Mr.Piffka's Quotes

What? Really? "Co-ink-e-dinky"? Heehee.... dang, there's another one! Are you sure we're not related?? Panzade, I knew I liked you!

"America united...without a single soldier, exhibits a more forbidding posture to foreign ambition than America disunited, with a hundred thousand veterans ready for combat."

James Madison (1751-1836)
"Federalist No. 14"
November 30, 1787

"It is an interesting and demonstrable fact, that all children are atheists and were religion not inculcated into their minds, they would remain so."

Ernestine Louise Rose (1810-1892)

And then they become characters in "Lord Of The Flies"?

"In Fallujah, the U.S. has shown that it will continue determinedly with its main mistake: the belief that military force solves everything."

El Pais, November 17, 2004, editorial

With all due respect to El Pais, the US tried negotiations the first time in Fallujah and got burned...mightily.
Substitute Iraq for Fallujah and they're on the money.

Hard to offer negotiations when you've already invaded.


"Once you've got Baghdad, it's not clear what you do with it. It's not clear what kind of government you would put in place of the one that's currently there now. Is it going to be a Shia regime, a Sunni regime or a Kurdish regime? Or one that tilts toward the Baathists, or one that tilts toward the Islamic fundamentalists? How much credibility is that government going to have if it's set up by the United States military when it's there? How long does the United States military have to stay to protect the people that sign on for that government and what happens to it once we leave?"

U. S. Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, 1991, explaining why they decided not to occupy Iraq.

That was my thinking, too, Piffka.

"Is the political objective we seek to achieve important, clearly defined and understood?

Have all other nonviolent policy means failed?

Will military force achieve the objective? At what cost?

Have the gains and risks been analyzed?

How might the situation that we seek to alter, once it is altered by force, develop further and what might be the consequences?"

Gen. Colin Powell (1937-); in 1992, outlining the 'Powell Doctrine' - questions to be answered prior to committing American troops overseas

I still feel he's a brilliant general, his undoing though...is sad.

Hi Panzade. I agree.

Here's this morning's...

"What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another."

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)

Congrats on a year-long thread of thoughts!

For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
~T.S. Eliot

Thanks, Sophie99, that's nice of you to say and a superior quote.

Mr.P. was born & bred in the Land of 10,000 Lakes & Twin Cities. Lovely place.

You're welcome! Yes, the Land of 10,000 lakes is indeed lovely. Of course, it's also known as the Gopher state...born..bred & still burrowing here!

"Liberty is the only thing you cannot have unless you are willing to give it to others."


- William Allen White

Haha... funny, Sophie! I will ask him if he's heard that before. Is it snowing yet?


(Good quote, Panzade. Reminds me of another -- something like the only thing you can really have is what you give away.)


Here's today's quote:

"Doubt comes in at the window when inquiry is denied at the door."

Benjamin Jowett (1817-1893)

Out of the bosom of the air, Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken, Over the woodlands brown and bare, Over the harvest-fields forsaken, Silent, and soft, and slow descends the snow.

~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

We actually have not had as much snow as seasons past...it will be more of an ecru Christmas, I think..

Ecru Christmas? Hahahaha

I worked as a Christmas "elf" at Dayton's one season and learned enough to understand there is a fine art to chunk-kicking. Sounds like that may be a little-used skill this winter. On the dry and cold side of this state, the citizenry are having a similar dilemma. There's no snow and even at night it's hardly cold enough for a good self-respecting frost.

(nice Longfella quote)

Hey, Piffka, how's that pony working out for you?