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As it is, the article was substantially more convincing. Had you included references to his other works such as

Moreover, Dodgson was a rather exceptional student of Aristotelian logic, and he delighted his friends with games, puzzles and riddles. Dodgson's mock-heroic poem, The Hunting of the Snark (1876), ending with the line "For the Snark was a Bojuum, you see", received mixed reviews when it appeared. The meaning of the poem, which tells of the journey to capture the mythical Snark, has puzzled generations of readers. "I'm very much afraid I didn't mean anything but nonsense!" Dodgson later said.

along with a verifiable reference like: http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/lcarroll.htm

your comment might have had a little more sway.

Also, if you accounted for your method of understanding the intentions of someone who is now deceased, and has been for a while, we might have been able to independently confirm your theory, or properly and with all authority label you a quack.

All that remains is for you to post a picture of yourself so that we may properly ridicule you, since you have left us nothing else by which to counter your theory.

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe had a better solution... http://www.sci.fi/~huuhilo/dna2.html

Have you been saving that up in some kind of .txt file, waiting for your chance at first post?

It's a quote from Proust.

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/proust.htm

Hence the subject "First Proust!"

If Monty Python had made this joke anyone repeating it here would have got modded up.

Destruction of the entire nation and all of the non-combatants is within the Bushido Code. The Siege of Nanking and the domination of Korea make the continued existence of the Nation of Japan a fine example of OUR willingness to end a war without extracting the same that the enemy would have made us pay.

Have you read Yukio Mishima? http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/mishima.htm

Given the warrior culture (*that Gene Roddenberry used as a model for Klingons) - the just response would have been genocide.

Genocide without a tear. First Into Nagasaki Written by George Weller.

The nation could have been eliminated along with Germany & italy.

If you destroy a planet - you cease to have a right to exist.

If Hitler had Nukes first, we wouldn't exist.

Our restraint - and lack of extra nukes - ended the war.

Still, I'd have shed not tear one for the elimination of three nations and their entire populations.

Stalin and Russia could have been next by denonnating the first non-US nuke.

The cost of WWII was very, very high (*and "the cold war" could have been eliminated INSTANTLY* if we nuked all of the major cities in the Soviet Bloc, too). The price should have been eternal extermination for the progenitors of WWII and we might never see another war like it.

Nuking the Saudis would be a GREAT idea.

Bleeding to death the survivors - on TV - would be a damn good way to deal with extortionists.

Come to think of it - we just ought to nuke all of the religious sites in the middle east and be done with those jerks. We need to rid ourselves of morons who follow invisible deities - and nuking their holy sites is a fine way to help them forget.

The Almohades conquered Córdoba in 1148, and threatened the Jewish community with the choice of conversion to Islam, death, or exile. Maimonides' family, along with most other Jews, chose exile.

I'd really like to see Space Opera make a comeback, but it seems unlikely with the failure of Serenity at the box office.

some unnamed high-elvel language

... And it's not only for the geeks! Danish poet Inger Christensen's famous poem Alphabet from 1981 is based on the Fibonacci sequence. It's a beautiful systemic poem about everything that exists in the world and how it is under threat.

More about Inger Christensen.

Obviously a satirical article. Much akin to the satire contained in A Modern Proposal by Jonathan Swift (1729).

I read Jules Verne, and it was clearly after 1932. He would be _this_ Verne, Jules?
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/verne.htm : It says "1828-1905"

Clearly the man (JVerne) had the brains to fool somebody that the books are written in the FUTURE.

Twain?

What? You wouldn't want to meet the meat?

This just in! Police have release a photo of the murder weapon!

they need help.

According to Masuji Ibuse'sBlack Rain, a recollection of Hiroshima, it was because there was such chaos on the one hand and pride on the other that the Emperor, who still had supreme authority, didn't fully believe the reports.

