Another socialist blog

We’ve heard over and over that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has used chemical weapons within his own borders. What we haven’t heard is that he isn’t the only one who’s done so. In 1919 Winston Churchill, then secretary of state at the British war office, was a strong advocate of using chemical weapons against the Kurds and Iraqis. I do not understand this sqeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes, he said. And indeed gas was used against Iraqi rebels. as Geoff Simons documents in Iraq: From Sumer to Saddam.

If you thought you were paying too much for music CDs, you were right: it turns out that music retailers and publishers were colluding in a scheme to prevent the retailers from selling at a discount. Retailers Trans World Entertainment, Tower Records, and Musicland Stores, and publishers Universal Music & Video Distribution (UMVD), BMG Distribution, WEA, and EMI Distribution (EMD), and Sony Music Distribution together will pay $143 million to settle an anti-trust lawsuit brought by state attorneys general.

Yeah, it’s just a slap on the wrist for a multi-billion-dollar industry, and they don’t have to admit any wrongdoing, but it still couldn’t happen to a nicer gang of defendants.