Random Passage Day

Entirely too uncreative to come up with some of my own stuff right now, so I'll just slap up some random passages I've read in the past few days and see how many people I can offend.

First from Systeme de la Nature by Paul Henri Thiry (1770) via Cosmos:

If a faithful account was rendered of man's ideas upon the Divinity, he would be obliged to acknowledge, that for the most part the word "gods" has been used to express the concealed, remote, unknown causes of the effects he witnessed; that he applies this term when the spring of natural, the source of known causes ceases to be visible: as soon as he loses the thread of these causes, or as soon as his mind can no longer follow the chain, he solves the difficulty, terminates his research, by ascribing it to his gods; thus giving a vague definition to an unknown cause, at which either his idleness, or his limited knowledge, obliges him to stop. When, therefore, he ascribes to his gods the production of some phenomenon, the novelty or the extent of which strikes him with wonder, but of which his ignorance precludes him from unravelling the true cause, or which he believes the natural powers with which he is acquainted are inadequate to bring forth; does he, in fact, do any thing more than substitute for the darkness of his own mind, a sound to which he has been accustomed to listen with reverential awe?

236 years and few changes in some ways of thinking.

And from Matt Good who's started writing here occasionally:

According to a recent Angus Reid poll, some 62% of Americans are against current US military involvement in Iraq. Ironically, according to another recent poll, some 38% of Americans admit to the repeated use of crack cocaine.

That's almost the whole post, but there's really no way to pull more of a tidbit. Apparently he's been working on writing material for a new album.

Also saw the music video for Counting Bodies Like Sheep to the Rhythm of the War Drums by A Perfect Circle which I apparently missed the boat on at the time of the last presidential election. I guess I shouldn't be surprised as its a longish track which doesn't fit the 3:30 cookie cutter for TV and radio play and doesn't have enough booty in da club, drama (we don't want no drama drama), or black eye make-up in it. Anyways, if you haven't seen it you can watch it on the APC website. The quicktime stream wasn't working properly for me, but I also have a version in .mpg if any one wants a copy.