Many people have no respect for marketers, considering them hype-masters who don't tell the truth - or the whole truth. And their timing is terrible - interrupting you with ads that blare out in taxicab rides, on airline flights, at the movies, in unsolicited e-mails or via pesky telemarketers at dinnertime.

Recently the Federal Trade Commission instituted a new rule that bears the Orwellian acronym: CALM. CALM stands for Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act. Don't you just love it?

The essence of the law is that the practice of blaring commercials louder than the TV shows that precede or follow them must cease by December 2012.

This isn't the only anti-advertising measure our government has instituted. Just consider the Can-Spam act of 2003 that sought to limit email messaging to those who wished solicitations as well as the much lauded "do not call" registry that made dialing for dollars a telemarketer's dead-end.

People also have found ways around advertising's bombardment, embracing tools like TiVo or the DVR to race through the commercials on recorded television shows, and by subscribing to commercial-free satellite radio, and putting themselves on readers to get their news