My website hosting company has announced that they are moving randyphillips.net to a new ultramodern server farm this weekend, and that this move will result in some sporatic unavailability starting this Friday night, Mar. 28 at around midnight. It could take anywhere from 24 to 48 hours to complete the move, after which they say my site will run like buttah.
We shall see…
Many moons ago I posted my review of Wicked by Gregory Maguire. Last night I got to see the stage show that is loosely based on the novel. It was a late Christmas present from a friend, and what a gift it turned out to be. We went to the prestigous Pantages Theater in 
the heart of Hollywood to join the sell-out crowd for the performance. I’ve seen a few stage shows in recent years (Rent in San Francisco, and Donkey’s Years, The Crucible, and Billy Elliot The Musical, all in London’s West End) and this ranks as one of my most thrilling stage experiences. I was truly blown away by the talent of both lead actresses: Megan Hilty as Glinda, and especially Caissie Levy as Elphaba in all her green-skinned glory. Her performance of Defying Gravity (YouTube link) was so moving that its conclusion brought me out of my seat, as if I was defying gravity myself.
It was an evening I will never forget, for so many reasons. Thanks again, J!
Man, our Mr. Cheney must really have a bug up his butt about Iran. Despite the National Intelligence Estimate concluding that Iran’s nuclear weapons development program was stopped in the fall of 2003 because of international pressure, the poster boy for gun safety is in Oman, wining and dining his old buddy the Sultan (whose 60-foot yacht he borrowed for a little fishing trip) saying that Iran ‘might’ have restarted its nuclear weaponization program. Never mind that the evidence that they’ve done no such thing is just as strong. Again, Cheney wants the Bush administration to go out with a literal ‘bang’ and attack Iran, so he’s ratcheting up the rhetoric to justify another preemptive strike.
We haven’t been hearing too much from our vice-president recently – I find that I liked it that way.
Yesterday (Mar. 17) I heard an interview on NPR with Charles Calomiris, a professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Business, regarding the Bear Stearns fiasco and the resulting intervention by the Federal Reserve, the first time they’ve stepped in on behalf of an investment bank. He touched on an idea that I have thought about many times in the past:
Any time a government or a government agency like the Fed steps in to fill the gap left by the market, you’re sending in some sense a signal to people that, “Well when things get really bad, you can rely on the government.” That creates a tendency for people to do more risky things. So that’s the so-called ‘moral hazard’ problem or cost. But of course there are times when the risks to the financial system are real, and when those risks are real you have to be willing to intervene because the benefits are greater than the costs.
This goes to the heart of a sense of entitlement that government action engenders when it bails out people who blithely disregard the costs of living in a way that invites disaster. Why should the government (and so, by extension, the U.S. taxpayer) be expected to pay for the costs of rebuilding and sometimes moving a community of homes that were built in a river’s flood plain, where houses are flooded over and over and over again? Or people who are so enamored of their ocean view in Malibu that they keep asking the government to help rebuild their mansion every time it burns in the regular brush fires that ravage the hillsides there? And, yes, even New Orleans, where devastating hurricanes only exacerbate the problems of a city that is built below sea level!
As an aside, I could have sworn that the former chairman of the Fed Alan Greenspan once said that the Fed should not be responding to the ups and downs of the world’s largest slot machine, the stock market. If indeed he said that, I guess that policy has gone out the window (with Bear Stearns’ fortunes).
This is just bothering me to no end, and I need to rant – what better place than on my own website?
There’s this website, see, called www.recordmeister.com. It sells used LPs (duh). I’ve bought an album from him in the past and was very happy, as I had been looking for it for a long time.
I recently revisited his site and found a few more things I wanted and asked him for a quote.
He emailed me back with his usual extraordinarily high prices, but then he added this kicker:
“I sold the (album i wanted), but made a cd of it before I did. For a copy of that, I’d be asking $24.Prices include postage.
Let me know if I can help you.Thanks,
Duane”
Pretty sweet business – sell the LP for an exorbitant price, and then sell it over and over and over and over again, ripping off his customer every single time. Now that’s the definition of eating your cake and having it too.
People say that music piracy is all over the Internet, but this is different – Internet piracy is mostly just trading/downloading files with money playing no part in the transaction. This guy is SELLING the music he steals. And that sort of elevates the issue into, oh, I don’t know, felony?
Thanks for your attention.
Have you ever been somewhere when you want to write something down – say, a website on a billboard or a phone number – and you have no paper or pen? I bet you could come up with a dozen instances like that. Now you can use your phone as a stenographer. Just call Jott and speak your memo to yourself (or anyone with an email address) and Jott will turn your speech into an email! And it’s free (at least while it’s in beta). I’ve been using it for a few days and it’s come in handy. Try it yourself!
Looks like John McCain, the presumptive (love that word) Republican presidential candidate, is lunching with the President today and garnering his official endorsement. This is the worst position McCain could be in on the day after clinching the presumptive (ah) nomination. Even having his picture taken with the man who most Americans feel has led our country down the path to the Dark Side, who lied to get us into an immoral war and who won’t have to deal with getting us out, seems ill-advised. Why ally yourself with failed policy, tacitly indicating that more of the same is in store? It boggles the mind.
Oh, and further on the telcom debacle, Bush has chimed in again:
Now the question is, should these lawsuits be allowed to proceed, or should any company that may have helped save American lives be thanked for performing a patriotic service; should those who stepped forward to say we’re going to help defend America have to go to the courthouse to defend themselves, or should the Congress and the President say thank you for doing your patriotic duty? I believe we ought to say thank you.
Yeah, AT&T – thanks for violating our Constitutional rights. Thanks a lot.
Sad news on the Heirship front: Thurb Hoyt passed away a few days ago. He’s an unlikely sort of guy to have anything to do with a bunch of long-haired Jesus freaks: big tall guy with a square jaw and a shock of white hair, Lt. Colonel in the Air Force, retired to be an almond farmer in Winton.
But he and his wife Betty were really involved in starting up the House of Jubilee, a Christian coffeehouse at which Heirship was sort of the house band. Anyway, Thurb loaned us the money to make our album, Roadway To The Son…some $5,000, as I recall, which was repaid within a year.
Condolences to his family and friends.
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