Al's Morning Meeting

I just did an interview with Arlington, [Texas], police. Thieves are now targeting Honda Elements. They're not stealing the car, but the catalytic converter. Police tell me it contains platinum that thieves then sell to recyclers. Arlington had six such thefts in January.

But The Chronicle-Telegram, in Elyria, Ohio, makes it clear that it is not just Hondas that thieves are targeting. In small-town Elyria alone, the paper has been able to count up 80 converter thefts -- many of them yanked off cars still sitting at dealerships.

The paper reports:

Consider the unassuming catalytic converter. An EPA-required emissions-control device on a car's muffler, it looks like a steel shoebox but actually has in its belly a chunk of honeycomb-like material that contains three precious metals: platinum, rhodium and palladium.

While the three metals help filter out harmful emissions, metal industry experts say their market prices are hovering at all-time highs -- platinum at $1,180 an ounce, rhodium at $5,300 an ounce and palladium at $350 an ounce.

These days, the lowly catalytic converter doesn't seem so lowly.

On average, a single catalytic converter contains about a tenth of an ounce of the three precious metals, said John Beaudry, spokesman for Montana-based Stillwater Mining Co., one of the few U.S. companies that recycles and smelts used catalytic converters.

The theft of precious or semi-precious metals has been old hat in the past few years as metal prices have skyrocketed -- copper pipes have been torn from vacant homes and aluminum bleachers ripped from local parks -- but catalytic converters being sawed off unattended vehicles is a new trend, with incidents increasing drastically in recent months, local police reports show.

In the past eight weeks in Elyria, more than 40 catalytic converters were sawed off vehicles in 14 different incidents.

In the county sheriff's jurisdiction -- rural areas and townships -- more than 130 catalytic converters were stolen in 17 incidents since last summer, including a theft at a Grafton salvage yard where thieves made off with 100 detached catalytic converters left in a pile.

Sheriff's deputy Bill Curtis said thieves crawl under vehicles and cut the catalytic converters from the car's underbellies using battery-powered saws.

"It's an hour's work, at most," Curtis said.

Some local scrap dealers, however, say the operation can sometimes be carried out in just minutes, and some thieves use pipe cutters.

The thief's reward for his nefarious deed pays off handsomely if he finds a scrap yard with standards lax enough to buy scrap metal of unknown origin.

"On the low end, (a thief) will get $7 or so," Curtis said. "On the high end, more than $100 -- maybe even $150."

 

Every morning I'll bring you an interesting piece of multimedia storytelling to help you think through your own online projects. Today's story comes from The New York Times. Damien Cave is reporting from Iraq on a story called "Man Down." In addition to the newspaper piece, the Times runs a video story with Cave's narration.

There is a back-story to this piece.

Editor and Publisher magazine reports that the Army suspended the "embedded journalist credentials" of Cave and Getty Images photographer Robert Nickelsberg, who was working for the Times, after the "Man Down" story ran in the Times and appeared on its Web site. Military officials say the two journalists violated a signed agreement not to publish photos or video of any wounded soldiers without official consent. The Times says the journalists' credentials have not been suspended.

The Houston Chronicle reports:

The agreement that journalists are asked to sign as a condition of embedding has 14 rules. Rule 11 covers military casualties: "Names, video, identifiable written/oral description or identifiable photographs of wounded service members will not be released without service member's prior written consent."

The ground rule goes on to say, "In respect for family members, names or images clearly identifying individuals 'killed in action' will not be released." The rule says names of soldiers killed can be released a day after family notification, but it does not address photographs or video images.

Churches in Indiana and across the country are scrapping traditional Super Bowl viewing parties in wake of the NFL’s stance that mass viewings of the game on big screen TV’s would violate copyright law.

NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said Thursday the league stands by its interpretation of copyright law and would look into any violators that comes to the league’s attention. The main concern for the league, Aiello said, is groups that charge admission to watch games and those that use a TV screen larger than 55 inches to show the game.

The issue came to light after the NFL confronted Fall Creek (Church) about its promotion of a “Super Bowl Bash” at the church that would bring together congregation members to watch the game with a projection TV.

Aiello said the league has a longstanding policy against “mass out-of-home viewings” of the Super Bowl, even if the hosts don’t charge admission. The NFL makes an exception to that, however, for sports bars that show televised sports on a regular basis.

From the stock market myth, to the urban legends about toilet flushing, guacamole consumption and spousal abuse, lots of false stories seem to swirl around this event.

MSNBC.com debunks some of the legends here.

Snopes.com also busts some myths here.

Super Bowl Sick-Out

There does seem to be some truth to one commonly held belief -- lots of people miss work the Monday after the big game.

MSNBC.com reports:

Super Bowl flu is quite contagious and quite common, says one employment productivity expert who has studied absenteeism in the workplace.

"We think there's going to be a widespread impact across the country of Super Bowl-itis -- and epidemic proportions in Chicago and Indianapolis," said Stewart Itkin, vice president of Kronos, a Massachusetts company that solves workforce-related problems.

"The symptoms include exhaustion, headache and sore throat due to loss of voice," Itkin said. "Fortunately, it only lasts 24 hours."

Kronos recently surveyed approximately 1,300 adults over the age 18 and asked if they would be coming to work the morning after the game, Feb. 5. Five percent of the respondents admitted that they planned to call in sick. With the U.S. working population numbering about 140 million people, Itkin estimates that "come Monday, there will be 7 million empty cubicles around the country, costing employers hundreds of millions of dollars in lost productivity."

The disorder seems to be growing, too. A previous Kronos survey of workers suggested 1.4 million people would call in sick the day after the 2005 Super Bowl.

Super Bowl Auto Accidents

MSNBC.com reports that researchers at the University of Toronto determined in 2003 that automobile accidents climb more than 40 percent in the hours after the Super Bowl, with cities and towns closest to the home of the losing team showing the biggest increases.

The university reports:

Driving right after the Super Bowl raises your risk of being in a collision, says Dr. Donald Redelmeier, a U of T medical professor and director of clinical epidemiology at Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Centre. After examining U.S. data from 27 Super Bowl Sundays, Dr. Redelmeier found, on average, an extra 1,000 car crashes, 600 injuries and seven deaths during the four-hour periods after the big game. He blames driver fatigue, alcohol consumption and inattention.