The Chicago Tribune is, in 2008, finally getting around to dealing with the glorious, frustrating, and all-knowing voice of the commenter. This week the Tribune shut down their comment boards on all of their political news stories. What's more, the publication also yanked the Commenter's voice on a recent op-ed piece about Muslims and another story about Illinois Governor Rod R. Blagojevich. Why? Bill Adee, associate managing editor who also oversees the online operations,......

Did she find a horse's head in her office chair the day before? Embattled Susan Leal, who's refused to bow to pressure from Gavin Newsom to resign her position as the general manager of the SF Public Utilities Commission, was hit by a car outside City Hall as she was leaving meetings just before noon today. She was rushed to the hospital, where they found she was okay, if a little shaken. We like one......

It's back on, folks. The Harvey Milk Club endorsement vote happens tomorrow. Again. If you remember their last meeting, voting members caught the vapors, pulled out clumps of their own hair, ran around in circles, cried -- fun hysteria like that. Ever since that childish display of local politicking, all sides have been more or less civil and relatively respectful of one another. It goes without say how disappointed we are in both sides.......

Yeah, we plan on running this bit into the ground. And then some. Well, well, well. Well. Huh. It looks like Mr. Van Sant is having yet another open casting call for his Harvey Milk biopic, Milk. Seeing as how are the Gena Rowlands of bit-part/background acting, we're going to attend the casting call. Again. Clearly, our picture taken at the last audition was either destroyed by a envious auditioners, or it was lost......

Risseldy, Rosseldy: a falcon (or hawk, according to eagle-eyed commenters) kicking it in a planter in front of Sushi Rock on Polk Street. Image credit goes to SFist's very own Rain Jokinen.......

In an effort to tame the trolls, SFGate's site (as well as a few others like ThinkProgress) use software from an outside company that implements a unique "block user" function. This feature blocks all comments made by a user from view by anyone but themselves (upon login). That is to say, whenever the quasi-banned user logs in to the site, they see their comments intact; but to everyone else, the offending comment is simply......

After paying up last year for disclosure violations, Senator Carole Migden is once again under investigation for not disclosing or itemizing credit card charges that total $397,000. According to the LA Times, she faces $60,000 in administrative fines if she's in breach, our Miss Migden has investigators looking all up in her credit card charging for over the past seven years. Yikes. The main cause of concern for not keeping tidy books is that......

UPDATE: Oh man! How could we have missed this one? There's also going to be a Falun Gong march! We're sick and tired of trying to figure out whether we want to make fun of the pro-FG crowd or the anti-FG crowd -- oh, they're oppressed; but wait, their leader said nasty things about gays; and then there's that weird Epoch Times newspaper that they're involved with -- so we leave the thankless task......

We're expanding the SFist family, and we think you might look perfect in our Mormon-sized family photo. The cons include the facts that our commenters can be abusively frank and our editors are worse (much worse!) but the pros undoubtedly are sharing the scoop with SFist readers who are the smartest, freshest, smoothest, and most engaged folks in the Bay Area, period. We're looking for contributors in the following areas: Politics (and the local political......

Oh sure, you scoffed. But the joke's on you, scoffy! A majority of commenters on an earlier post were of the opinion that the cautionary "Muni Stories" posters on the buses could not possibly be true, and must be the work of an ambitious hoaxer. There was disbelief that Muni would put up signs about, for example, a crazy man seizing control of the gas pedal -- the take-away being that a ride on......

Critical Mass bike ride turns 15 years old today...

What does SF Opera music director Donald Runnicles do when he's not conducting Wagner at the War Memorial Opera House? He's conducting Wagner in London. What does SF Symphony music director Michael Tilson Thomas do when he's not conducting Mahler at Davies Symphony Hall? You guessed it: he's conducting Mahler in London. We knew that addicts to Mahler or Wagner existed. But to think that they live in our own backyard? Well, that's just spooky.......

Wonkette did something we find most awesome: commenter-cleansing. Hee: Oh, hi everybody. A lot of comments have been fun & good & whatever, but a lot of comments have also been painful to read, lately. We need to cull the herd, as it were, and we need your help. Please nominate commenters you want removed from the gene pool, which is closed for cleaning. Thanks and sorry! Never forget, indeed. Of course, as fun......

We're starting to run out of ways to introduce these stories about the murder count in SF, so we're going with a clip of "Miss Murder" by AFI, above. So here's the latest: Two more bodies were found today. One person was found shot to death in the head around 9:30 last night near Monster Park, and this morning, a woman walking in Golden Gate Park saw a dead body in a grove of......

