Collection agencies and their attorneys file hundreds of thousands of lawsuits every year in California, many of which are filed against debt-free individuals such as Senator Correa with no connection to the original creditor. Incredibly, these lawsuits rarely include the information needed to prove the claim is legitimate, because current law doesn’t require it. Consequently, innocent Californians wind up with a judgment on their record or have their wages garnished because they were sued for someone else’s debt.
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This ordinance allows properly permitted and code-abiding gardeners and farmers to sell any produce they grow directly to the public on site. Growers were previously required to haul their bounty to a third party commercial zone, like a farmers market, or sell through a distributor. The permit does not, however, allow for value-added products, such as pickles or jam, or animal products, such as honey and eggs, to be sold at garden sites in residential areas. These products can, however, be sold on production sites within commercial zones. Growers can apply for a permit through the Planning Department for approximately $350.
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While I am sure research in mental disorders account for some of this increase, I cannot help but believe that there is a certain amount of disease-peddling going on. That is, instead of promoting drugs to treat diseases, diseases are promoted to fit the drugs. For example, shyness as a psychiatric illness made its debut as “social phobia” in DSM-III in 1980, but was said to be rare. By 1994, when DSM-IV was published, it had become “social anxiety disorder,” now said to be extremely common, thus, boosting sales of antidepressants. Now, social anxiety disorder is “a severe medical condition.” In 1999, the FDA approved a drug for social anxiety disorder. After a successful marketing campaign, the sales of Paxil soared.
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A “robo-call” is when you answer your phone and hear a recording. These calls are placed by machines that store hundreds, even thousands, of telephone numbers, and then dial them automatically and play a recorded message.
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Filed under: Business, Law, Technology
October 13, 2011
Last year, Conway gave $35 thousand to the Yes on L campaign to criminalize sitting on a sidewalk. This year, Ethics Commission filings show that Conway has already spent $218,500 in San Francisco to support various conservative causes. A San Francisco Bay Guardian article notes Conway has given more than $320 thousand to Republicans since 1999. Like the Gettys, Warren Hellman, Dede Wilsey, Michael Moritz and the late Donald Fisher, Conway appears to be the latest member of the “1%” class who is spending exorbitant gobs of cash on a San Francisco election. All this is very interesting, of course, given that Conway is a Palo Alto venture capitalist.
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Proponents and volunteers gathered 12,869 signatures in less than five weeks to qualify the initiative, despite operatives from Recology – the holder of the City’s highly lucrative garbage collection monopoly – deploying an expensive media campaign on both network and cable TV and funding a series of allegedly illegal actions to intimidate petition workers, harass petition signers, and buy or steal petition booklets.
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Filed under: Business, Environment, News, Politics
The subtext of Yee’s move is viewed as an unsaid challenge to Chinatown powerbroker Rose Pak’s grip on the Chinese-American community in an attempt to weaken her base of support and to garner Asian-American votes for his mayoral bid.
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