Remember, in July, 1945 the Bomb was only a rumor. The American Air Force dropped leaflets over Hiroshima saying that it was coming, and the Japanese thought it was just propaganda. Communication with the region was confined to reports through the mouths of refugees.

A single bomb that can destroy a city? It was the stuff of science fiction. The Emperor may have also thought that there was only one bomb, or clinged to the dream of victory, until the second bomb dropped. Then he had to know that it was over.

He came up with the broad story, but the actual script was the last major work written by Leigh Brackett, an amazing sci-fi, screenplay, and crime writer from the Golden Age of American film and science fiction.

Worthless to whom? Certainly to a physicist such works are worthless, but the days of the polymath are long past. I read somewhere that Goethe is considered to be the last polymath who was thought to be in command of all and everything as it was understood in his time. Today we are in need of informed and adventurous popularizers who can at least attempt to bring the latests discoveries of science to the public. David Suzuki is an example.

Tammet is creating his own language, strongly influenced by the vowel and image-rich languages of northern Europe. (He already speaks French, German, Spanish, Lithuanian, Icelandic and Esperanto.) The vocabulary of his language - "Mänti", meaning a type of tree - reflects the relationships between different things. The word "ema", for instance, translates as "mother", and "ela" is what a mother creates: "life". "Päike" is "sun", and "päive" is what the sun creates: "day". Tammet hopes to launch Mänti in academic circles later this year, his own personal exploration of the power of words and their inter-relationship.

Disregarding the misspellings, all those words are straight from a Finnish or Estonian dictionary. "Mänty" is a pine tree, "päivä" is day, "pälke" means glimmer or glint. "Emä" and "elä" are the root words of mother and life, respectively. And "tammi" (tammet) is oak.

Finnish is a weird but logical language with a lot of nuances and forms that are not present in other languages. I'm not sure what Tammet is trying to do, but he's apparently just exploring the relationships between words in Finnish. Anything else would either not make sense, or be simple plagiarism. Too bad the reporter got stuck on the words and made such a big issue of it.

Tammet's not the first one to ponder on the Finnish language. It's well known that J.R.R Tolkien got hooked on Finnish at an early age and re-used some ideas in his works.

--Bud

I agree to some extent. It seems too complicated. One problem is IMHO that General Relativity is taken as an absolute gospel, and then we need all these complications to make observations fit theory. Whereas other theories besides GR can explain things more simply (hello Ockham!). I suggest everyone who's interested in these things take a look at Dynamic Universe, but there are other alternative theories as well.

100 years ago we would never have dreamed space exploration would be possible.

So I guess you've never heard of H.G. Wells or Jules Verne then? Those two definitly thought it would be possible some day... They just couldn't agree how.

100 years ago we would never have dreamed space exploration would be possible.

So I guess you've never heard of H.G. Wells or Jules Verne then? Those two definitly thought it would be possible some day... They just couldn't agree how.

Not so.

The gained ability to quickly master languages would help them with mastering all languages fatser, including the one that they started learning first.

Many great English authors were bilingual and yet managed to develop linguistic abilities far beyond most of us who grew up learning just one language.

For example Henry Miller, who first learned German; and Joseph Conrad, who first learned Polish & French.

Also, I would think that your brain would idle more if you just learn one language.

I think that's a bit harsh for novels and graphic novels. Some of the comics cited above are difficult, intelligent stories with involved character development and a good story to tell.

Please, are you kidding us? I read Batman: The Dark Knight Returns which was okay, but at the back it already admitted they basically made up the last two parts on the fly under pretty intense deadline pressure. And it shows, similar to the way Coleridge's Kubla Khan took something of a dive after he was bothered out of his drug-induced state and the dropped his inspiration -- except I'm not sure Dark Knight part 1 is exactly Coleridge at his best.

