BANGKOK, Thailand -- Defending Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge leaders at an international tribunal may include arguing about genocide and the lack of a "smoking gun," despite the deaths of up to three million Cambodians, according to U.N. Principal Defender Rupert Skilbeck.

"One of the big questions will be whether, what happened in Cambodia, was genocide or not," Mr. Skilbeck said in an interview.

"There is a very strong legal argument to say that genocide is when you kill people because of their ethnicity, whereas the vast majority of the [Khmer Rouge] purges were not for ethnic reasons, but were for political reasons. So genocide may not be possible" as a successful prosecution charge.

Mr. Skilbeck heads the Defense Support Section of the tribunal, which is officially called the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC).

A London-based criminal lawyer, Mr. Skilbeck was previously Defense Advisor for the Special Court for Sierra Leone, and head of the Criminal Defense Section for the War Crimes Chamber in Sarajevo.

The House of Representatives is poised to vote on NJ Rep. Holt's "election reform" bill (HR 811), TODAY ,Thursday. Organizations ordinarily aligned with the common good have pulled out all the stops to ram this legislation through. Unless - and maybe even though - we make a LOT of noise, this bill will become law and our elections will take more irrevocable steps away from democracy. If you doubt this, read Mark Crispin Miller's expose below -complete with quotes from Holt and his legislative aide, Michelle Mulder- as well as an action alert put out by VoteRescue.

Here's everything you need, in a nutshell: information about HR 811 and contact info for your member of Congress:

Here's how you call (no time to write) your Congressional Rep.: Contacting the Congress

Exposé: Holt bill was revised by Microsoft, Diebold and ES&S by Mark Crispin Miller

Editor's note:
One of the most detailed looks at the problems of DRE voting machines occurred in the challenge of Franklin County Domestic Relations Judge Carole Squire to the certified election results in her 2006 election. Note the long list of problems documented through legal discovery and through expert witness testimony. This is typical with e-voting problems in Franklin County as well as in Cuyahoga County. By looking at e-voting results on the micro level, we better understand why the results are so unreliable. At the macro level in all elections since 2000, this case is a testament to why we need hand-counted paper ballots.

Bob Fitrakis, Editor

Read the whole document as a PDF.

When Hamas members were elected as the majority bloc of the Palestinian Legislative Council, and as it became apparent that a US-led international embargo would be an adjoining price to that victory, I contacted many intellectuals and writers in Palestine, mostly those who often positioned themselves as part of the Palestinian Left. I asked them to solidify behind the collective choice of the Palestinian people and to shield Palestinian democracy at any cost.

PARIS -- You do not need to speak good French to understand the meaning of noblesse.

            Just look at how swiftly Scooter Libby avoided prison time. Nothing lost in translation there.

            Same for what the Germans call Schadenfreude. That's when someone takes pleasure in someone else's misfortune, such as the outing of a covert American spy just to watch her tattletale husband squirm.

            It was Machiavellian how the neo-cons let the melodrama unfold in public, starting with letting Patrick Fitzgerald believe justice would prevail, followed by Valerie Plame's testimony, along with some congressional grousing. As though any of it would make a difference to our imperial co-presidency.

            As they say in Mayberry, USA, "Au contraire, Aunt Bea."

            Dubya thought it unfair that the veep's consigliore should do time pending appeal. So on behalf of Cheney Inc.'s fall guy, the Prodigal Compassionate Conservative Son returned.