Thomas Jefferson

I received an email with a quote wrongly attributed to Thomas Jefferson saying; "A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have. " it turned out President Ford said this in 1974. While researching this I did run across a lot of good quotes by Jefferson. After reading some of Jefferson's writings, I wonder how someone could question the intent of the Right To Bear Arms in the constitution. Jefferson specifically states that the main reason the people must retain their right to bear arms is to protect themselves from Tyranny in government. He confirms his belief in God while he also cautions the public to be religiously tolerant because of historical abuses by the church.

* No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms [within his own lands].
o Draft Constitution for Virginia (June 1776) This quote often appears with the parenthetical omitted and with the spurious extension, "The strongest reason for the people to retain their right to keep and bear arms is as a last resort to protect themselves against tyranny in government".

* Whensoever hostile aggressions...require a resort to war, we must meet our duty and convince the world that we are just friends and brave enemies.
o Letter to Andrew Jackson (December 3, 1806).

* Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.
o Letter to John Norvell (June 11, 1807).

* And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
o Letter to William Stevens Smith (November 13, 1787), quoted in Padover's Jefferson On Democracy

Power Corrupts

There are those in America today who have come to depend absolutely on government for their security. And when government fails they seek to rectify that failure in the form of granting government more power. So, as government has failed to control crime and violence with the means given it by the Constitution, they seek to give it more power at the expense of the Constitution. But in doing so, in their willingness to give up their arms in the name of safety, they are really giving up their protection from what has always been the chief source of despotism — government. Lord Acton said power corrupts. Surely then, if this is true, the more power we give the government the more corrupt it will become. And if we give it the power to confiscate our arms we also give up the ultimate means to combat that corrupt power. In doing so we can only assure that we will eventually be totally subject to it. When dictators come to power, the first thing they do is take away the people's weapons. It makes it so much easier for the secret police to operate, it makes it so much easier to force the will of the ruler upon the ruled.

• Ronald Reagan
• Column published in Guns and Ammo (1975-09-01)

Useful VBScript pages

These scripts are links to the ActiveXperts Network Manager support pages. (I know nothing about their product but the scripts on their support site are superb!)

Scripts to manage Text Files

Checking the Size of a File Before Reading It
Creating and Naming a Text File
Creating a Text File
Generating a File Name
Reading a Text File Character by Character
Reading a Text File into an Array
Reading a Text File from the Bottom Up
Writing Data to a Text File

Plain Text Scripting

Read a Comma Separated Values Log
Read a Fixed Width Column Log

Event Log Scripting

Add WMI Data to an Event Log Entry
Back Up and Clear an Event Log
Back Up and Clear Large Event Logs
Create a Custom Event Log
Copy Event Log Events to a Database
Copy the Previous Day’s Event Log Events to a Database
Create Unique File Names for Event Log Backups
List All Events from an Event Log
List All Stop Events
List Events For a Specific Day From An Event Log
List Events From a Specific Event Log
List Event Log Properties
List Events Using an Asynchronous Query
List Specific Events from an Event Log
List System Event Log Properties
List Security Log Properties
Modify Event Log Properties
Monitor Event Logs in Real Time
Write to a Custom Event Log Using EventCreate
Write Events to the Local Event Log
Write Events to a Remote Event Log

10 Silver Stars in 1 Battle

Good story about US Special Forces battling it out with Afghani rebels. It is a little sad that the reporter felt the need to put in the story that the soldiers used the lifeless body of an orphan as cover from bullets.

Beer For My Horses

I just watched the CMT movie "Beer For My Horses", it was pretty entertaining. This movie will not win any awards, but if you enjoy the comedy of Rodney Carrington and the stories told through the music of Toby Keith then you will enjoy the movie. It is worth watching just to see some of the characters played by some great musicians like Ted Nugent, Willie Nelson, Mac Davis, Mel Tellis and David Allen Coe. Then they have a lot of grade A actors like Barry Corbin and Tom Skeret.

This is a "B" grade movie but definitely worth the time, if for nothing more than the blooper reels, make sure you watch the bloopers. With the exception of the bathroom choir the bloopers are funnier than any scene in the movie.

Tim Tebow

Like him or not, you have to respect him. Much to my dismay I sat and watched him single handidly beat my beloved Crimson Tide Saturday afternoon.

There are rumors of him getting a second Heisman Trophy this year, and I believe he deserves it. Without Tebow Florida would not have had a chance against Bama or Georgia or many of the others. He is possibly the single best College Football player I have ever seen play the game. Over the past several years I grew to dislike him, because of all the press and how people worshipped him.

In the recent months I started paying more attention to him, and quickly realized there is a lot to this young athelete. Initially he had stated he was going to forgoe the NFL for life as a missionary. I was thinking WOW, now there is a man with strong religous beliefs! I then thought, you know if he went on to play and be successful in the NFL he could do more to spread the word of the Lord there than he could in some wilderness. I also thought that if he didn't want the money, then he could still live a life of poverty and donate his proceeds to the needy. I read today that his coaches believed much as I do and he is now announcing he will make himself available for the NFL draft, stating that with the publicity and money that comes with an NFL carreer would allow him to do more for the church and his community than he could as missionary.

After reading that article I respect him now as a person as well as an athelete. Hats off to you Tebow! I hope you get the Heisman again and go on the have a great carreer in the NFL.