Look, I enjoyed Spider-Man vs. Wolverine as much as the next fellow and I'm glad comic book characters have outlets to behave a little more maturely than they do in a short monthly comic, but if you want to find great mainstream literature these days, take a look at Umberto Eco or Toni Morrison, not Frank Miller, please. Graphic novels are perhaps better called the new graphic novellas; they simply aren't replacements for 200-600 pages of truly great writing.

I always though googol (10^100) was named after Nikolay Gogol. Perhaps his perils should sue Edward Kasner?

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/gogol.htm

Unfortunately, the character limit on sig's made me sacrifice info on the quote in order to keep it there. In case you're wondering, it roughly translates to, "That was just a prologue; there, where they burn books, they also burn people in the end." Heinrich Heine said that in 1820 (though some sources say 1821). I think it's really interesting because it's a little more than 100 years before the Nazis came to power and started burning books. And we all know what they did to people in the end.

There's a place for you and a place for me,
it's the local public library.
They have books and things that they lend for free
It's the latest, it's the greatest, it's the library.

Educational, informational,
entertainment that's sensational.
It's a way of life, it's for you and me
It's the latest, it's the greatest, it's the library.

They have histories, they have mysteries
And for mothers, books of recipes
See a movie show, hear a symphony
It's the latest, it's the greatest, it's the library.

there's also's also a DOS based port of mpg123.

Ha hahahahahaha,

Just because Brits make comments on th US doesn't mean we think our country's any better. Almost everything done in the UK now is for the benefit of making money, the ability to track every moment of your citizens lives is just a handy bonus.

UK politicians don't want to scrap the publicly funded services e.g. health and constantly seek new ways to raise money without increasing visible taxation.

For instance, speed cameras replace police in cars and traffic cops are put on to the latest "fad" crime i.e. the one that a focus group said they were most scared of. The lack of traffic police on the road means that you can now drive like a complete arsehole (so long as you don't do it near a speed camera) without having to worry too much about getting caught. The bonus is the vast income you bring in from the cameras which can then be used to fund projects that would otherwise require an interest in taxation.

Sadly, the British have, over the last twenty years, seen a lot of corruption and arrogance from their politicians and have lost the belief that they can do anything about it.

1984 - It took a Blair to write it and a Blair to make it a reality

> Finnish is a crazy language

Finnish is even crazier than that. How about this quote: "Tolkien's original inspiration to create Quenya, the High-elven language, came from his encounter with Finnish."

more information

This is EXACTLY the plot of one of the best movies ever made about photography -- or anything else -- Michaelangelo Antonioni's "Blow Up."

A fashion photographer shooting a model in a park goes home to blow up the pictures, and discovers clues in the background he thinks might reveal a murder taking place. There's this great scene where he's frantically enlarging, and enlarging, and enlarging the picture (on an enlarger, in a darkroom)... and then you see the payoff, this tiny thing far in the distance that the naked eye could not have seen, a hand holding a pistol.

He returns to the park to find a body, which has disappeared the next time he returns.

Then Vanessa Redgrave drops by to try and finagle the negatives away from him.

"Blow Up" also features a great soundtrack with a score by Herbie Hancock, and a memorable scene of Yardbirds guitarist Jeff Beck (IIRC) smashing his guitar and throwing the pieces to the audience. The protagonist/photog gets away with the neck, and after a lengthy chase on foot, slows to a walk, examines the neck, and drops it in a trashcan.

One of the great all-time movies ever made, IMHO, a commentary about how we look at things, how easily we believe what we see. The whole thing dissolves into added layers of Pynchonesque mystery, rather than resolving in True Detective closure.

Also, a lot of fun 60's shenanigans. here's a pretty decent, if too negative, review.

NAT is about address use, not security. In no way should NAT ever be confused with security, even if it appears to give you some security.

Some time during the thirties, some German company manufactured a meat locker, which was installed in Dresden. During the war, it was sometimes used as a lockup for POWs. But in the end, it did a really good job as a bomb shelter. A barrier is a barrier.

