That mouth is like a fractal of oral sex; an all in one cunnilingus, analingus, ballingus, taintingus, nipple slurping elbow tickler. These aliens were evolved from sea anemone... I wonder if anyone has placed their genitalia in a sea anemone -- I guess that's just one of those questions you ask Paul at the pearl gates.

I wish he would come to my place. I have 30 apple trees, all different varieties, and most of them end up in the compost. I would be glad to let him come take them away.
The red flesh apple was probably a 'pink pearl'. I have one of those trees, I like to give those apples away around Halloween. Most of the rest of my trees aren't identified.

So...I go to John Lewis if I'm an old man who wants to look at little girls through a telescope?


The Man in the Moon had silver shoon
And his beard was of silver thread;
He was girt with pure gold and inaureoled
With gold about his head.
Clad in silken robe in his great white globe
He opened an ivory door
With a crystal key, and in secrecy
He stole o'er a shadowy floor;

Down a filigree stair of spidery hair
He slipped in gleaming haste,
And laughing with glee to be merry and free
He swiftly earthward raced.
He was tired of his pearls and diamond twirls;
Of his pallid minaret
Dizzy and white at its lunar height
In a world of silver set;

And adventured this peril for ruby and beryl
And emerald and sapphire,
And all lustrous gems for new diadems,
Or to blazon his pale attire.
He was lonely too with nothing to do
But to stare at the golden world,
Or to strain at the hum that would distantly come
As it gaily past him whirled;

And at plenilune in his argent moon
He had wearily longed for Fire-
Not the limpid lights of wan selenites,
But a red terrestrial pyre
With impurpurate glows of crimson and rose
And leaping orange tongue;
For great seas of blues and the passionate hues
When a dancing dawn is young;

For the meadowy ways like chrysophrase
By winding Yare and Nen.
How he longed for the mirth of the populous Earth
And the sanguine blood of men;
And coveted song and laughter long
And viands hot and wine,
Eating pearly cakes of light snowflakes
And drinking thin moonshine.

He twinkled his feet as he thought of the meat,
Of the punch and the peppery brew,
Till he tripped unaware on his slanting stair,
And fell like meteors do;
As the whickering sparks in splashing arcs
Of stars blown down like rain
From his laddery path took a foaming bath
In the ocean of Almain;

And began to think, lest he melt and stink,
What in the moon to do,
When a Yarmouth boat found him far afloat,
To the mazement of the crew
Caught in their net all shimmering wet
In a phosphorescent sheen
Of bluey whites and opal lights
And delicate liquid green

With the morning fish — 'twas his regal wish —
They packed him to Norwich town,
To get warm on gin in a Norfolk inn,
And dry his watery gown.
Though St. Peter's knell waked many a bell
In the city's ringing towers
To shout the news of his lunatic cruise
In the early morning hours,

No hearths were laid, not a breakfast made,
And no one would sell him gems;
He found ashes for fire, and his gay desire
For choruses and brave anthems
Met snores instead with all Norfolk abed,
And his round heart nearly broke,
More empty and cold than above of old,
Till he bartered his fairy cloak

With a half waked cook for a kitchen nook,
And his belt of gold for a smile,
And a priceless jewel for a bowl of gruel,
A sample cold and vile
Of the proud plum porridge of Anglian Norwich —
He arrived much too soon
For unusual guests on adventurous quests
From the Mountains of the Moon.

Well, right until Pearl Harbor there were the do-fights and don't-fights. If the anti-war party hadn't been assassinated, ran out and broken, we wouldn't have had to fight Japan at all.

The problem is these people still ruled. Imagine them pressing forward with a nuclear plan (which would have absolutely occurred if they thought they could get away with it.) Interestingly Germany sent material to them to dump on our shores as a sort of nuclear bomb but we intercepted it. It is thought that we used it against Japan, which is hilarious. But I digress.

The point is--even if they planned on surrendering, they had no intention of concessions. Would those in power (who were as guilty as the Nazi) willingly turn themselves over for trial? Huehue.

As far as the Soviet issue, yeah, your facts go without saying. And Truman did get his results--he got Stalin to restrain himself (In a certain way...though there was the cold war.)

Sadly, until the US's whitewashing of history was complete, it was pretty widely-spread that Japan had been attempting to surrender for up to a week before the bombs were dropped, but the US didn't want to lose out on its opportunity to show off it's new war-toy.
This is widely disputed today, but I honestly can't tell if it is for reasons of rewriting the past, or that it honestly wasn't true.
(I'd also heard several times in my life that Japan had subs spotted near Hawaii before the Pearl Harbor bombing, but it was 'ignored' so an attack would justify the US's entry into WW2).
So obviously it's almost impossible to determine facts from history when every generation tries to remove the traces of its mistakes, but I *do* know the Japan-surrender was a pretty widely controversial one, and potentially true. What I know of the US today, that detail is another one of those dark pieces of history I can look at and say: "...Yeah, they would do that".

