RELATED RESOURCES

Like Al's ideas? Hear more in our broadcast and online seminars. Sign up to receive Al's Morning Meeting by e-mail: * Click here (sent Monday-Friday at 7 a.m.) Buy Al's book, "Aim for the Heart" (Poynter receives a small cut as an Amazon affiliate).

I was eating lunch at Wendy's the other day when a bunch of construction workers sat next to me and started talking to each other about the price of recycled copper. I have mentioned copper prices in the last few weeks, but I had not thought of this one. All I know about it right now is what they told me, but they said that they have to lock up their wiring and piping on construction sites because thieves are really after the metal. Folks are stripping old motors and other machines of anything copper.

There are already stories of this happening. In Ohio, a couple of goobers broke into a coal mine and stole wiring. In Kansas, thieves stole wire right out of an existing building -- it was not even a construction site. I saw a wiring-theft story in rural Minnesota. (Look in the theft-from-vehicles blotter in the article.) I have seen copper thefts listed in Grant County, Ind. and Arizona, where thieves stole copper pipe sections from the Journal Broadcast Group. The piping was to have been used on a broadcast tower. Thieves apparently climbed the razor wire to get to it.

The Globe and Mail (Canada) included this interesting passage:

Thanks in large part to China's voracious appetite for resources, the soaring prices of nearly all base metals -- aluminium, copper and even steel -- have unleashed what can only be described as a scrap-metal theft pandemic.

That's why Belgium's main railway station recently lost 770 of its 800 luggage carts and police in the Montreal suburb of Pointe Claire are still hunting for the thieves who made off with 30 manhole covers last spring.

Prices for aluminium and copper have more than doubled in the past couple of years, and are now setting near-daily record highs. Prices in the $85 billion (U.S.) global scrap metal trade are up even more, tripling since 2003.

And the scrap-metal crime spree has tracked that upward trajectory every step of the way.

Lamp posts and manhole covers aren't even the most unusual items to go missing -- 400 parking meters have been yanked from roadsides in Pittsburgh. Thieves are making off with just about everything they can lay their hands on -- copper wiring from homes, aluminium siding, phone booths, fire extinguishers, traffic lights, street signs, ladders and even the kitchen sink.

By the way, the workers also told me they are still having a lot of problems buying PVC pipe. You may remember that I told you a couple of weeks ago about a national shortage of plastic resin. I have seen several stories about how contractors, farmers, plumbers and others cannot buy enough pipe -- they get what amounts to rations.

BlackBerry Addicts Wait in Fear

On the plane home from teaching in Louisville this weekend, I sat next to a guy who was worrying out loud about what his life would be if he loses his BlackBerry service because of a legal entanglement that is running out of time. BlackBerry could go dark, leaving 3.65 million customers who have become addicted to the wireless, hand-held e-mail device and service stranded. Do your government officials use them? Many do. How about emergency workers, cops and executives? Newer BlackBerries also have cell phones. The legal fight does not affect cell-phone service -- just the e-mail service, which so many  people rely on.

The Washington Post says:

In coming weeks, a U.S. District Court judge in Virginia may issue an injunction that could shut BlackBerry's U.S. operations down, altering the lives of many adherents. [...]

"Everyone's taken notice; the word on the street is that BlackBerry is in a jam," said Bob

Egan, director of emerging technology at Tower Group, a market analysis firm. He said he spoke with several financial and investment firms that are considering moving their e-mail computer servers to Canada, [the home country of BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd.], in an attempt to avert the U.S shutdown. But no one has figured out if that would work, he said.

 

Wireless carriers that offer BlackBerry service declined to comment on their plans for handling customers if BlackBerry goes dark.

 

"A lot of firms are assessing options and looking at alternatives," said Todd Christy, chief technology officer for Waltham, Mass.-based Pyxis Mobile Inc., which manages about 6,000 BlackBerry devices for financial service companies such as American Express, John Hancock and Pioneer Investments.

 

Clients rely on BlackBerrys with specialized applications for managing sales and checking financial portfolios, he said. "They're going through the worst-case scenario, but it's just a paper-based strategy," he said, adding that most hope RIM will settle with NTP before facing a shutdown.

The Cost of Christmas Lights

Al's Morning Meeting reader Jon Keimig, from News18, WQOW-TV in Eau Claire, Wisc.,dropped me a note, saying:

I just did a small TV story about the use of Christmas lights and how expensive it is to use them with everyone worried about high heating and electric bills. Xcel Energy (Western Wisconsin) faxed a spreadsheet to me stating how much it cost to run a single strand of 100 small lights for five hours a day for thirty days. I was shocked to find out it only cost $0.24 per month. Fifteen strands of the small lights costs $3.56 to run for five hours a day and thirty days. Running a string of 100 LED lights for that same amount of time costs $0.06 per month and fifteen strands costs $0.89. I just thought it was interesting how cheap small lights cost to run.

Corporations Seeks to Close Divorce Records

From time to time here on Al's Morning Meeting, I have written about the steady increase of requests that judges seal some court records. Now, The National Law Journal reports that judges are being asked to seal divorce records -- but the ones who are doing the asking are not the people involved in the divorces. Nope. It is corporations asking for the records' closure, because divorce records, as good reporters know, are full of juicy financial details that can produce interesting stories. This story could be a good way to ask judges when and why they seal court records. 

The National Law Journal reports:

Divorce lawyers say corporations -- along with the rich and powerful -- are increasingly asking judges to seal the divorce records of top executives to protect trade secrets or crucial financial information from leaking out, or simply to avoid embarrassment.

Attorneys note that while the courts have long protected children in divorce cases by sealing records, they are now doing the same for companies, treating trade secrets, assets, stock values and executive salaries as valuable, sensitive information that needs special protection.

And with state court records now available on the Internet in 30 states, fears of data theft or data leaks are at an all-time high among businesses.

"This has become an increasingly prevalent issue," said attorney James Feldman, head of the family law practice at Chicago's Jenner & Block, who in recent years has seen a notable increase in companies intervening in divorce cases. "This year alone I've represented several key executives in divorce cases where a protective order or a confidentiality agreement had to be obtained in order to prevent information from getting out."

Feldman noted that companies fighting disclosure of financial data in divorce cases has become more popular in recent years.

"It seems like in the old days, it wasn't done that often. And in the new days, it happens all the time," Feldman said, adding that judges have become more sensitive to corporate concerns, especially "if you can show that disclosure will harm the business."

Editor's Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be provided whenever possible.