A few general comments -- plus: Has the BULGE returned?

Well, I may finally have achieved a day with a light work load. Time to catch up on some basic human activities -- catching a little shut-eye, walking the dog, drinking Jamba Juice, and trying to end Republican party corruption.

Many who tried to access this site within the past couple of days weren't able to do so. Some have speculated that "they" put the kibosh on my work. Very doubtful -- the outage seems also to have affected other blogs using the Blogger service. (Update: Just a minute ago, Xymphora was up, while my URL led to a "403 error." Even so, let's not get paranoid.)

Besides, right now a whole lot of people (including some well-known writers) are looking into Wilkes, and into the larger isssue of DOD contractor corruption. That's the best possible outcome. Remember Return of the King? Welcome to the battle of Pelennor Fields. We're facing the fearsome mega-elephants of war, and if we want to bring one of those monsters down, we'll need a thousand stubborn little SOBs to ride out there, get within range and fire their best shots.

One happy warrior who has taken aim at the beast is Laura Rozen. Check out her latest:

Heard a funny story about Brent Wilkes today, alleged Cunningham co-conspirator 1. That he has a whole lot of water bottles in his office. When someone remarked on them, Wilkes said he was going to be selling that water to the government. Hey, who said Pure Aqua Technologies was a shell company?

And don't let anyone try to taint you with the dread words "conspiracy theory." A down-to-earth story about defense contractor fraud does not deserved to be lumped alongside eldritch allegations about aliens, psychics, freemasons and similar Illuminati weirdness.

The proposition that taxpayer monies were funneled into political campaigns is hardly outside the realm of the thinkable, especially in light of the Wilkes and Wade CIA connections. For decades, the CIA has used similar methods to engineer elections in other countries -- in Italy, in France, in Lebanon, in Japan. The old Covert Action Information Bulletin once printed a story (sorry, I don't have the publication date to hand) which claimed that some Agency hands used these very same "covert funding" tactics to help unseat Frank Church, the congressman who had caused the Company some annoyance in the 1970s.

I'll have more on the scandal soon. In the meantime, a reader has passed along a tidbit about...THE BULGE.

Remember Promptergate? It may be back. My reader insists that if you examine a CNN clip available here, you'll encounter clear indications that some offscreen helper is whispering into Bush's ear. (Scroll down to the words "Watch the president blast back -- 2:12")

Alas, I cannot judge for myself. The video clip won't load for me. (And yes, I do have the latest version of Windows Media Player, a piece of software I never particularly liked.) So hie thee hence, and tell me what you see....