While Mayor Paul Schell, local businesses, and Mindy Cameron of the Seattle Times whine about how the Seattle City Council rejected the 2012 Olympics, there's a juicy bit of info they're hoping we don't hear about: the International Olympic Committee is in trouble with the U.S. Justice Department. In the past two weeks, allegations have surfaced that the IOC has been taking bribes from potential host cities. Senior IOC official Marc Hodler blew the whistle, in spite of threats from his boss, IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch. Hodler said that there's a list of IOC members whose votes can be bought for $3 million to $5 million each or for specific perks. He gave two examples. The Fiat family gave away Ferraris to IOC agents to influence the selection of Sestriere for the 1997 World Skiing Championship; he's worried that Fiat may do the same thing to get the 2006 Winter Games for Turin, Italy. Fiat denied the allegation and threatened to sue, but Howard Peterson, former senior U.S. delegate to the International Ski Federation, stepped forward to confirm that he turned down an offer from two Fiat executives who wanted to give him a car to buy his vote for Sestriere.

Marc Hodler's second example of corruption relating to the International Olympic Committee was the Salt Lake City bid committee's efforts to buy the 2002 Winter Games by setting up a $400,000 scholarship fund for 13 student-athletes, including the relatives of 6 IOC members. Of course, Salt Lake City was later chosen to host the 2002 Winter Olympics. U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno said that the Justice Department is currently deciding whether or not to open a probe into the bribery allegations surrounding the 2002 games. On Dec. 15, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that Sydney bid officials gave several million dollars to African members of the IOC to get the 2000 games in their city. Which leaves me wondering: would Boeing give away private jets to IOC officials to get the 2012 Olympics here? What about free software from Microsoft? And why are Jan Drago and the Seattle bid committee still trying to squeeze millions of dollars from the city council to "explore" the bid process?--Maria Tomchick

And you thought lead in house paint was bad... The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) announced plans this fall to begin promoting the use of radioactive scrap metals in the production of comsumer goods. The proposal would set radiation exposure standards for the smelting of radioactively contaminated scrap. Currently, about 1.6 million tons of such scrap metal is awaiting disposal in the U.S., with about 45 thousand additional tons produced annually as a result of decommissioning and decontamination work at nuclear power and weapons facilities. Reduce, reuse, reradiate.--Geov Parrish

Headlines in the business sections of local newspapers proclaim shock over how the bombing of Iraq has done nothing to boost the price of oil and oil company stocks. Investors eagerly look forward to murder as a means of making money. And I'm now seriously hoping for the first time that Clinton gets impeached--not because I think Gore will be any better, but because I think this idea of killing people in Third World countries to boost a president's popularity needs to die, and quickly. I was also disgusted to hear Republicans say, on the first day of the bombings, that they all "support the troops." Excuse me, but what troops? A handful of pilots flying too high to see the damage that they do? Button pushers sitting on ships in the gulf who resemble the computer geeks hunting down Will Smith in "Enemy of the State?" Remember, these guys train to kill at a distance surrounded by billions of dollars worth of taxpayer-purchased technology to keep them safe. You and I already "support our troops"--whether we want to or not--at the expense of poor people, children, the sick, and elderly here at home.--M.T.

While we were busy bombing... the Chicago-based anti-sanctions group Voices in the Wilderness, which has led 18 separate humanitarian missions to Iraq in defiance of the U.S.-led United Nations sanctions, has finally drawn the official ire of the Clinton administration. A four-person delegation including two Seattle men, Bert Sacks and Rev. Randall Mullins, has received notice that they may be fined $10,000 each and the group may be fined $120,000 for the heinous crime of delivering food, toys, and medical supplies to the famine-ravished in Iraq. Sacks, Mullins, and compatriots are treating the notification as a victory, and hoping that legal sanctions against them, and their refusal to abide by them, will draw further attention to the idiocy and cold-bloodedness of the sanctions policy.--G.P.

Britain's Law Lords ruled last Thursday to revoke their ruling to bar Pinochet from claiming immunity, because one of the 12 judges on the panel was found to have links to Amnesty International. Judge Hoffman didn't disclose that he was chairman of the charity arm of Amnesty in the U.K., and that his wife has worked for AI for over 20 years. Apparently, working on human rights issues in your spare time can make you biased against Augusto Pinochet personally. Big surprise. Now it's up to the new panel of Law Lords to show that you don't have to devote your spare time to human rights work to be appalled by murder, torture, genocide, and the violation of international law. The new immunity hearing is scheduled to begin on Jan. 18.--M.T.