Donald Trump, who has been known to treat facts as if they were expendable underlings, may be proving that bloviation has its limits. Or perhaps he has us just where he wants us -- i.e., talking about him. In any event, an online petition on SignOn.org asking Macy's to dump his line of apparel in response to his "unpleasant, nasty and despicable behavior" in various venues has gathered enough signatures -- more than a half million -- to gather widespread media coverage over the last 24 hours.

If the recent departures of two tech execs are any indication, getting along with others is still a marketable skill in the corporate sandbox. Microsoft announced yesterday that the executive who oversaw the development and rollout of Windows 8, Steven Sinofsky, is leaving the company with nary a formal period of passing along his wisdom and counsel.

Once again, Mr. Clean is not Mr. Clean Shaven -- at least for the month of November. As he first did last year, the bald-pated icon has joined the worldwide Movember movement, which started in Melbourne, Australia in 2003 and is beginning to show definition in the U.S., of men sporting mustache's for 30 days to raise awareness to prostate cancer.

"What do women want?" Sigmund Freud famously asked. Judging by the reaction to several recent product introductions, some major marketers are as clueless as ever.

A California proposal to label food containing genetically modified organisms was defeated 53.1% to 46.9% Tuesday. The Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) applauded the vote, saying in a statement: "Proposition 37 was a deeply flawed measure that would have resulted in higher food costs, frivolous lawsuits, and increased state bureaucracies."

Product placement -- a.k.a. brand integration -- has grown into a roughly $25 billion industry in the U.S., supporting its own battery of go-getters, an extensive Wikipedia entry, a Morgan Spurlock movie about the practice and its own awards competition and Top 10 lists. Now Anheuser-Busch and Stolichnaya vodka are attempting to create a new category of brand cultivation: product displacement, a.k.a. product disintegration. They object to the use of their brands by Denzel Washington's character, a heroic airplane pilot struggling with alcohol and cocaine dependence, in the movie "Flight."

There's good news ahead for TV commercial junkies. Just as the supply of political ads suddenly runs dry this evening -- who won't miss all that misinforming backbiting from all sides of the spectrum? -- a new generation of the "we-have-a-pill-for-that" ads that fuel news and current affairs programming appears to be more than a glimmer in Big Pharma's eye.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency charged Korean automakers Hyundai and Kia on Friday with overstating the mileage claims on the "majority" of their current new vehicles sold in North America. The cause was "procedural errors" at a testing facility, according to the companies, which they are remedying in the short term by issuing debit cards to 900,000 buyers based on the price of fuel in their areas, the amount of miles they've driven and an extra 15%. Long term, they face hits to both their market value and brand reputation.

In the wake of a major disaster, people often rally around a spectacle such as the ING New York City Marathon. I remember feeling a sense of the resiliency of the human spirit when the 1989 World Series between the Oakland Athletics and San Francisco Giants resumed 10 days after the massive Bay-area earthquake. Or the New Orleans Saints' "emotionally charged" return to the refurbished Superdome to kick off the 2006 season against the Atlanta Falcons in a nationally televised Monday Night Football event. Or how about the Concert for New York City that took place in Madison Square Garden …

With a few exceptions, marketers seem to be earning good grades so far for their sensitive reactions to Hurricane Sandy.