OK, I was one of the people who wanted to kick “appropriate” ass after 9/11 (although that didn’t extend to just anyone who professed to be a Muslim or even people who weren’t, like those poor Sikhs in Arizona who were shot by some idiot who figured that anyone wearing a turban deserved to die).

And I’ve even supported common-sense profiling of airline passengers (which doesn’t mean searching everyone who looks “Middle Eastern”, but implies that people from known radical Muslim countries should undergo a bit more scrutiny than, say, Teddy Kennedy).

But it’s getting a bit ridiculous that an airplane flight ready to take off should be called back to the gate and canceled just because (and this is not a joke) somebody had scribbled in one of the free inflight magazines in an Arabic-looking handwriting.

But wait, there’s more!

The singer/songwriter formerly known as Cat Stevens was flying to Washington, DC from his home in London today when his plane was diverted to Maine, he was interviewed by Federal agents, and denied entrance to the United States on national security grounds. While he changed his name to Yusuf Islam and quit the music business decades ago as part of his conversion to Islam, recently he’s been doing music again, with an accent on peace. His website details some interesting facts: he donated profits from his retrospective album to the September 11th fund, and he’s spoken out against the radical Muslims that he feels have “hijacked” his religion.

So, unless the U.S. government has some solid evidence that this gentle man has some solid ties to terrorists or is otherwise something other than he appears, the only reasons I can see for kicking him out of this country is that he’s famous and his last name is Islam.