Advertisements certainly have their place on the internet. How else would you pay for websites? Government grants? Do everything with volunteers? Guilt-ridden PBS-style beg-athons? But today I went to an economic/political blog and found a flashing ad in the right margin. I tried to cover it with a popup window, but that didn't quite work. Then I enlarged the font of the website, hoping that would bump the flashing ad off screen. That too failed. Long ago -- back when "call waiting" was a new high-tech phone option -- somebody told me how he got a telephone call from somebody who immediately asked, "Can I put you on hold?" He responded by hanging up; it made his day. It's not quite as fun as that when you quit going to a website because of one of those obnoxious flashing ads, but it still counts. It's hard to believe that anyone would put up with them. What does it say of a person or society who does put up with flashing ads?