At Comdex--back when there was a Comdex--at a press conference, shortly after her boss-Scott McNealy--told me I'd just asked him the dumbest question he'd ever heard.

The one time I made the mistake of buying something from them -- a domain-name evaluation -- they treated me like a patsy. I feel like I lose brain cells every time I come anywhere near their site or their ads.

Even if you buy the idea that the white paper's content required months of study and analysis, requiring it to be based on obsolete data--which is a great big stretch--there's surely no defense for the fact that it doesn't acknowledge that it's old data and in fact speaks of the systems in the present tense.

Skittles obviously thinks that mere mentions of Skittles is effective brand-building. I do, however, dispute that mentions are very useful except as a stunt. And surely at some point the association of Skittles with racism, vomiting, etc. doesn't constitute "brand building" in the least.