Stephen & Pearl Jam Perform "Rockin In The Free World" has been added as a related post - related requested by PlayhousePals on that post.

Neil Young and Pearl Jam - "Rockin' In The Free World", live has been added as a related post - related requested by PlayhousePals.

been done before ...

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Neil-Young-and-Pearl-Jam-Rockin-In-The-Free-World-live

I was thinking the same thing. We had a good deal of choice of what classes to take. I didn't take Lit, but I did do the basic English classes, where we read some Shakespeare and the like, but not to the degree the Lit students did. I didn't do any complex math classes either, I did Algebra. But then I also did Applied Business, or whatever it was called. I did Civics with the base History classes. I did Home Economics in 9th grade, not a required class, but an elective. Woodshop was another example of an elective class. Have they removed electives from schools? If not then it's this dude's own fault for not choosing the proper electives. If they are gone and all that is taught is the core, then there may be too much core.

I got to disagree with the video's premise that Math, History and the cores aren't needed. Do you need Calculus, no but you should graduate with a strong understanding of basic Algebra. History is important to, though I'm not sure the methods used are effective, route memorization of facts and dates for tests, rather than a general understanding of history and how to avoid the same mistakes. Teaching for tests period is a problem... Lit isn't important and should remain an elective, but having read some of the "classics" is important too, even if it is just a quick Cliff Notes sort of version of it (do they still have Cliff Notes?) Actually a Cliff Notes rundown of lots of the "classics" would probably be better than what most English classes do, while encouraging students to read more modern what they want fare for reports and the like. I didn't take Biology, but basic Science understanding is important, problem is it's politicized and rather than stick with the facts, too many people want to introduce at the very least doubt about the facts if not introduce ideological ideas that contradict the facts and are based on a misunderstanding of what the facts actually say... due to a messed up literal reading (well when it's convenient to take literal, other times things are dismissed as "literary" or "poetic" be it about the Earth not moving or bats being birds and on and on) of one particular bronze age book.

Also you can't teach people who to vote for... you gain understanding of the issues in History and Civics... so...

How to move away from testing is a tricky thing. You need to prove you have an understanding of how to form an Algebraic formula and to solve one. You need to prove you understand the issue(s) of the Civil War and the basic era (I'm not convinced you need to remember exact dates, know it was the 1860s), same with the other wars. What was one's nation's involvement in the World Wars and what caused those wars in the first place, and again basic era, if you don't know the exact year of the bombing of Pearl Harbor or D-Day or the dropping of the atomic bombs, okay, but a basic close approximation of the years. For English you need to prove you can write and read, and a basic understanding of literature, not details of classic books, but narrative structure etc. There should perhaps be more time spent on critical thinking and how to vet sources. You need to have a basic enough understanding of science not to dismiss things as "just a theory" which proves you don't know what theory means in science, and don't ask ridiculous questions like "if we came from monkeys why are there still monkeys" instead you should be able to answer that. You should be able to answer properly if somebody notes that CO2 is good for plants or that compact fluorescent have mercury in them so they aren't better for the environment than older bulbs.

How does one prove these things without tests? That's the question. And it needs to be Federally standardized to a degree to ensure that you don't have lose districts teaching that the Civil War wasn't about slavery nearly at all, rather than the fact it was the primary reason, or that Evolution is "just a theory", or deny the slaughter of the Native Americans or interment of Japanese Americans. You need to insure that all students are getting the same basics, and insure they have a good range of choices for electives. It's the basics though that basically need tested for, and I personally can't figure out a way to prove a student knows say what caused the Civil War or that they know what Evolution actually is, or how to form an Algebraic formula to solve a real life problem without a test.

Uh... WTF? Have you seriously never heard of the Dresden and Hamburg firebombings? In the Hamburg case the U.S. actually set up a fake German village as a test run just to see how many houses they could burn down. The fact that entire mock village was destroyed was seen as a massive success, not a reason to go back and figure out a more humane way to do it.

As far as Japan goes, even today a large part of Japan's economy depends upon small to mid-sized businesses that often double as people's homes. The government didn't "place" them there, these were people's day-jobs. Just like in the U.S., factories that once produced consumer goods were forced to make military materials to support the war effort.

The U.S. used firebombs for two reasons: first, firebombing meant precision bombing wasn't needed so the planes could fly at a high altitude out of shot of anti-aircraft fire and second, they knew damn well they'd be roasting Japanese people alive. Nobody cared. The war had gone on for so long that the U.S. was willing to do anything to end it quickly, particularly when they saw Russian swooping in to consolidate Eastern Europe. After Pearl Harbor, the Philippines, the bitter island fighting in the Pacific, the kamikaze attacks, and the stories of escaped or freed POWs, it's pretty safe to say the American military wasn't looking at the Japanese people as humans anymore, just enemies to be defeated by any means necessary--including nuclear weapons.

