#JeSuisCharlie

This was the most recent (but hopefully not the last) image sent out on Twitter by a French left-wing, anti-religious magazine called Charlie Hebdo. It shows the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and for an explanation (of sorts) here's a little more. It may or not have been the last straw for a band of armed thugs and losers who've complained for years about cartoons satirizing Islamic extremism and who burst into the magazine's Paris office today and killed 12 people -- including some of best-known satirical cartoonists in France -- and wounded eight more. It was not only one of the worst terror attacks in the West in recent years, it was the most heinous assault on the practice of journalism I can remember.

I certainly have a lot of thoughts on this, and so do you, but as often with the case on a big international story I've a little jammed pulling together something for tomorrow's newspaper. For now, know that this is a barbaric attack not just on journalism but on the basic rights we all share -- to express our opinions freely. I'm outraged and  horrified -- my condolences to the loved ones and friends of those who died, to the wounded, and to the people of France. Those who continued to express their views in the face of terroristic threats (including a 2011 firebombing) are true heroes, and their killers are a bunch of gutless cowards.