[Guest post by DRJ]

Via the Instapundit, Michael Ledeen recounts an email from a Marine Chaplain returning from Iraq:

“As we came in for the final approach to Oakland a Lieutenant who served in Afghanistan with the same unit in 2006 mentioned how when they landed in Oakland they were not allowed in the terminal. He said, “they made us get out by the FED EX building and we had to sit out there for 3 hours”. He also indicated he was almost arrested by the TSA for getting belligerent about them not letting the Marines into the terminal.

Well the same thing happened again. This time we did not park by the FED EX building, instead we were offloaded near the grass that separates the active runway from the taxi ramp, about 400 yards from the terminal. When we inquired why they wouldn’t allow us in the airport they gave us some lame excuse that we hadn’t been screened by TSA. While true, the screening which we did have was much more thorough than any TSA search and was done by US Customs. Additionally, JFK didn’t seem to have a problem with our entering their terminal, nor did security in Germany.

It felt like being spit on. Every Marine and soldier felt the message loud and clear, “YOU ARE NOT WELCOME IN OAKLAND!”

This is unacceptable.

— DRJ

UPDATE 1: DKos thinks it’s a hoax and notes that CNN is investigating. Stay tuned.

UPDATE 2: Michelle Malkin confirms the story is true. Note especially the Oakland Airport PR department’s response.

MM also reprinted Mr. Chips’ comment #17 from this thread. Good comment, Mr. C., and thank you for your service to our country.

[Guest post by DRJ]

RIP George Rieveschl:

“George Rieveschl, a chemical engineer (not a medical doctor) whom millions of sufferers of allergies, colds, rashes, hives and hay fever can thank for the relief they receive by swallowing a capsule of beta-dimethylaminoethylbenzhydryl ether hydrochloride — the antihistamine he invented and renamed Benadryl — died Thursday in Cincinnati. He was 91 and lived in Covington, Ky.”

Rieveschl wanted to be a commercial artist but he couldn’t land a job – despite 200 applications that yielded 6 responses, all rejections. So he returned to college for multiple chemistry degrees and went on to invent Benadryl, among other accomplishments.

Lucky for us.

— DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

If you’ve looked at Patterico’s pictures of Italy and Switzerland but you’re still not sure where to go on your next vacation, there’s always Dubai.

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[Guest post by DRJ]

Duke University President Richard Brodhead tries to walk the line between satisfying the lacrosse players and their backers, while not antagonizing the Gang of 88 and their supporters.

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[Guest post by DRJ]

Scientists have learned that cockroaches are smarter in the evening than in the morning.

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In a curious passage that tries to make the case that Alberto Gonzales was a True Conservative, Toobin sloppily distorts a Gonzales quote about the Geneva Convention. Here’s Toobin:

Gonzales had taken the most aggressive position among Bush’s allies on the legal basis for the war on terror, dismissing the protections of the Geneva Convention as “quaint.”

Sigh.

We’ve been through this before, noting the distortion that originated with Michael Isikoff, and continued with Maureen Dowd, Sidney Blumenthal, and every liberal blogger under the sun.

Let’s go to Gonzales’s original memo and read the entire quote:

In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions requiring that captured enemy be afforded such things as commissary privileges, scrip (i.e., advances of monthly pay), athletic uniforms, and scientific instruments.”

As is clear when one reads Gonzales’s actual quote, Gonzales did not dismiss the entirety of the Geneva Conventions protections as “quaint,” as Toobin falsely claims. Rather, Gonzales was referring to only a curious subset of protections — like providing musical instruments and athletic uniforms to captured prisoners — that actually were quaint.

Yet another mistake by Toobin.

From the Toobin book, we learn that apparently O’Connor moved to the left in reaction to very conservative justices:

Most famously, from the beginning of his tenure, Scalia had actively repelled O’Connor, pushing her toward her moderate, swing role.

(p. 318)

If you’re going to be a meanie towards me, there’s no way I’m going to agree with you!

Except that it appears O’Connor wasn’t necessarily quite so shallow — because she also moved to the left even if not reacting to very conservative justices:

For all of O’Connor’s fondness for Roberts, his appointment did not restrain the move to the left that characterized her jurisprudence and thus the Court’s.

(p. 301)

Or maybe one meanie was enough to push her to the left?

A paraglider sails into view — Lauterbrunnen valley, Switzerland:

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