Fun fact about this song and my hero Joe Strummer, from Songfacts.com -

Singer Joe Strummer told an interesting story to Musician magazine in 1988 about how he proved that popular 1980s group Tears for Fears stole a line from "Charlie Don't Surf" for the title of their hit "Everybody Wants To Rule The World." He was apparently in a restaurant and saw Roland Orzabal, lead songwriter for Tears for Fears, and told him that "you owe me a fiver," explaining that the name of their hit song was an exact lift of the first line of the middle eight in "Charlie Don't Surf." According to Strummer, Orzabal simply reached into his pocket and gave him a five pound note, effectively admitting that this had been the case.

(for the record it was from the first verse, not the middle eight as there is no middle eight in "Charlie Don't Surf")

"Not really, because it has been patented six years ago"

Star Trek IV
Produced: 1986
Takes place: 1986

ALON
First patented: 1980 (U.S. Patent 4,241,000 )

As a small sidenote, I think it's slightly risky to indicate, even tongue in cheek, that any of us were involved at the start of a movement that began in the 1800s... even if you're kidding, people might get the wrong idea. Third wave feminism, which coincidentally I think you're more opposed to than the first two waves, did begin (I think?) in the US in the 1980's or 90's, but the overall movement was a well-established global phenomenon at that point. None of us were close to being involved in starting it.

As far as your main point goes, I think it's partly a question of whether you define your own vision by the end goal you want to achieve, or the first problem you want to solve. "Black Lives Matter" is not the end goal, it's the first problem we need to solve on the way to a state free of police murder. Egalitarianism, on the other hand, can be the end goal. It doesn't tell me which problem areas you want to address though.

For some feminists, feminism is the end goal - a woman-centric world would be better, more sane, and more sustainable in their view than any other world. For other feminists, feminism is the first problem area to address, ie that we are literally living in a culture of undeniable male supremacy.

The problem with only defining your end goal is that it can become a little unclear what, if any, action you want to take. "You matter" is certainly fine, but I have no idea what you want to change in society, or if you want to change anything. I matter, you matter, and the Koch brothers matter - but we still have very different ideas about what society should be. In a perfect world I might want to join up under the egalitarian banner, but in the current mess we're in, I tend more towards environmentalism, socialism and feminism - because those are the problem areas I want us to address first.

According to Jalopnik's Jason Torchinsky, the car that inspired Little Red Corvette is actually a 1964 Mercury Montclair Marauder owned by Lisa Coleman (Prince helped her buy it at auction in 1980 in Minneapolis).

I agree with the general idea -- we should continue to spend, and spend MORE, on getting lead out of the environment (especially in homes and public utilities like water, etc.).

But I do have a semi-minor nit to pick. Oliver mocked the lead industry shill guy from the '70s for suggesting that better general health across the population at the time was because "we must (have been) doing something right", and therefore lead paint must not be dangerous. Yet one of his own major argument points comes from referencing a "study" that shows that every dollar invested in lead abatement ends up returning 17+ times that much in societal gain due to lower crime rates, lower medical bills, etc.

That's a problem because BOTH of those arguments are making a correlation equals causation error. The lead industry shill was wrong -- general population health was higher in the '70s than ever before because of advances in medicine. Lead was holding it back -- but to be fair, only to a tiny degree compared to the gains made in general health care.

I'd argue Oliver's cited study is equally wrong (or at least misleading) -- OK, crime may be lower, but I seriously doubt that spending more on removing lead contributes to that much at all. And total costs of health care spent on caring for people with lead poisoning are almost certainly lower now than they have been previously, but the lion's share of that (legitimate) financial gain undoubtedly came from banning lead paint and then leaded gasoline -- as seen in Oliver's graph of "average blood lead levels of children aged 1 to 5" which dropped incredibly fast between 1980 and 1990, and then much more slowly since then.

So any financial return on further investment in getting rid of lead is very very unlikely to live up to the same rate that it did in the 80s. I doubt that the study accounted for that, if it is also including tenuous things like crime rate to trump up its numbers...

