If you go to sites like Drudge, you can right mouse click on the "banner ad" image at the top (not clicking on it, but just right clicking to bring up a pop-up menu). One of the options is to block images from certain servers. I have blocked a couple of the banner servers. Now, I get no banners when I go to sites like Drudge. You can't block flash ads though.
I use that one too! IE stinks. If people would only try Firefox, no one would use IE again.
There are extensions that beef-up the ad-blocking included in Firefox. I've got AdBlock. It'll let you block all ads (including flash ads) from a particular server. It takes a while to build up your list of servers to block... but the great thing is that, with AdBlock, ctrl-shift-F overlays all flash ads on a page with a manilla-colored box. It's fantabulous.