Oh I love the O&A show...listen every morning. Jimmy is the best...and they always have great comedians in there. However, when they were allowed interns (which is no longer the case due to Sirius/XM's legal team) they would always get the most fucked up, idiot interns. This kid was one of them...

In reply to this comment by Yogi:
>> ^rottenseed:

This is Stevie, once a loser intern on the Opie and Anthony show. He couldn't see worth a damn and was a complete dimwit.


Seriously? Cause I've been listening to clips from OandA when Louis CK is in studio...pretty funny...because of Louis and Jimmy.

*promote.

I found this on reddit:
"To summarize what's not seen in any of his short clips from Opie's YouTube channel, Mustard moved to NYC in search of some sort of an acting career, and quickly fell onto troubled times when dealing with alcohol troubles. Shortly after his first appearance (perhaps during, I can't recall), Opie promised to work with Mustard to get some sort of music produced for him to have an income to get him on the right track, but their first attempts at a recording session went horrendously wrong because Mustard kept showing up drunk if at all. About a month or two ago, Mustard again came in studio but informed the boys and the listeners that he'd entered a halfway house dedicated to sober living and that he was making a concerted effort to turn things around. His demeanor and attitude seemed much brighter and happier the last time he was in studio, especially when comparing it to the first appearance shown above.
Furthermore, the Taylor guitar he plays in the video is absolutely not his, it's owned by Sirius/XM. It was provided to him for his appearance (and all subsequent appearances) only during the show by Opie and Anthony. He did not bring his own guitar to the show, but has told stories about having expensive guitars broken or stolen while living on the streets of New York. For his third appearance on the show, he played a guitar that was signed by Paul McCartney - again, not his guitar. He was brought to the show by Anthony's NYPD buddy initially to participate in a charity shopping spree for some of the NYC homeless, so up until recently he was without a roof over his head more often than not. Other videos of Mustard's appearances on O&A are available on Opie's YT channel if you want to do some searching (Mustard in the channel's search bar should do the trick). I hope that clears some things up for everyone."

Well, off the top of my head, how about Computer City, Packard Bell, Circuit City, SCO, SGI, DIVX (not the codec), Commodore, Amiga, XM Radio (with Sirius XM following closely behind), Atari, 3DO... most of these are companies who were once dominant until their consumers took their dollars to greener fields.

Oh, wait... You didn't want me to answer that, did you? You just wanted me to concede the point? My bad.

As for building schools and bridges; that's a different topic and one which I think is totally suited to government. I'm not anti-government across the board, I just think it ought to be kept in check and that it's not the miracle cure to all problems.

The federal government is too big for my tastes at the moment. I have an infinitesimally small influence on the federal government because my one vote is a molecule in a drop in the bucket. I have no real choice or say in any matter. All I can do is pick the preselected candidate whose lies I find most comforting. They're going to do whatever they want once the election is over.

If the local governments were the focus of power, at least the people would have more influence. There my one vote is a far bigger portion of the pie and it's not even unrealistic for me to run for office myself if I really don't feel represented. If power were more distributed it would be more difficult for lobbyists to buy power.

I like the idea of moving an hour away and having a drastically different government if I'm unhappy with how things are run where I live. Moving from state to state can give you a little bit of that nowadays, but I think it ought to be taken further.

I agree that neither smaller == better and larger == better are universal truths and that there's a happy medium to be found, but it sounds like my happy medium is smaller than yours. I guess that's why you're so popular with the ladies.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
Can you give me a meaningful example of consumers bringing down a corporation by "wallet voting"? Of course not, because it is a ridiculous notion. Consumerism doesn't challenge corporate power, it increases it. At best, consumerism has the power to stop Coca-Cola from marketing a new cola that tastes like ass. Consumerism doesn't build schools or bridges. Consumerism is reactive, not proactive.

In a democracy, the power rests in the hands of the people, by way of 1 person: 1 vote. It was a populist response to older forms of government based around wealth, power and nobility. It is a testament to the success of democracy that so many now can take it for granted. Government power is people power (read=your power). Limiting the power of government limits the power of the people, and if you are interested in stopping corrupt corporations, public government is the only thing big enough and powerful enough to get that done.

It is very true that our democracy has been subverted in many ways, but through democracy, we can change this. I agree with you that apathy is one of the big enemies here, but I see much reason for hope. With increased access to information, the public has become much more aware of corporate abuse, and has become much more politically involved. Despite what Obama may or may not do in his 4-8 years in office, I think it is significant that he was able to break through the corporate propaganda and win on a very pro-people platform.

Last point, one of the great red herrings in this debate is that of 'size'. Notions about 'big' or 'small' government are completely arbitrary and meant to distract you from the more important qualities that you wisely mentioned: efficiency and effectiveness.

Government should not be shoehorned into some arbitrary concept of big or small. Government should be just the right size in needs to be, to be both efficient and effective. Getting rid of valuable social services in order to make the government smaller only makes the it less efficient and less effective.