The “comments” section under every SFGate.com article is a cesspool (I’m not the first person to say this but I can’t immediately find where it was said first) filled with hate, bigotry, trolling and various evil. Sure, you don’t -have- to click through to the comments but SFGate helpfully shows the three highest-rated comments below [...]

The “comments” section under every SFGate.com article is a cesspool (I’m not the first person to say this but I can’t immediately find where it was said first) filled with hate, bigotry, trolling and various evil. Sure, you don’t -have- to click through to the comments but SFGate helpfully shows the three highest-rated comments below each article–and the worst, and most prolific, commenters have hacking scripts that artificially inflate their comments’ ratings. Here’s another view on SFGate’s comment section: link.

Feeling that “out of sight, out of mind” is a good policy, my first UserScript hides several DIVs associated with comments on SFGate article pages. Here’s the source:

// ==UserScript==// @name SFGate-NoComments// @namespace http://www.userscripts.org// @description Hide comments on SFGate.com articles// @version 0.2// @include http://www.sfgate.com/*// @copyright 2010+, Andrew Rich (http://www.project-insomnia.com)// @license (CC) Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/// ==/UserScript==

var commentsDiv = document.getElementById('commentspage');commentsDiv.style.display = 'none';var commentslinksSpan = document.getElementById('commentslinks');commentslinksSpan.style.display = 'none';var commentBoxWrapperDiv = document.getElementById('articlePageCommentBoxWrapper');commentBoxWrapperDiv.style.display = 'none';var recCommentsDiv = document.getElementById('sfgate_recommended_comments');recCommentsDiv.style.display = 'none';var commentsListDiv = document.getElementById('commentslist');commentsListDiv.style.display = 'none';var commentsContainerDivAttrs = document.getElementById('Comments_Container_viewall').attributes;commentsContainerDivAttrs.getNamedItem('class').value = '';var commentsContainerDiv = document.getElementById('Comments_Container_viewall');commentsContainerDiv.style.visibility = 'hidden';

I hope this is useful to you and thank you for reading. You can install it easily from the UserScripts.org link above. Tested in Safari 4.0.4 (5531.21.10) with GreaseKit 1.7 on Mac OS X 10.5.8 Build 9L30. Should work in other UserScript-supporting browsers (Firefox, Opera, Chrome “Dev Channel”) without issue.

Alleged naked doorbell ringer pleads not guilty: A San Francisco man has pleaded not guilty to charges that he rang doorbells while naked and fled from San Mateo County sheriff’s deputies while wearing only tennis shoes. Peter Allen Steele, 38, entered the pleas Tuesday in San Mateo County Superior Court. He is being held in [...]

Alleged naked doorbell ringer pleads not guilty:

A San Francisco man has pleaded not guilty to charges that he rang doorbells while naked and fled from San Mateo County sheriff’s deputies while wearing only tennis shoes. Peter Allen Steele, 38, entered the pleas Tuesday in San Mateo County Superior Court. He is being held in lieu of $60,000 bail. At least two residents in the Woodside and Portola Valley area reported seeing Steele standing naked outside their homes July 11 after he rang their doorbells, said Steve Wagstaffe, chief deputy district attorney.

As retailers cut back cities confront ‘ghostboxes’: The building, sitting derelict and silent on acres of asphalt, is now listed for sale at $10.5 million. But there’s been little interest in the near windowless warehouse-like building that occupies a lot the size of a dozen football fields. For potential tenants ‘it’s a hard pitch because [...]

As retailers cut back cities confront ‘ghostboxes’:

The building, sitting derelict and silent on acres of asphalt, is now listed for sale at $10.5 million. But there’s been little interest in the near windowless warehouse-like building that occupies a lot the size of a dozen football fields.

For potential tenants ‘it’s a hard pitch because for most uses it seems to be a bit of a tough fit,’ said Brian Ritter, business development director of the Bismarck-Mandan Development Association.

As the recession takes its toll on big-box retailers, more communities across the country are having to confront not just the eyesore of giant empty stores, but also the loss of jobs and tax revenue that follow.

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The long-vacant former EXPO Design Center building at East Palo Alto’s Ravenswood 101, once thought to merge with the Home Depot next door to form a super-size building center, has now been divided into two spaces and houses a Nordstrom Rack and a Sports Authority. Both new retailers seem (from appearances: parking full, busy checkout lanes) to be doing quite well. A new microbrewery/restaurant (Firehouse Grill) has also recently opened and the former Circuit City location will soon reopen as a Mi Pueblo grocery store–EPA’s first supermarket in at least a decade.

A harbor seal pup studies his surroundings as volunteer Stephanie Behasa feeds the seals at the Marine Mammal Center. (Lacy Atkins / The Chronicle) Click through to read the wonderful article on SFGate by Jane Kay, Chronicle environment writer.

A harbor seal pup studies his surroundings as volunteer Stephanie Behasa feeds the seals at the Marine Mammal Center. (Lacy Atkins / The Chronicle)

Click through to read the wonderful article on SFGate by Jane Kay, Chronicle environment writer.

Iowa high court legalizes gay marriage in state: Iowa’s Supreme Court legalized gay marriage Friday in a unanimous and emphatic decision that makes Iowa the third state — and the first in the nation’s heartland — to allow same-sex couples to wed. In its decision, the high court upheld a lower court’s ruling that found [...]

Iowa high court legalizes gay marriage in state:

Iowa’s Supreme Court legalized gay marriage Friday in a unanimous and emphatic decision that makes Iowa the third state — and the first in the nation’s heartland — to allow same-sex couples to wed.

In its decision, the high court upheld a lower court’s ruling that found a state law restricting marriage to between a man and woman violated Iowa’s constitution.

‘We are firmly convinced the exclusion of gay and lesbian people from the institution of civil marriage does not substantially further any important governmental objective,’ the Supreme Court wrote in its decision. ‘The Legislature has excluded a historically disfavored class of persons from a supremely important civil institution without a constitutionally sufficient justification.’