There are roughly 100 messages in this discussion saying, "but they don't keep out viruses." Well duh! It's also true that a kevlar vest won't keep out another kind of virus. Yet cops and soldiers persist in wearing them. Could they all be superstitious? Misinformed? Or maybe a virus isn't the kind of penetration they're worried about.

Hey loser- you may think it is funny to joke about shooting babies, but outside of your close-knit circle of pasty white, pear shaped, stinky nerd friends, that is not funny and it's rather offensive.

Oh my, yes. Can you imagine if everyone behaved that way? We might have famous writers who write books read by millions of school children doing something as tasteless as proposing the eating of babies under the claim that it's somehow "satire" and having "redeeming social value."

I think it's really hard to do elvish type right with standard TrueType fonts.

Elvish fonts cry out for Apple Advanced Typography fonts. For instance, these characters are way too vertical and constrained horizontally. It ought to look more like this, with all the decenders flowing under previous characters (a right-handed elf, I guess).

Check out the Q here for an example of this or the Zapfino font. The example doesn't even have all the features turned on. I recently did some birth announcements using Zapfino on Mac OS X and the type is phenominally nice. For instance if a sentence ends with the word 'example.', the cursive tail of the trailing e, which is quite long, goes under the period, actually extending past the period. It looks nearly hand-crafted.

I understand making an AAT font is an incredibly laborious process, but fortunately there doesn't seem to be a lack of Tolkien-obsessed geeks (in the nicest possible connotation).

Check out their adress!!! http://www.sci.fi SCI-FI !!!! Best I've seen in years!

>Elvish has all the structure of a real language (loosely based on Finnish, I seem to remember).

Actually it wasn't based on Finnish at all, but rather inspired by it. It has it's own structure, just like any other language. Quenya was (in some ways) meant to capture the beauty that Tolkien saw in the Finnish language. In the early versions of Quenya he did use some loanwords from Finnish, but those were of course all replaced. Also there are many fundamental differences besides simple words (since it is, of course, it's own language). The modern (or "completed" if you prefer, although he never actually finished them) version have no connections with any real languages. If you get to really know the internal linguistic history of Tolkien's languages you can see how their world was meant to connect to ours (hint: in the LotR movies the Rohirrim speak a real language).

For some great info on the relationship between the Elvish languages and real world languages (primarily Finnish), check out this great article: http://www.sci.fi/~alboin/finn_que.htm

Yes, I'm a big fat nerd. I even have my own page on Tolkien: http://jerek.deciv.com/tolkien.htm

If you check out Bestcrypt you'll see they already have this feature - you can have a hidden container inside the normal container. There is no way to prove that the hidden part is there. OTOH, that probably doesn't stop anyone *that* interested in getting your data from locking you away in a hole for years until you make with the key, or just resorting to good old fashioned torture to make you cough up the info either, just in case it is there.

Kjella

Then there are other equally inspiring, phenomenal books that I'd think of as sci-fi but I'd rather not mention titles or authors, since a few people consider them sacred and get offended if others don't treat them as religion...

Then there are other equally inspiring, phenomenal books that I'd think of as sci-fi but I'd rather not mention titles or authors, since a few people consider them sacred and get offended if others don't treat them as religion...

In comparision to the F14 Tomcat the Su33 has more power on take off. While it is not assisted by a catapault the Su33 has a higher thrust to weight ratio and also, due to better aerodynamics, generates more lift. Flaperons were replaced with slotted high lift flaps to increase lift and control at low speeds. Comments from US Naval aviators who visited the Kuznetsov about the Su33 consistantly praised their ability to climb immediately after launch instead of 'hanging' in the air like their catapault launched aircraft.

