Author: VD

The unreliability of science

Remember, this is the standard by which Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris believe truth should be measured:

“The majority of papers that get published, even in serious journals, are pretty sloppy,” said John Ioannidis, professor of medicine at Stanford University, who specializes in the study of scientific studies.

This sworn enemy of bad research published a widely cited article in 2005 entitled: “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False.” Since then, he says, only limited progress has been made….

“Diet is one of the most horrible areas of biomedical investigation,” professor Ioannidis added — and not just due to conflicts of interest with various food industries. “Measuring diet is extremely difficult,” he stressed. How can we precisely quantify what people eat?

In this field, researchers often go in wild search of correlations within huge databases, without so much as a starting hypothesis. Even when the methodology is good, with the gold standard being a study where participants are chosen at random, the execution can fall short.

A famous 2013 study on the benefits of the Mediterranean diet against heart disease had to be retracted in June by the most prestigious of medical journals, the New England Journal of Medicine, because not all participants were randomly recruited; the results have been revised downwards.

So what should we take away from the flood of studies published every day?

Ioannidis recommends asking the following questions: is this something that has been seen just once, or in multiple studies? Is it a small or a large study? Is this a randomized experiment? Who funded it? Are the researchers transparent?

These precautions are fundamental in medicine, where bad studies have contributed to the adoption of treatments that are at best ineffective, and at worst harmful.

In their book “Ending Medical Reversal,” Vinayak Prasad and Adam Cifu offer terrifying examples of practices adopted on the basis of studies that went on to be invalidated, such as opening a brain artery with stents to reduce the risk of a new stroke.

It was only after 10 years that a robust, randomized study showed that the practice actually increased the risk of stroke.

Never forget that science cannot be considered reliable until it is called “engineering”. Until then, the most that one can accurately assume is that it has about a fifty percent chance of actually being correct. The fact that some physicists got some very accurate results in the 1950s says precisely nothing about that study published by a biologist or a medical researcher or an economist 70 years later.

When civility is not the answer

Matthew Cochran explains that civility can be a category error for conservatives:

Because civility is not a moral absolute and its form is always adjusting along with culture, it’s requirements are determined primarily by social contract — the kind of behavior we all implicitly or explicitly agree to when interacting with one another. Historically, some of these contracts have been great blessings while others have been reprehensible, but all are, by nature, contracts.

The detail that conservatives tend to forget is that when one party violates a contract, the other party is no longer bound by all of its terms. If you sign a contract to buy a car, and the dealer refuses to turn it over you, you aren’t “sinking to their level” by refusing to hand over your money. If you contract an employee who never shows up for work, you aren’t “repaying evil for evil” by withholding his wages. The same is true when dealing with people who are deliberately uncivil to civil people — it fundamentally changes what the rest of society owes them.

To be sure, this doesn’t mean that we must recklessly abandon civility whenever we get angry at the latest atrocious behavior from liberals. Civility is extremely valuable and is never something that should be tossed aside lightly. You need only look at the social justice left to see the consequences of doing so. Their enemies are not limited to conservatives. They rail just as hard against common sense when they melt down over beliefs that were shared by virtually everyone who ever lived until last week. They even cannibalize the very leftists who carried them to term whenever they’re triggered. Accordingly, conservatives are quite right to try and conserve valuable social structures like courtesy — they prevent all manner of chaos and suffering.

That said, civility does not actually exist between two parties when even one of them is deliberately uncivil. The unfortunate reality is that we increasingly find ourselves in circumstances in which there is nothing left to conserve. We need to stop taking the lazy road of “be civil though the heavens fall” and begin being deliberate about when to be civil — and when not to be.

First things first. There are no style points being awarded when it comes to saving Western civilization. There is only success and failure.

Better late than too late

The European nations are finally getting around to shielding their soft southern underbelly, fortunately before the coming African overpopulation crisis gets completely out of hand:

Europe will shut its southern doors to migrants under plans to be discussed by Germany, Austria and Italy next week, it has emerged. Germany’s hardline Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said talks would take place between the three nations on how to close the Mediterranean route into the EU. His announcement comes after a meeting with Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and amid plans being considered by Germany’s government for new immigration measures at their shared border.

It’s a good first step. The second step will be to launch Salvini’s quarter-by-quarter repatriations. Preferably on a continent-wide scale.

Following our lead

DC Comics is now imitating Arkhaven Comics:

Apparently, things come in threes. This looks like the third reveal about DC Comics upcoming plans for their monthly comic book line. – only one of which they have admitted to. This morning, Bleeding Cool told you about DC’s exclusive Walmart anthologies, serialising new Batman comics by Brian Bendis and Superman comics by Tom King which then got confirmed everywhere.

We then told you that DC Comics were moving their $3.99 line of comics from 20-page stories to 22-page stories, to justify the price point and steal a march on Marvel Comics.

And now? As a result of their investment into the 100 page Walmart anthology titles and the print stock needed for those titles, DC Comics are going to shift from glossy paper to non-glossy paper for their entire line.

