"What do you mean, there's too much advertising on the Web?  That's absurd!"
 

As you skim down the page, don't look at the advertising, just look at how much of the actual article is being displayed.

If any.

 
Drudge:

 Junk Science:

  
Huffington Post: 
        OC Register: 

PowerLine: 
       
Captain's Quarters: 
    
 
Crimefile: 
      
  
Redstate: 

  
Townhall: 

This last one is particularly ugly, because at least in most cases the ads were squeezing down the article area from the outside.  In this case, Dean has posted a perfectly normal-sized picture, but now the ever-pervasive advertising has actually invaded the article area and, as a consequence, his picture is knocked down below the ad, thus giving the site a crappy, amateurish look.  While much of the outside area is out of Hugh's control, the inside area certainly isn't, so I'd lay this sordid display squarely on his shoulders — boyish charm notwithstanding.

And, speaking of ads, if there's an award for 'Most Oxymoronic Banner', that honor certainly goes to Ace:

I just love the concept of the tough renegade pirate image sitting right next to a Verizon ad that epitomizes Big Business.  Arrgh, matey!  I'm a bloodthirsty pirate who takes no prisoners and — oops, gotta take this call from my agent!

And I don't mean to dump on Ace.  I blame the greedy crowd at Pajamas Media who force bloggers to display their ads at the top of their home page if they want to be part of PJ's little club.  If you were going to write an instruction manual titled "How To Crassify The Blogosphere", the first two words on the page would be "Pajamas Media."

The ultimate question the above pictures pose is whether or not they're an indication that the web in general, and the blogosphere specifically, is slowly 'going commercial'.  At this point, I would say not.  For every blogger who pulls in a few bucks, there are still a billion bloggers who have never made a penny off their site, and never will.  Some because they simply can't be bothered to hook everything up, some (like me) who believe it would border on the immoral, and some medium-traffic sites who face the tough question of whether the bucks that would roll in are worth having to deal with the IRS, get a business license, etc, and decide (probably correctly) that it just isn't worth the hassle.

Summation:

• Actually, we should probably be grateful the above problem isn't worse.

  
• I'm sure I'll be adding to this page as time goes by.

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Updates

3/27:  Well, that didn't take long.  Added the Crimefile pic.

4/22:  Just added the one from PowerLine.  It was a similar pic (that I later lost) from PowerLine that got me thinking about the 'Greedosphere.'  I realized when I saw it (a few years ago) that if three lawyers felt the need to degrade their blogsite with cheap advertisements in order to pay the $19.95/mo their web host company was charging them, then obviously any claims that blogs were "independent of mainstream influence" had long been left by the wayside.