Some Saw Garbage

Garbage in, garbage out.

These days the police have another source of information -- Facebook.

Several years ago a man would come through our neighborhood early in the morning and pick up garbage bags before the garbage truck came through. We thought maybe he was engaging in identity theft. One day we poured a good dose of syrup in our plastic garbage bag. He never came back.

With the health care law soon to be decided, wonder if anyone has been going through the Supreme Court's garbage?

turned on the TeeVee, saw garbage- - - in color & HD

300 channels and nuthin's on

lost.................

It must have been a slow year for our supreme justices that they would have to argue a practice that has been standard detective procedure for centuries throughout the civilized world.  Let me cite three: Holmes in the UK, Columbo in the US and even Jacques Clouseau in France.  I would cite specific cases but I did not attend law school and I refuse to pay Lexis Nexis to do my research for me which is a now standard practice for the legal industry.  Called by many The Wickepedia of the legal profession the powerful search engine has made the law library obsolete, mere window dressing for the firm's bookshelves. It's enough to make Professor Charles Kingsfield roll over on his desk.

Major sales of paper shredders indicate that this is a topic filed away somewhere in the far reaches of almost everyone's brains these days.

Big trucks prowl the city, they shred and carry away papers from sensitive files. Had Richard Nixon purged sensitive material from his clandestinely recorded tapes, he likely would never have been proven to have been involved in Watergate. There is no legal protection for trash we clearly abandon, courts have ruled that there is no longer any reasonable expectation of privacy. Other ways are still available for law enforcement to gain probable cause. It's not rocket science to conclude that a windowless structure in the middle of nowhere likely is a "grow house" for marijuana if there are dozens of high voltage electrical wires in plain view leading inside. Cat & mouse, sometimes the cats win, often the mice prevail.....

LL - Syrup on the trash!...I love it! What a great sticky mind you have!

We shred banking, credit cards, and loan info....and throw the coffee grounds in there on top of the whole thing....Any of those offensive letters offering you blank checks and more credit card applications should be rendered unusable, I'd think.

However, once you put anything out on the curb, it becomes public property if they can grab it. I've seen flea market folks cruise around neighborhoods (mostly in upscale subdivisions), picking up discarded tables, chairs, grills, or other objects they seem to think have value. I bet those items later will appear at their yard sale, flea market booth, or garage sale somehow fixed up, repainted, or otherwise made to look ok, so the pickers make a little $$. If I put out an old broken chair by the trash and someone wants it, they can have it.

Most and probably all cities, villages and townships measure private property lines from the inside edge of the sidewalk, or the road shoulder.
When I lug the garbage out to the terrace, it is then on city property not mine a concession as it were that privacy has been conceded.
It is a cringer that the SCOTUS has approved lying by the authorities to suspects while lying back to the authorities remains a crime and very often, the only one they are capable of proving.
The case of the outed CIA agent had a fishy smell to it: the FBI knew, to an absolute certainty, the identity of the person who leaked the name of an agent to journalist Robert Novak. Never-the-less, they continued to pursue as suspects, several other persons who were forced to employ expensive legal representation and one of whom was found to have lied.
In the end, it proved to be a crime to lie while defending against a wrongful investigation while the person known to have committed the crime, if it was one, walked away accused of nothing.
An abuse of power in my book.

RY --You are SO right about the trash on TV....in color and HD! So many mindless "reality" shows, "real housewives," and gross displays of violence (both in games and dramas), as well as the "comedies" that undermine traditional values with their gays, smart aleck children, and disrespectful treatment of others...all giving out rude, irresponsible, and even destructive role models for kids and the other viewers! Some of the police shows could be a learner's manual for criminals who need to know how to commit crimes!

Even some of the commercials are anti-good values: the mother criticizing her son for not getting enough "hits" on his web page, the baby spitting food at the announcer, and the sassy kids grabbing someone else's food...all of those and others seem to send negative messages for civilized behavior. I will not buy or trade with any company that uses such negative advertising! But, it is sad that apparently most of the viewers do not care or do not see the harm in the shallow and mind-numbing pap running 24/7 on the TV.

To me the definition  of a traitor is anyone in responsible government position (s) who 'outs' an agent of that government who works undercover at the risk of hi/her life. I loved yesterday's subject. Transportation gets us from where we are to where we want to be but out on the shimmering blacktop of the id every man (and some women) tool about in  a classic car.

Mourning the absence of meaning on television suggests that either you are without a cable or satellite hook-up or that you have not, for some reason, heard of C-SPAN.

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Packe

Paper shredding - to my dismay, a mouse, doubtless liberated in my living room by Coco the cat had made a home in the bottom drawer of my desk and done a great job of shredding all the papers therein. Can't remember what vital documents were in there.
 
 

In our town there is a city ordinance that forbids anyone from removing anything from dumpsters located on city property, everyone else's is fair game I supposed.  I do know that putting garbage in someone else's receptacle is illegal in most places as it is considered "Theft of Services". 
 
There was a lawsuit in our local court between two neighbors who both countersued each other for theft of services over a stupid war between the two.  Apparently neighbor 1 wouldn't pick up his dog's poop on other people's lawns (sadly common here), so neighbor 2 would use a shovel to throw it on neighbor 1's yard.  Neighbor 1 would then scoop the poop but instead of bagging it would put it in an open bucket and then empty that bucket into neighbor 2's trash bin when it was rolled to the curb on Mondays.  Neighbor 2 caught 1 in the act after a couple weeks and decided to get even.  Neighbor 2 started saving his kids' diapers and pullups and would throw them in 1's can every Monday morning before the trash guy got there.  The suit was dismissed and both neighbors were told to grow up.
 