Arkhaven already prints on non-glossy paper. And we don’t do 20-page stories, but 24-page stories. 20 percent more for 25 percent less! Of course, our 24-page stories retail for only $2.99 and aren’t full of SJW preaching. Check out the print editions here.

It could have been worse

We should probably take it easy on Disney for creating SJW Wars. Sure, they irretrievably and unnecessarily ruined the epic space opera franchise, but what most people don’t know is that George Lucas was going to ruin it anyhow.

The two-time best director Oscar nominee confided his vision to none other than James Cameron, who interviewed Lucas for “Space,” the second episode of his recent six-part AMC series “James Cameron’s Story of Science Fiction.” A transcript from their talk appears in the companion book of the same name, published by Insight Editions on May 18. In it, Lucas reveals that he would have turned his gaze from the cosmos to what can be viewed only under a microscope.

“[The next three ‘Star Wars’ films] were going to get into a microbiotic world,” he told Cameron. “There’s this world of creatures that operate differently than we do. I call them the Whills. And the Whills are the ones who actually control the universe. They feed off the Force.”

Elsewhere in the conversation, Lucas admitted, “Everybody hated it in ‘Phantom Menace’ [when] we started talking about midi-chlorians.” In terms of his storytelling, Lucas regarded individuals as “vehicles for the Whills to travel around in…And the conduit is the midi-chlorians. The midi-chlorians are the ones that communicate with the Whills. The Whills, in a general sense, they are the Force.”

Say what you will about Soylo and Space Leia and Ninja Pixie Force Princess and the Magic Negro Stormtrooper, but even the sum total of those unmitigated disasters still isn’t as bad as The Fantastic Star Wars Voyage: Free Whillies would have been.

This following video, however, is pretty cool. It’s a collection of 3D animation clips based on Ralph Mcquarrie’s original concept art for The Star Wars. When I was a kid, I had a collection of these concept sketches that were sold printed in color on oversized glossy paper.

You knew Marvel would make me a villain

Sooner or later. It was inevitable.

The Kree’s homeworld of Hala is in ruin, but the alien empire has sounded the call to war and directed it at the Inhumans. They have sent Black Bolt a direct message, “Join or Die.” But this is no ordinary message. It’s written in blood. The blood of Inhumans. The blood of 11,038 Inhumans. That’s right. The Kree Empire butchered 11,038 Inhumans to send Black Bolt a message that he will join the Kree Empire or die.

These 11,038 Inhumans wouldn’t be the only casualties. Four Inhuman queens would also perish at the hands of the Kree.

And they would be joined by some of Black Bolt’s closest allies. Triton falls to the Kree when he is unable to escape the blast radius of a bomb left as a trap for Black Bolt and his Royal Family.

Triton wouldn’t be the only one close to Black Bolt to perish. He would be joined by Lockjaw and Maximus who fell to the ferocious power of a brand new villain and the first of a brand new race to the Marvel Universe. This villain is a Super-Inhuman known as Vox. This new villain, Vox, is described as the “voice and the wrath of the gods. He is the full-throated scream of the Kree Empire.”

Except the real Vox doesn’t want the subhumans – as the SJWs at Marvel are more properly known – to join the Evil Legion of Evil. What are the odds that Vox’s evil minions are both vile and faceless?

He cannot be swayed or tricked or bought, for he wants nothing but his enemies’ hearts to stop beating.

See, now that does sound familiar…. As does the New Arkhaven… I mean, Arctilan. And they did get the scythe right too. But where is Spacebunny?

You don’t say

Item One: This Fourth of July, nearly 14,000 immigrants become America’s newest citizens, swearing the oath of allegiance at 27 naturalization ceremonies across the nation that coincide with the country’s 242nd birthday and the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. “When oath ceremonies are tied to the Fourth of July, it’s a message that immigrants believe in this country. It’s a beautiful and emotional thing,” Joshua Hoyt, executive director of the National Partnership for New Americans, said. “United nations, from Albania to Yemen, are represented in the ceremonies.”

Item Two: This Fourth of July marks a low point in U.S. patriotism. For the first time in Gallup’s 18-year history asking U.S. adults how proud they are to be Americans, fewer than a majority say they are “extremely proud.” Currently, 47{f82a6d9b5e5cff01d97267394322fca158507b75156f51cfa613d94c4c7ae29a} describe themselves this way, down from 51{f82a6d9b5e5cff01d97267394322fca158507b75156f51cfa613d94c4c7ae29a} in 2017 and well below the peak of 70{f82a6d9b5e5cff01d97267394322fca158507b75156f51cfa613d94c4c7ae29a} in 2003.

How can they not be proud, when “Americans” from Albania to Yemen are now their fellow citizens? And it’s interesting, is it not, that all those nations are represented in the ceremonies.

