This is a good bit of futzing, but you can achieve a similar look by putting the stuff into text widgets and then repositioning them down and into the footer area.

Thank you for the definitive answer. We'll use the work-around approach I mentioned previously.

Terry

1. Can you disable comments on the whole blog?
Yes, the default pages for all comment settings is here > Settings > Discussion
(Also note comments can be set to over-ride the default settings on individual posts and pages.)

2. Cane you remove the wording "Leave a Reply" which is coded into the template underlying the theme?
No. But you can hide it with CSS editing.

Is there any other way to remove that "Leave a Reply""?
I'm sorry but the answer is "no".

Is the Leave a Reply page something that is automatically there for the whole theme, or just tied to the default "about" page?. In other words, could we remove the whole "About" page and replace with something else to get rid of the Leave a Reply?

If that is not possible, I guess the worst case scenario is that we'll put a comment on that page just above the "Leave a Reply" box saying that, in general, we will not be monitoring the replies, and it is definitely not a comment box for posting messages.

Since there is no official Staff support for the CSS upgrade, and precious little Volunteer support, I recommend that you don’t buy the upgrade unless you have at least moderate understanding of HTML and CSS because you must be prepared to do the work on your own.

If you are considering purchasing the upgrade, you can go to Appearance > Edit CSS. There wordpress has provided a preview function where you can try before you buy.
http://en.support.wordpress.com/custom-css/
http://en.support.wordpress.com/editing-css/

If you do purchase the upgrade be sure to read this article before starting your editing > http://csswiz.wordpress.com/2009/10/15/if-you-have-the-wp-com-css-upgrade/
And, please be patient and consult tutorials found here > http://en.support.wordpress.com/custom-css/#css-help while waiting for a Volunteer to help you. :)

Please help, as we need to get this done before Friday. We don't intend to monitor or respond to comments at this time, and having the box there suggests that we want the comments.

Terry

I checked, and now I know what happend.
The image was hosted in a domain of mine that expired.

I must host the image elsewhere.

I got it, thank you, again.

I am having the same problem. For more than two years, I used an image as a header:
http://mfjep.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/title.png?w=720

In the last few days, the image is missing.
This is my blog:
http://opapeldasnoticias.org/

Can you help me with this?

Thank you so much, Lance, and my thanks to the WordPress technical staff, as well.

If you have any other thoughts about what the problem might be, I'd appreciate your sharing them with me.

2. As far as custom CSS, I see no custom CSS applied to http://thegolddiggers.wordpress.com/ whatsoever. In firebug I can find no evidence of any CSS customizations. The only CSS I see associated with your site is the original theme CSS.

No, I didn't delete the header, and in point of fact, I just checked the custom CSS stylesheet for the blog and saw that the correct URL for the #headerimg ('http://thegolddiggers.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/super-site-logoflattened.jpg') is still there.

What's more, upon further inspection of the blog itself, I've discovered that there are numerous additional anomalies in evidence: The leading between lines is different, and many of the other features that I customized on the CSS stylesheet have suddenly been lost, with custom colors that I selected for fonts now changed, and the spacing of titles out-of-whack.

So plainly, the problem isn't limited to the header; indeed, something is very wrong with the entire layout of the blog. Whether this is a problem related to ALL users of the Contempt theme or simply unique to my blog is something that I can't say at this point.

However, I checked my Updates and verified that I have a paid subscription to Custom CSS through July, and I have not in any way altered my customized stylesheets, so they should be functional, yet they're certainly not functioning properly at this time.

If no one else reports any problems with the Contempt theme, I guess I'll have to contact Support for help with my particular situation/dilemma. Naturally, following Murphy's Law, this problem WOULD arise on a Sunday, and I imagine Support won't be available again until Monday.