our government has gone completely insane

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/US/09/22/plane.diverted.stevens/index.html

An entire planeful of people had to be delayed for *SIX* HOURS because they needed to get a dangerous man like Yusuf Islam off the aircraft as soon as possible. And because "According to U.S. officials, he is an active supporter of Muslim charities." After all, he might sing at someone. Like the Syrian musicians in that transcontinental flight.

So, *ALL* Muslim charities are now considered to be "organizations believed to be aiding terrorism"? This is just crazy.

thanks to vatoengland for this link

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3531469

More on the Yusuf Islam issue. It looks as if TSA is still trusting the Israeli report that Yusuf Islam had "donated tens of thousands of dollars to the Islamic terrorist group, Hamas"; my guess is that no amount of contradiction will shift information provided by the Israelis, and that, frankly, its entirely possible that Islam contributed to a Hamas charity. It's my understanding that plenty of people did, either because they didn't know that the charity was linked to Hamas or because they felt the charities' work was worthwhile and not directly connected to its terrorist activities.

It's an explanation, but IMO it's still pretty stupid.

and, in the "is this really news?" category

Three top political aides to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) were indicted Tuesday on charges of illegally raising political funds from corporations in 2002, much of which was funneled into the Republican takeover of the Texas legislature.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39563-2004Sep21.html

weekly tracker

back down to 261

ugh

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/21/intimidation/index.html

Kofi Annan's speech

...hatred, corruption, violence and exclusion go without redress. The vulnerable lack effective recourse and the powerful manipulate laws to retain power and accumulate wealth. At times even the necessary fight against terrorism is allowed to encroach unnecessarily on civil liberties,"

You'd think he was talking about the US, except there are sadly many places where things are much, *MUCH* worse :-(

AP report

UN text of his speech

from the White House's Hispanic Heritage event

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/rele...0040915-8.html#

If interested, there's a link to watch the conference contained in the transcript.

Here's the relevent comments regarding Marco, Amado, and Eliseo:

I want to thank Israel. Appreciate you coming. El amigo de familia, Gustavo Cisneros. Gracias, Gustovo, welcome. Jimmy, thanks for coming. Jimmy Smits. Proud you're here. Elizabeth Vargas is with us. I'm proud she is here. I want to thank Alex Wallau from ABC Television, for coming with us. Eliseo -- we got some soccer stars? Where are they? Donde esta los soccer stars? They're somewhere. Oh, there they are, yes. The three stars. (Applause.) Eliseo, Marco, y Amado. Thank you for coming. (Applause.) So how is the team this year, pretty good? Yes? No hablas Ingles. (Laughter.) Eliseo is from El Salvador. Marco, que pais? Bolivia. Amado is from Honduras. Bienvenidos. Good luck in the season.

As one commnetator on BigSoccer remarked, yep, sounds like Bush...