The definition of bad rhetoric

White nationalists nearly as stubbornly stupid about their consistently failed strategies as conservatives. No wonder they’re unable to gain any substantial support even when the ideological trend is increasingly nationalist and genuine nationalists are beginning to gain power around the world.

what has been done to whites for decades fits in the united nations’ definition of genocide. policies were put in place to “in whole or in part” destroy the traditions, religion, nations and the peoples of white european and north american countries/nations. this has been pointed out to you probably a thousand (or ten) times by now. and the fact that you keep denying the current state of whites (and the policies implemented against them) is by u.n. definition genocide might be why you are, and will always be considered/called “controlled op” by some in the alt-right (and other white identitarians/wns).

at what point, vox, does vox start calling it genocide? is it only at the point of farm murders for land? does it require whites to drop to a specific number in population? or is it a matter in which the rate of the genocide can be implemented and completed over a specific number of years, decades, generations or tv series finales?

I don’t recognize the UN definition of anything. I’m not a globalist, so why would I accept their contorted, deceitful terminology?

Like every other educated, literate individual, when I require a definition, I utilize the dictionary. GENOCIDE: the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group.

Whites are obviously not being exterminated, not when there are more whites now living on the planet than ever before in human history. This is why the “white genocide” rhetoric is such an abysmal failure even though people are increasingly angry about globalism, increasingly inclined to support nationalism, and increasingly disgusted by the way in which the media and the ad industry is constantly trying to push immigration, miscegenation, and other societal ills on everyone on the planet.

Ron Paul backs Trump on Russia

Blessed be the peacemakers, for they shall not be beholden to the bloodthirsty Trotskyites known as “neocons”:

The “experts” are usually wrong when it comes to peacemaking. They rely on having “official enemies” for their very livelihood. In 1985, national security “expert” Zbigniew Brzezinski attacked the idea of a summit between President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. It was “demeaning” and “tactically unwise,” he said as reported at the time by the Washington Times. Such a meeting would only “elevate” Gorbachev and make him “first among equals,” he said. Thankfully, Reagan did engage Gorbachev in several summits and the rest is history. Brzezinski was wrong and peacemakers were right.

President Trump should understand that any move toward better relations with Russia has been already pre-approved by the American people. His position on Russia was well known. He campaigned very clearly on the idea that the US should end the hostility toward Russia that characterized the Obama Administration and find a way to work together. Voters knew his position and they chose him over Hillary Clinton, who was also very clear on Russia: more confrontation and more aggression.

President Trump would be wise to ignore the neocon talking heads and think tank “experts” paid by defense contractors. He should ignore the “never Trumpers” who have yet to make a coherent policy argument opposing the president. The extent of their opposition to Trump seems to be “he’s mean and rude.” Let us hope that a Trump/Putin meeting begins a move toward real reconciliation and away from the threat of nuclear war.

The world revolutionaries are pure evil. There is a reason they are always seeking to elevate the next Hitler and begin the next war. There is literally nothing good about them. One thing I look forward to seeing is Trump’s mysterious revelatory power eventually unmasking them and forcing people to see the neocons for whose servants they truly are.

That’s not funny!

Ethan van Sciver and Diversity & Comics fail to see the humor in the Duck Unchained’s response to the Rolling Stone Stalker.

Jack Posobiec@JackPosobiec
Far-Left Rolling Stone Writer Amanda Robb Trolled into Wearing a MAGA Hat by Pax Dickinson

Diversity & Comics‏ @DiversityAndCmx
I don’t like this. This crosses the line into cruelty. I don’t like people being demeaned.

ComicArtistPro Secrets@EthanVanSciver
This isn’t funny. I am furious. I was sandbagged by this reporter at an appearance, she’s very persistent, but she’s a nice woman, and I believe she asked me good and fair questions. This isn’t who we should be.

I thought it was pretty damned funny myself. Whether Ethan and Zack realize it or not, what Amanda Robb and Al Letson are seeking to accomplish with their investigative report into right-wing comics is to undermine everything that both of them are attempting to build. Of course, I also thought it was amusing that the crack investigative team was asking a retired gentleman farmer about comics in the first place.

Regardless, Ethan and Zack are not responsible for Pax and neither is anyone else. Pax has always been a chaos-loving trickster. That’s who he is, that’s what he is, and his performance art should be appreciated for itself. My view is that when reporters don’t respect a polite “no” in response to their requests for interviews, they deserve whatever disrespectful treatment their targets decide to mete out to them.

As for me, I will simply continue to ignore all the media requests I receive, with a few specific exceptions. I expect this is going to get increasingly painful for the mainstream media, as we move into the movie space and the audience for our books and comics and games continues to grow, but they were given multiple opportunities to cover us fairly. But they chose to pursue the “investigative” angle instead and thereby forfeited their future access to me and those around me.

I note that the former reporter offers the same advice that I do:

Ethan, the offer still stands to advise you on dealing with reporters from my professional experience being one for years. But here’s all you need to know in a sentence. “Do not E V E R trust them for an interview.”