The Su-32FN is the Naval version of the Su-34 Strike Fighter. It has Sukhoi's revolutionary tri-plane layout (Canards in combination with tradional central mainwing & rear tailplane layout), twin nose-wheels, folding wings & tailhook. Also, just like the Su-34 Strike Flanker, it has a amoured Ti cockpit & crew quarters (with cot, loo & food warmer) & low altitude contour navigation. Plus, ontop of its traditional forward AI radar, it also has rear facing air-intercept radar. This works with the only production AI missles that can be fired backwards, IE against the thrust of the aircraft & meaning the missle's actually flying backwards, in relation to its own thrust for the 1st few 1/100s of a second after its fired. Normally only 1 or 2 AI missles are installed facing backwards. These R73 AI missles are thrust-vectored & thus can also be fired forward & the flip over 180 degrees & go backwards or vice-a-versa. Hence only one or at max 2 are mounted backwards, because if needed a forward firing one can be fired backwards too. Can be fitted with all the Su-30's super long range equipment & refueling probe (as do all the 30 series Flankers)

Fighter Tactics Academy Strike Flanker page:

"...The Su-32"FN" has 12 armament/store stations and can carry the entire inventory of standoff weapons as well as up to four air-to-air missiles. The total weight for armament comes out to around 8,000 kg (17,600 lbs) with a flight range of around 4,000 km (2,160 nm), increased up to 7,000 km (3,777 nm) with in-flight refueling. It is noteworthy to mention that the Su-32"FN" can carry and employ the UPAZ air refueling store, so one Su-32 could refuel from another. External wing-tip mounted Sorbtsya ECM pods can also be carried.

One of the most fascinating features about the Su-32"FN" is its large side-by-side crew station that contains the left co

In comparision to the F14 Tomcat the Su33 has more power on take off. While it is not assisted by a catapault the Su33 has a higher thrust to weight ratio and also, due to better aerodynamics, generates more lift. Flaperons were replaced with slotted high lift flaps to increase lift and control at low speeds. Comments from US Naval aviators who visited the Kuznetsov about the Su33 consistantly praised their ability to climb immediately after launch instead of 'hanging' in the air like their catapault launched aircraft.

The Su-32FN is the Naval version of the Su-34 Strike Fighter. It has Sukhoi's revolutionary tri-plane layout (Canards in combination with tradional central mainwing & rear tailplane layout), twin nose-wheels, folding wings & tailhook. Also, just like the Su-34 Strike Flanker, it has a amoured Ti cockpit & crew quarters (with cot, loo & food warmer) & low altitude contour navigation. Plus, ontop of its traditional forward AI radar, it also has rear facing air-intercept radar. This works with the only production AI missles that can be fired backwards, IE against the thrust of the aircraft & meaning the missle's actually flying backwards, in relation to its own thrust for the 1st few 1/100s of a second after its fired. Normally only 1 or 2 AI missles are installed facing backwards. These R73 AI missles are thrust-vectored & thus can also be fired forward & the flip over 180 degrees & go backwards or vice-a-versa. Hence only one or at max 2 are mounted backwards, because if needed a forward firing one can be fired backwards too. Can be fitted with all the Su-30's super long range equipment & refueling probe (as do all the 30 series Flankers)

Fighter Tactics Academy Strike Flanker page:

"...The Su-32"FN" has 12 armament/store stations and can carry the entire inventory of standoff weapons as well as up to four air-to-air missiles. The total weight for armament comes out to around 8,000 kg (17,600 lbs) with a flight range of around 4,000 km (2,160 nm), increased up to 7,000 km (3,777 nm) with in-flight refueling. It is noteworthy to mention that the Su-32"FN" can carry and employ the UPAZ air refueling store, so one Su-32 could refuel from another. External wing-tip mounted Sorbtsya ECM pods can also be carried.

One of the most fascinating features about the Su-32"FN" is its large side-by-side crew station that contains the left command-pilot and right navigator-armament operator's stations. It is a fully pressurized

Not Gil Scott, but somewhat related, the Last Poets "E - Pluribus - Unum," my personal favorite.

herbert is getting what he deserves: paid

Frank Herbert, author of the Dune books, died in 1986.

Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten.

In 'Why Write?' and 'Politics and the English Language' (1948) Orwell argued that writers have an obligation of fighting social injustice, oppression, and the power of totalitarian regimes.

Yes, stealth tech came from Skunkworks.
Yes, Skunkworks and Skunkworks derived programs did lots of testing at "Area 51".
No it's not all fiction.
But it's not like aliens came down to Area 51 and gave us stealth. The truth is much more mundane. (But still an excelent read.) Basicly it came down to a little computer program called ECHO I (ECHO 1?).

The gyro story is interesting though. I do vaugley recall something along those lines. But I don't have enough info, to know what happened. Maybe something *is* up there.

As for the consparacy theorist site you linked to, so far all the claims I've seen for extrordinary aircraft later proove to be nothing more than new tech in prooving grounds. How many F-117 prototype flights do you think were mistaken for spaceships by nut-job conspiracy theorists in the 1980s?

"As for the "no fighter plane that *I* know if in the world could possibly turn like THAT!" people, I give you the Russian MiG 35. It doesn't look too radical, but the way it maneauvers is unreal. It uses vectored thrust like the U.S. F-22, but the russian designers have taken the vectored thrust a couple steps further than the F-22's. The diffrence is one of design theory. Western design emphesises standoff weponry and stealth. BVR kills (beyond visual range), where you shoot and kill the other guy before he even knows you're there. Russian designers are still designing for the dogfight. Close in furballs where speed is life. The guy with the most power and the tightest turning radius will usualy win (and in many cases, the guy with the most altitude has a tremendous advantage. Remember: You can always trade altitude for airspeed and vice versa). This kind of combat hasn't evolved a hell of a lot since the days of Baron von Richthofen. Anyway, I saw a demo of the MiG 35 on Discovery Wings. Amazing. The pilot was quite skilled, and a master of his aircraft. He could coax it to do things, that I would have told you were impossible to consistantly do on purpose and in control ina modern fighter aircraft. The man actually put the plane into reverse controled flight. He flew backwards for a short distance in controled flight. The Russian SU-37 also has thrust vectoring, but it's unclear to me which of the two represents a more advanced form of this tech. At any rate, an aircraft like these (or a more advanced generation of the same idea) could have moved like these "impossible patterns".

Ever hear of Cinderella? Sleeping Beauty?

The quotation you used was taken out of context. Stories like the aforementioned two were written long before Walt Disney was a struggling Hollywood cartoonist. His point was that Disney "interpreted" stories written long ago and made millions, but if someone 80 years from now were to write a movie derived from a Disney original, then they would be sued. There is irony inherent in that idea, as you can see.

You are right about Mickey Mouse being an original idea, but HE WASN'T TALKING ABOUT MICKEY MOUSE.

Case study:

Did you see Treasure Planet? Yeah, me neither, I heard it was horrible. But either way, Treasure Island was a book written by Robert Louis Stevenson in 1883. 114 years from now, if my great-great grandchild wanted to write The Lion King in space (the only discernable difference between Treasure Island and Treasure Planet), Disney would NEVER give them the right to make it, and would sue the pants off them if they tried.

Karel Capek, an Czech author from the 20's and 30's, wrote several stories about man being stripped of his human essence in order to change him into an efficient and manageable working machine. The word robot was first coined in his best-known novel, "Rossum's Universal Robots", which was about this very same subject:

"Young Rossum invented a worker with the minimum amount of requirements. He had to simplify him. He rejected everything that did not contribute directly to the progress of work. He rejected everything that makes man more expensive. In fact, he rejected man and made the Robot. My dear Miss Glory, the Robots are not people. Mechanically they are more perfect than we are, they have an enormously developed intelligence, but they have no soul. Have you ever seen what a Robot looks like inside?" (from R.U.R., 1920, trans. by Paul Selver)

Before this, he wrote a humorous short story about a crafty businessman who rounds up all of society's undesirables, purges them of all emotion through lack of artistic and sensual stimulation, and turns them into a phenomenal working force. But his design is put in ruins when the keepers inadvertently leave the light on during a working man's monthly conjugal encounter. That man is so inspired by her beauty that he breaks out in song during work, and the domino effect continues as within days the men have organized debating societies, newspapers, amateur theater troupes and the like. Before the week is out, the men rebel against their oppression and lay the entire operation to waste.