A photo of the soon-to-be-terminiated Panhandle Bandshell...

A link to a funny video re: the inadvisability of allowing comments in a business situation. ...

We're both flattered an saddened by our witty betters at Gawker -- flattered that they stole our idea to spotlight comments (not that we're especially innovative in doing so, but still); a little saddened that theirs is already so much better in its execution. Depressing, yet we soldier on, because many of your thoughts deserve to be read a second time. Here's this week's top 5....

Hey, want to win tickets to see the Fray at Shoreline this Saturday? That's their sensitive pop ballad on the YouTube clip above, and Gomez and the SFist Krissy endorsed Eisley are opening! We have to get the names of the winners to the folks offering us these tickets pretty quickly, so we'll give them to the fifth commenter on this post. Only registered commenters can win, because we'll need your email address to......

Confirming what we heard yesterday, quote-unquote "District 4" Supervisor Ed Jew, along with Michela Alioto-Pier and Jake McGoldrick, showed up for yesterday's committee hearing to find out who exactly took those 300 trash cans off the streets of San Francisco. (Turns out it was DPW, who just went ahead and did it without telling anyone first.) So it turns out part of the reason why they took those 300 trash cans off the street was......

Hey folks, we're back again with our favorites amongst the comments and opinions you, the readership, made about SFist's stories that ran the week of July 1. Despite the weird holiday schedule, there was plenty of excellent conversation. ...

The "!" is because we've been out of town and we're so, so excited to be back. So, it looks like folks are settling nicely into the new comments system. While we appreciate those of you making "guest" comments as well, we especially appreciate those of you that are taking the time to register. The Top 5 for last week were:...

What with Paris Hilton's release earlier this week and the upcoming celebration of American Independence (sorry, Londonist!), we've been thinking a lot about freedom. Freedom to vote, freedom to choose, and most importantly, freedom to blog. Here are a few things we're happy we've been free to blog about this week. Being the nation's capital, DCist felt especially proud to let freedom ring this week by exposing the really important issues, like how sad they......

--This is an awesome picture from the Pride celebration yesterday. [37°C (we learned how to make the degree sign! Thanks, commenters!), from the SFist Flickr stream.] --Left in SF's Robert Haaland had fun as one of the grand marshals for Pride -- even though he didn't actually ride in his own car!. [two posts on Left in SF.] --People who read local real estate blog Socketsite are rich. [Socketsite.] --Remember the guy who drove......

Folks, we gotta be straight with you -- this probably should have been the "Top 5 Douches of the Week," because there were a hell of a lot more memorably nasty comments than good ones. Even so, there were some gems this week, some high-level discussion where people brought the insight, the knowledge, or the funny--for everyone's betterment....

Things have changed since our last post about Presidio Terrace. Go on, take a look at the old post - we'll wait for you. Now, instead of one Yellow Man inside the gate, it's a bunch. And they've brought a few friends along as well in a kind of virtual demonstration, as you can see in the screenshot above. Oh my! More seriously, this isn't the only neighborhood with houses that have/had racial covenants......

Come, let us gaze boldly into the amazing future together, where events such as these will affect you ... in the future. As you may or may not know, readers of SFist are permitted to submit responses to our incredibly incisive writings. These Complimentary Sentiments, or "com-ments," form the lifeblood of our work, as without input from our audience we are like blind actors stumbling about on the stage, constantly in danger of tumbling......

Hey, everyone -- here are the semi-arbitrary Top 5 Comments of the Week. For this, our fourth week of doing it, we thought it'd be a swell idea to try it out in easy-to-access text form. See below for commenters whom SFist's editors thought raised the game, made us laugh, or were otherwise notable, and click through to read the actual comments as written....

Photo of a worker on the job fixing up an F-Market car....

All across the Ist-A-Verse (or at least the American parts thereof), writers and editors are in the midst of enjoying their three-day weekend. But after the week we've all had, we feel like the break is not only needed, but deserved. Just look at everything we've been doing! Gothamist headed into the Memorial Day weekend with a number of tasks accomplished. They worried about Long Islanders giving New Yorkers a bad name. They tried......

Reader Dave passes along the following two Yvesdropped lines -- a mystifying duo of long-armed girls and butt plugs. Thanks Dave! We have no idea what these are about. Commenters, please attempt to construct a narrative that links these two episodes. You can leave us a message at 415-659-8720. Extra credit for using your finely-trained voice acting skills to re-enact the scene. Remember to speak clearly. Or not, if the Yvesdropping victim was very drunk.......