In other dumpster news.  My 18 year old niece who was living on her own in a dorm for the first time this year, discovered the joys of dumpster diving.  Yes, JOYS.  Apparently she had a friend who worked at a local bakery/cafe and another friend who worked at a bagel joint in town.  Both friends found out that at closing time they were ordered to bag up everything left from that day, then double bag the original bag, then toss it in the dumpster.  The friends and my niece and her roommates would go back after everyone had left both buildings and retrieve the food from the dumpsters and share it out around their dorm building.  She was thrilled at all the money she was saving on her food budget and figured the food was fine as long as both bags remained intact. They never got caught but they were all a little tired of bagels and cookies by the end of the school year.

The student accommodation where my son was obliged to live for his first year in university was adjacent to the supermarket compound. The staff considerately parked trollies full of stuff 'on its sell-by date' by the hole in the fence.

I've been thinking about our topic since I read it this morning.  I haven't had time to write until now.  First, the definition of "drug paraphernalia" has broadened over the years to include the ingredients for illegal drugs.  There are several drugs which can be made at home, and you can find instructions on YouTube.  Methamphetamine is one, though the process includes some steps where the mix is explosive.  I believe PCP can also be made at home, though some knowledge of chemistry is needed.  Second, I agree that the notion of garbage as being private property seems unreal.  In fact, I have put some things out in the trash with the hope that someone would come along who could repair it and get some use out of it.  I try to put those items out a bit early.  And there are folks who cruise around looking for such things.  The daughter of some friends, now in her early thirties, is living in some sort of commune in the Miami area.  They call themselves "anarchists," though they haven't really got any notion what the word means.  In order to disengage from the "capitalist economy," they get much of their food by dumpster diving.   They are also vegan, so they aim for vegetables that groceries stores throw out.  Different stroke for different folks.  Me?  I am a secondary vegetarian.  I eat the things that eat the vegetables...

As paolos noted, no one less than Lieutenant Columbo dumpster dived when necessary - also Lenny on Lawn Order was known to dig around in garbage for McCoy and staff, looking for a little evidence - and it was all okay and admissable.  So it's okay by me, I know that's not the question, but if you can get a bad guy via his garbage, then go for it.  We've got to stop protecting the bad guys from Lady Justice.

A question: Do we have an expectation of privacy when we put a letter in our mailbox and lift the little red flag, that's supposed to alert the mailman to pick it up?   

Instead, it alerts the Bad Guys that something's in there that they might like to steal, so they do.   And I'm told by someone who's clueless but still who believes that it's my fault for putting it out there, not the Bad Guy's fault for stealing it.           REALLY?

Lynn, my ex has a shirt with a veggies at the top with an arrow pointing to a pig and then another arrow pointing over to a ham, underneath it says "Vegetables are what food eats"

It's a shame when a thief gets off and the victim gets drilled. Sounds like a job description for a politician.

RIP Donna Summer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qU3MXibkIx4

 
Park4 ~
Re: 12:38 PM
The logic of that argument is about as robust as… Charles Bronson's mustache. 

Ummgawa, that's murphy's law isn't it?

There is still nothing worth watching on the tele - I've resorted to Animal Cops Houston - how sad is that? I have dozens of stuff on CD's that I could post into the side of my TeeVee thing, but I really can't be bothered.

Civilization. Well as they say the future is not what it used to be. Menin Black 3 is upon us in more ways in one. First of all I've never met a drug law I didn't think was goofy. I am sorry that people destroy themselves with any substance but it's a fact, Jack and locking users up is fruitless while $2 billion dollar derivatives trading by JP Morgan Chase and Corzine not knowing where megadollars went poof and go figure on Fast and Furious. I am watching Marx Bros. A Night in Casablanca rright now. "I see. You want a manager that doesn't steal money. Good day, gentlemen." Secondly, there is no dumbass vaccine so putting evidence in trash bags and putting an implied Bag o' Evidence on the curb will probably continue as will murderers who trust their secrets to other criminals in jail or who talk about their case on a tapped prison phone. Really? Geez. Meanwhile The New Sherlock Holmes continues to be new "old tales" with a hip and trendy feel that is peachy keen and with all the garbage...Well as Groucho just said Excuse my ashes

Off topic~ I bought a new bottle of mouthwash stuff, as you do, and cannot open it - not even jamming it in the door frame works. It says on the label 'No Alcohol' what's in there than needs such high security? O well, at least the teeth are cleaned and flossed and all that palaver.

haze, sometimes I think that teevee is so devoid of anything useful that I wish they would bring back the test pattern. At least it was colorful.

Should i ever step upon the escalator (descending) to'Road To Perdition', i think I 'll just schneeeek over to my neighbors house and plant my evidence, a.k.a.garbage into his cans......

Garbage is the by-product of civilization. We often learn more about a culture by what it tosses out so therefore the percentage of criminal garbage has some direct correlation with the % of criminals. We leave behind our DNA everywhere all day and as the number of machines we carry are tracking devices everything we do, say, use, and yes dispose of will be traceable. The wealth of the future will belong to those fortunate few who are able to go off the grid and live in a way that once was commonplace. Freedom to be lost and mysteriously private was never up to The Supreme Court to those who are prisoners of their own device(s).

Korthal,
Love Ya, Love Ya Baby...Thanks for posting on Donna Summer. The Disco era was truly the best years of my life...now Ballroom dancing is a priority, since I teach. Thanks for the memories, as the old saying goes.