Oliver is right to later suggest that "not poisoning children" is a better argument for getting rid of lead than "17 times financial return on money invested into lead removal". Just stick with the poisoning argument instead of the dubious correlation vs causation study.

Lucky bastard!
I didn't live in the same house for two years in a row after 3rd grade (1980) until I bought the house I live in today back in '99. As if that wasn't enough for me to lose all my toys, when I was shipped off to boarding school my Jr year (cry a river for me, it was in Hawaii) all my stuff disappeared and no one would take responsibility for it. That was a big part of why I moved out of my mom's house before I finished high school. (I did eventually go to college and got a degree anyway).

I met him outside the theater in Denver when he was in "The Elephant Man" in 1980. He signed autographs and said a few words into my tape recorder as a greeting to my family. He was very gracious. He was also the first one I ever saw wearing a Sony Walkman at that time, that was right before it became hugely popular.

This is edited and scored like a mid-1980's America's Funniest Home Videos episode, and that hurts me in several different places.

There weren't Jeeps here until 1994 when Chrysler returned to Australia, before that I think there were only a few antique Willys Jeeps (actually Jimbo's big bag'o'trivia says they were still making them until the 1980s, but I don't ever remember seeing a new one and can't confirm it).

Our consumer protection laws are generally stronger than in the U.S., but I do see the point of a lemon law, particularly since cars are so much more expensive here.

I take issue with the part about birth rates and the 35-year population forecast.

Firstly, the premise that we (Germany) need to stabilise our population level stems primarily from the depopulation of parts of the country, the north-east most of all. However, the cause is not low birth rates. It's urbanisation, which is part and parcel of capitalism. Everything gravitates towards the centres while the rest becomes hinterland to be exploited for resources.

Secondly, population forecasts turn into horseshit real fast. If we were to look at a 35-year forecast created in 1980, we'd miss the reunification, the breakup of Yugoslavia by NATO, about a dozen wars in the Middle East and the destabilisation/desolation in large parts of Southern Europe. Nevermind the EU with all its freedom of movement agreements that were recently suspended.

If we had made a 35-year forecast in 1910... well, you get my point.

Thirdly, Europe is not a singular unity. Our ongoing assault on the economies of Southern Europe (aka austerity) lead to a mass exodus already, Same for the Baltic countries. Unfortunatly, those countries who lost a significant portion of their young and educated over the last years are also the countries who are least equipped to deal with mass immigration in an orderly fashion.

Which brings me to my fourth point: many folks make the argument that we cannot possibly pay for the integration of 800k refugees, much less for 400k a year. Well, we payed for reunification in the most inefficient, corruption-inducing and anti-social way imaginable by piling the cost exclusively on our version of social security. And you know what? It still fucking worked. If Germany can shoulder the cost of reunification, the EU can pay for 2-3 million refugees. End of story.

Finally, we need immigration. Not to maintain population levels, not to even out low birth rates. We need it to not become too homogenous, especially Germany. Too much consensus, too much group think, not enough confrontation and cultural diversity. Shake things up before people start believing their own bullshit again about their own superiority. We've seen it already vis-a-vis Greece.

@eric3579

Does the Polish Six Flags guy look familiar? It's the very same racist imbecile who described the plan to create a unified driver's license across Europe as "Ein Reich, ein Volk, ein Ticket" while doing the Nazi salute.

I'd rather have a thousand Syrian refugees than people like him.

3-2-1 Contact -- Very First Episode - 1980 - Intro/Theme has been added as a related post - related requested by deathcow.

*related=http://videosift.com/video/3-2-1-Contact-Very-First-Episode-1980-Intro-Theme

Them just out of the '70s, 1980s sensibilities. Jump the river with your cop motor and FIX that cigarette lighter. I need to watch Stripes now so I can watch the sexy military police have sex with the military fuck ups. Then I'll fast forward the decade and watch Ferris Buehler not go to school.

Film in the 80s taught me about anarchy and it taught me well. Oh wait, film as media is inherently anarchistic. Aw, fuck it. Society must just stink.

Ugh brings back memories of 1980s with "The Day After" and the fear as a child/teen of nuclear war. Not that we are clear of this today, just more of the rogue variety.