Interestingly, the DU model starts off with Einstein's original assumption of a 4-dimensional space (where our space is a 3-dimensional surface). Einstein decided to interpret the fourth (radial) dimension as time to avoid the idea of an expanding universe, because it was thought static at the time.

However, one main reason why DU has been developed, is that the calculations are much simpler and more intuitive than in GR. For instance, it explains _why_ space is curved by mass, while GR only tells how much.

kobo abe - "woman in the dunes". existentialist tragedy that makes camus look like a comic book. avoid the movie (thankfully).

yukio mishima - "the sailor who fell from grace with the sea". mishima tried to overthrow the japanese government by force of arms in the 70's and committed suicide after failing. let's see thomas pynchon do that! alarming parable of post-war reconstruction of japan. depravity, vengence, ennui... it's all here. avoid the movie.

kenzeburo oe - nip the buds shoot the kids. oe won the 1994 nobel prize for literature. this first novel is his grittiest. it's often compared to the lord of the flies but this is only because the main characters are children faced with the difficult decisions of wartime that even adults often cannot deal with. no movie.

TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of i{Spiritus Mundi}
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at laSt,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

One of the twentieth century's greatest poets, W. B. Yeats, was a bona fide occultist. He was a member of The Golden Dawn , which also claimed such notables as Aleister Crowley as alumni. You cannot seperate a study of Yeats belief in the occult from a study of his poetry and still teach about it. You cannot have a good course about post Great War literature, history and poetry without any mention of the influence of the occult on the artists of that era.

Oh, and I wouldn't be surprised if hardheaded materialists (such as Lovecraft) would be included in "occult" bans for writing "occult" literature. This despite the fact that he did not believe in the supernatural at all and was a firm atheist.

It gets even more complicated if you go back towards the Dark Ages, because it becomes harder to seperate the occult from what we would call religion today. Even as late as the Renaissance this was true. James I of England (that's the Bible James) was fascinated with the occult:

After the death of Elizabeth I, James the VI of Scotland became the new ruler, known in England as King James I. His fascination with the occult prompted him to write his own treatise on witchcraft, "Daemonology", and many believe that James's vehement belief in the divine right of kings influenced Shakespeare's playwriting methodology. James I is probably best known for his translation of the Bible into English which became known as the Authorized King James Version.

The point is, the only way to teach literature and history is to include the occult, or selectively censor both topics. This is a serious matter, and has nothing to do with teenagers thinking they are "dark lords." (Which sounds like something from that Baptist preacher's anti-Harry Potter video.)

Of course, 8 year olds don't seriously study history, but you started this discussion by talking of people 13-19, teenagers (not pre-teens). Better be careful of what college your daughter goes to, a good liberal arts college will require a certain minimal amount of study of the occult.

Frankly, we aren't talking about censoring "objectionable material" because that is what is covered by other catagories (sex and violence). We are talking about censoring Web site for no other reason than that they fall into the "occult" catagory. The reason these sites are censored is purely because modern people still believe in the occult and consider it dangerous, in and of itself. Therefore, rather than expose it to the cold light of reason, they'd rather shove it into the dark (along with Charles Darwin). In many cases the people behind this censorship are people who I also consider to have whacky beliefs (such as faith healing) which could be dangerous. Should their beliefs be censored as well? Good luck, the political power is on their side.

Enlightened people don't bother to censor dangerous beliefs, they mock them.