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It's not often that the Federal Aviation Administration and myself see eye to eye. But while the FAA's name is one of many cursed whenever I have to fly across the Atlantic, we have finally found agreement on something. Last Thursday, Reuters reported that the FAA is seeking to amend its regulations in order to enforce a ban on the installation of "obtrusive" advertising in the earth's orbit. The article quoted FAA regulators as saying that such changes were necessary because "large advertisements could destroy the darkness of the night sky," (CNN.com, May 20).\nWhat's that you say? Poppycock? A bureaucratic fantasy? Merely an attempt by small-time FAA functionaries to capture authority over something from a sci-fi novel? \nPerhaps. After all, it's in the nature of bureaucracies to try to extend their reach -- even if it takes them in absurd directions. \nBut then, after reading this story, I observed something that changed my mind. \nLater that day, on an errand to Best Buy, I noticed that the store had installed a phone next to the checkout line for making free, local calls. In today's post-cellular age, public phones are about as atavistic as rumble seats, but this particular one was truly a phone of the future: it had a television screen running advertisements. And to think that the ancients once placed such phones in enclosed booths or quiet alcoves so as to provide privacy for one's conversation. How far we've come.\nAnd this made me think of another occasion, when some friends and I visited Buffalo Wild Wings to fulfill our minimum daily requirement of buffalo wings and beer. After doing my part to help prevent chickens from dominating the earth, I went to wash my hands. Little did I know that BW3's men's room was haunted. As I manipulated the soap and water, a disembodied voice cried out. It wanted me to know that the Dodge Ram has greater towing capacity than the Ford F--150. I, of course, fled in terror.\nThen, there are the things that have infested the corners of our TV screens. Apparently, if networks don't secure them properly, commercials escape their appointed breaks and run rampant during programming, scurrying across the bottom of the picture. The Turner-owned networks, such as TNT and Cartoon Network, appear to be raising free-range commercials. For example, TNT has discovered that nothing complements a film's tender dialogue like the accompaniment of a NASCAR ad's revving engines.\nConsidering all this, the FAA's policy sounds less and less like the product of a Trekkie's fever dream.\nNow, I'm not against advertising in principle -- by providing consumers with information, it makes economic transactions more efficient, increasing the benefit to society as a whole. And it pains me to be on the side of government regulation rather than a market-based solution. Indeed, in some ways the market is already striking back against the deluge of advertising. Since May 13, the Loews movie theater chain has been publishing the real start-times for their movies, along with the time for those who want to sit through 10-15 minutes of commercials (Boston Globe, May 5). And in an effort to draw listeners back to traditional radio, Clear Channel Communications has reduced the amount of ads from 11.6 minutes per hour to 7.9 minutes (Rolling Stone, May 3). \nBut what advertiser could resist the opportunity to expose billions of people to a single orbiting ad, given the chance? Do you think they would be restrained by a sense of decency? A concern for the common good?\nIf you do, there's a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you -- while you sit on the can.