Remember all those Halloween stories about the crazy old coot who lives in the haunted house on the hill? It’s Hugo.

The latest evidence is the amazing success of the new iTunes video service.

“Selling one million videos in less than 20 days strongly suggests there is a market for legal downloads,” Steve Jobs, Apple CEO, said in a statement. “Our next challenge is to broaden our content offerings.”

Now that’s interesting. If Apple starts distributing independent films, a lot of things could change.

Well, some people (nincompoops) seem to think so, but to me he’s my friend – Michael Ledeen. I’ve called him “Freedom’s Friend” on here and indeed that’s what he is. He is also a member of the Editorial Board of Pajamas Media. You will find his profile under – what else? – “Faster, please.”

<img alt=”valerie.jpg” src=”http://www.rogerlsimon.com/mt-archives/valerie.jpg” width=”430″ height=”303″ /
From MSNBC: In an interview aired Sunday on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” Wilson said that Plame, 42, was in shock when she saw her name and that of her fictitious employer published in a syndicated column by Robert Novak.

“She felt like she’d been hit in the stomach. It took her breath away,” Wilson said.

From Reuters: Russia could veto a U.N. resolution that threatens Syria with sanctions if it does not cooperate with a probe into the killing of a former Lebanese prime minister, Interfax news agency quoted a Russian source at the United Nations as saying on Monday.

Russia never ceases to amaze in its lack of understanding of what is in its own self-interest.

UPDATE: Perhaps I spoke to soon (not the first time). According to The Australian: The UN Security Council has hammered out a tough resolution demanding that Syria co-operate with a probe into the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister or face possible sanctions.

Diplomats from Britain, France and the US told The New York Times they expected the resolution to pass the Security Council overnight and did not foresee a veto from China or Russia, the two countries most reluctant to punish Syria.

Syria is campaigning to ward off UN sanctions from the Hariri Assassination:

Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Walid al-Mualem toured the Gulf on Sunday to enlist Arab support ahead of a UN meeting to discuss possible sanctions against Damascus over the killing of Lebanon’s former prime minister.

A UN investigation led by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis has accused senior Syrian and Lebanese officials of an intricate plot to kill Hariri.

Meanwhile, in further news of how it’s okay to be fascist:

An Austrian doctor accused of killing hundreds of inmates at a Nazi concentration camp during World War Two has been hiding in Spain for the last 20 years, a Spanish newspaper reported on Sunday. German authorities have said they are hunting for Aribert Heim, 91, known as “Doctor Death.”

Heim worked in Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria and killed hundreds of inmates by lethal injection and torture, according to the Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center, which has also said Heim may be hiding out in Spain.

Who was hiding him, I wonder.

Far be it for me to point readers of this site to Instapundit (it’s usually the other way around), but Glenn’s latest – and longish (for him) – post on the CIA and Libby seems worth providing space here for comments. I think the Professor pretty much got the nail and hammer thing together on this one.

“Hurricane Beta belts Nicaragua!”

[Maybe they're testing a new drink in the French Quarter. -ed. You're fired.]

The former special counsel to Bill Clinton wrote a superb column on the Libby Affair in yesterday’s NYT attacking the infantile partisanship dominating American political life today. Start with this:

First, each side seems unable to resist applying a double standard, doing and saying exactly what only recently it criticized the other side for doing and saying.

No kidding.

UPDATE: I guess Harry Reid didn’t read Davis’ article – or, if he did, he didn’t have the brains to understand it. [More likely.-ed.]

(ht: TMiller)