British newspapers front pages, August 17, 2005 carry pictures of the body of Jean Charles...

Jean Charles de Menezes walked at a normal pace into the subway station on July 22, used his card to pass through the turnstile, and was sitting inside the car in his light, short denim jacket when he was shot several times in the side of the head by plainclothes police officers in front of horrified passengers. These events were captured on closed circuit television cameras. Yesterday it was reported in London that an official police investigation had determined the facts I describe above. They directly contradict earlier police accounts of de Menezes's death. [see the Guardian site for more coverage]

But of course this could never happen here in the U.S., so the report, about the lies and incompetence of government antiterrorism agencies given extraordinary powers, a report which dominates the news across Britain and the rest of Europe today, appears on page three in our NYTimes this morning. In fact, the only thing that would likely never happen here is a report of official lies and incompetence. Our regime would never allow it. For security, don't you know.

Vince [see the comment on my previous post] and many other readers already know that I have no illusions about either the comprehensiveness or the liberalism of the NYTimes, in spite of the frequency with which I cite my local rag on this blog, but I think I should make myself more clear on this point right now.

While I get most of my international news on line, I still like sitting at the table during my extended mid-day breakfast, listening to the birds and leafing through the Times's huge stash of hard-copy serendipity. It is my local paper, it is bigger than the others (thank the gods there still are others, especially Newsday), its extensive features do manage to entertain readers who might think they've seen everything, and sometimes it's just so much fun to see the more obvious evidences of its biases and its agendae, and to broadcast them to a world which is persuaded it's actually a Lefty newspaper.

[image and caption are from Agence France-Presse]