Second, Brenna is sympathetic to Pianka. Her post was basically, "he is right". Because of the sparsity of sources on the subject (it was at Pianka's special request that his talk was not videotaped or recorded by audio) that people ran to her blog. She posted what can only be called a tearful and angry response to people emailing her. (That's what I saw when I visited her blog.) I would guess that she pulled it down herself. In fact, I seem to recall a page on Pianka's website was pulled relatively soon after this broke, but I can't remember the details.
Third, the Seguin Gazette Enterprise is a small-town paper. It doesn't publish on Mondays or Saturdays note the calendar on the right. I don't know that it has an agenda. Maybe one of their writers does and they're embarrassed. Maybe they just couldn't afford the bandwidth with all the hits. I just think it's an interesting comment on society that a newspaper that prints a story is considered to be hiding something if it pulls it from its website.
I read the transcript at the source on 218. (I guess it's a full transcript, it had a lot of ellipses.) What rambling, nonsensical claptrap! I guess you had to be there. Do you actually spend time going to such things? He didn't say anything until the question and answer session. That's a quarter-hour I'm never getting back.
It can be said that he didn't advocate anything. (That would take courage.) He did speak affectionately of China specifically because they were a police state. It doesn't seem that he mentioned terrorists at all, but again I don't know if that article produces a full transcript. I can guess what he would have said in such a circumstance and I would have to say that such a thing would not be advocating terrorism, but would be an unfortunate choice of words.
He also specifically mentions tax policy. Does it bother you, even a little bit, that this guy's "science" is nothing more than advocacy and is tainted by politics? This is what I hate, the politics, the ridiculous predictions, the herd mentality. If your science weren't so soft, it would speak for itself.
I should say that I didn't find Mims (who ran to the Texas Academy) and the other guy (who called Homeland) credible after I read a little about them. When I found out they were ID advocates, I realized this was a battle over other issues and they were looking for a scalp. So you have the irony of ID advocates distorting the views of and trying to discipline a scientist. You also have the irony of scientist Pianka trying to shield his work (or at least the presentation of his work) from open debate.
I took much greater stock in what Pianka himself had said in the past as the very very revealing comments of his students.
I suspect Pianka is at the end of his career, but he seems to had an impressive career in reptile biology, and trained a large number of students. I don't like the politicization of science: I just spent an unpleasant few hours on Panda's Thumb arguing about whether the 'Swift Boating' (their phrase, not mine) of Pianka is a characteristically Republican tactic. But conservatives are greatly worsening the situation by conducting a witch-hunt against an eccentric but widely admired scientist who may have political opinions but is not obviously political. Most of us feel that if they come for Pianka and we don't object, they will eventuially come for us.
Brenna M, by the way, is apparently a committed Christian.