That's an awful lot of buildup for such a lame payoff.

You read Pearls Before Swine, don't you?

Eärendil was a mariner
that tarried in Arvernien;
he built a boat of timber felled
in Nimbrethil to journey in;
her sails he wove of silver fair,
of silver were her lanterns made,
her prow was fashioned like a swan,
and light upon her banners laid.

In panoply of ancient kings,
in chainéd rings he armoured him;
his shining shield was scored with runes
to ward all wounds and harm from him;
his bow was made of dragon-horn,
his arrows shorn of ebony,
of silver was his habergeon,
his scabbard of chalcedony;
his sword of steel was valiant,
of adamant his helmet tall,
an eagle-plume upon his crest,
upon his breast an emerald.

Beneath the Moon and under star
he wandered far from northern strands,
bewildered on enchanted ways
beyond the days of mortal lands.
From gnashing of the Narrow Ice
where shadow lies on frozen hills,
from nether heats and burning waste
he turned in haste, and roving still
on starless waters far astray
at last he came to Night of Naught,
and passed, and never sight he saw
of shining shore nor light he sought.
The winds of wrath came driving him,
and blindly in the foam he fled
from west to east and errandless,
unheralded he homeward sped.

There flying Elwing came to him,
and flame was in the darkness lit;
more bright than light of diamond
the fire upon her carcanet.
The Silmaril she bound on him
and crowned him with the living light
and dauntless then with burning brow
he turned his prow; and in the night
from Otherworld beyond the Sea
there strong and free a storm arose,
a wind of power in Tarmenel;
by paths that seldom mortal goes
his boat it bore with biting breath
as might of death across the grey
and long-forsaken seas distressed:
from east to west he passed away.

Through Evernight he back was borne
on black and roaring waves that ran
o'er leagues unlit and foundered shores
that drowned before the Days began,
until he heard on strands of pearl
where ends the world the music long,
where ever-foaming billows roll
the yellow gold and jewels wan.
He saw the Mountain silent rise
where twilight lies upon the knees
of Valinor, and Eldamar
beheld afar beyond the seas.
A wanderer escaped from night
to haven white he came at last,
to Elvenhome the green and fair
where keen the air, where pale as glass
beneath the Hill of Ilmarin
a-glimmer in a valley sheer
the lamplit towers of Tirion
are mirrored on the Shadowmere.

He tarried there from errantry,
and melodies they taught to him,
and sages old him marvels told,
and harps of gold they brought to him.
They clothed him then in elven-white,
and seven lights before him sent,
as through the Calacirian
to hidden land forlorn he went.
He came unto the timeless halls
where shining fall the countless years,
and endless reigns the Elder King
in Ilmarin on Mountain sheer;
and words unheard were spoken then
of folk of Men and Elven-kin,
beyond the world were visions showed
forbid to those that dwell therein.

A ship then new they built for him
of mithril and of elven-glass
with shining prow; no shaven oar
nor sail she bore on silver mast:
the Silmaril as lantern light
and banner bright with living flame
to gleam thereon by Elbereth
herself was set, who thither came
and wings immortal made for him,
and laid on him undying doom,
to sail the shoreless skies and come
behind the Sun and light of Moon.

From Evereven's lofty hills
where softly silver fountains fall
his wings him bore, a wandering light,
beyond the mighty Mountain Wall.
From World's End then he turned away,
and yearned again to find afar
his home through shadow journeying,
and burning as an island star
on high above the mists he came,
a distant flame before the Sun,
a wonder ere the waking dawn
where grey the Norland waters run.

And over Middle-earth he passed
and heard at last the weeping sore
of women and of elven-maids
in Elder Days, in years of yore.
But on him mighty doom was laid,
till Moon should fade, an orbéd star
to pass, and tarry never more
on Hither Shores where mortals are;
for ever still a herald on
an errand that should never rest
to bear his shining lamp afar,
the Flammifer of Westernesse.

I believe I shall be swearing with "Mother of Pearl" from now on

He recorded so many un-listenable sides for Stax with those many pearls and gems strewn-in-Personal fav from Chef Aid...'Simultaneous.'
http://videosift.com/video/Issac-Hayes-Simultaneous

For those interested in Bill Watterson - he has just guest drawn three strips for Bill Pastis' Pearls Before Swine!!!
http://stephanpastis.wordpress.com/2014/06/07/ever-wished-that-calvin-and-hobbes-creator-bill-watterson-would-return-to-the-comics-page-well-he-just-d
id/

Read the strips from http://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2014/06/02