I'm trying to wrap my head around the Obama hatred that's coming from some Hillary supporters. I looked at the comments in her official blog and some at hillaryclintonforum.net. The latter is particularly full of venom. And now CBS has disabled comments on stories about Barack Obama because they were attracting too many racist comments. I don't understand it.

Well, partly I do. To put it mildly, Hillary ran a divisive campaign. Do I think she intended her supporters to all run screaming toward John McCain if she didn't win the nomination? No, I don't. But she played dirty and this is the result. The Hillary supporters dumping hatred on Obama and saying they'll either vote for McCain or no one, are they many or is it just a very loud but small group?

If it is a small group, well good riddance. I don't want them on my side politically; they make my side look bad. If it's more than a small group, the pride I felt for America yesterday has quickly evaporated into shame.

What I keep wondering is this: did these people support Hillary because they liked her policies? Apparently not. Seems they were only in it for the cult of her personality. Seems to me if they actually gave a shit about the things she cares about, if they actually honoured her long, hard fight, they would be coming to rally behind Obama now. They're betraying her by voting for Mccain. Do they not realise if she had won the primaries, she would be the one running against McCain now?

Hillary Clinton won't be voting for McCain; she doesn't want him to be president; she knows his policies will only lead to more hardship and impoverishment for America and the world. So what gives Hillary Supporters? What do YOU want? Watch her speech from Tuesday night again, listen to what she cares about, to what she wants, to why she's stayed in this race till the end. It's not because she's a poor loser, it's because she wants the best for America (and even if it's not her, it sure as hell isn't John McCain). If you identify with the spirit of her fight at all, support the man she'll be voting for this November, and that sure as hell won't be John McCain.

What happens now? How is Hillary going to bring her supporters to Obama in November? I really want to know. She's done such a good job pitting them against Barack Obama, many say they won't vote for him even if she endorses him. Some even hate Obama so much, they don't want Hillary tarnished by being his Vice President. Really? We're this petty now, when there's so much at stake?

How are you going to fix this, Hillary?

I'll be traveling internationally on Saturday, so I'll probably miss her speech. I hope she makes me proud again in a way (hopefully only a few of) her supporters sure don't.

All right, I said I was going to write a little more on the Pianka V Mims thing. I'm a little late coming to this particular party, but such is the time flow of my existence. I was probably a glacier in a previous life.

I was going to write about how distressing it is that so many people turn their backs on science, how dismaying the anti-intellectualism of 'the right wing' is, and how sad it makes me to see folks--many of whom are self-professed Christians--jumping on the bandwagon to defame a man they do not know and have never met, especially when most of them have remained ignorant of what Dr. Pianka actually did say and merely parrot Mims' false accusations. At least read Dr. Pianka's actual position before adding your voice to those of other ignorant reactionaries.

( But others have already said that, so... )

Because the ID manufactured controversy surrounding Dr. Pianka is upsetting for many reasons, here's Skeptacles' discussion of the issue and posted transcript of the lecture as given at St. Edward's University.