family At The MTV VMAs

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...

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Were Mesopotamians The First Brand Addicts

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 -...

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Dear New Orleans: I'm Leaving You (Liberal gets mugged and cuts and run)

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,...

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An Early Environmentalist, Embracing New ‘Heresies’

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...

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