February 19, 2024 at 2:01 PM

What’s Wrong With ‘This Day in History?’

@She

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This Day in History is a feature of the History Channel website, one which purports to help us discover what has happened on any particular day in history over the past couple of millennia.

The page for February 18 indicates a few interesting throwbacks: In 1885, Mark Twain published The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The first Academy Awards were announced in 1929. Dale Earnhardt, Sr. was killed in a crash in 2001. In 2011, the "Green River serial killer" pled guilty to his 49th murder.

And, according to This Day in History, in 2010, WikiLeaks publishe[d] the first documents leaked by Chelsea Manning.

Umm. No.

In 2010, actually, something called Wikileaks published the first documents leaked by someone calling himself "Bradley Manning."

Glory be. If The History Channel can't get the story for the past fourteen years correct, why should I trust it going back to 1229, Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, and the Sixth Crusade? (Cannot help thinking this is something of an inversion of the climate hysteria: If the climatistas can't reliably tell me what's going to happen tomorrow afternoon, why should I trust their "science" when it tries to frighten me about sea levels in the Maldives, 100 years from now?)

That "Bradley," once a "visiting Harvard Fellow" (in the days when fellows reliably were such--my father was one) decided--somewhere between 2015 and 2017--that he'd had his sex wrong since birth has somehow given credence to the idea that the Wikileaker was a woman is an absurdity. That this is an idea towards which we're all now required to bend the knee in the interests of not being labeled--at best--problematic, or--at worst--transphobic is even more so.

I will not bend the knee.

This week's Ricochet podcast (I rarely listen, although I generally find Lileks entertaining when I do) has much else on the subject (although not this particular issue) of this sort of woke gaslighting (as a champion "gaslightee" myself, I find all of it eminently believable). It (the podcast) also recounts some interesting musical and Beatles history, some of it quite unexpected.

Definitely worth a listen.

This post was promoted to the Main Feed at the recommendation of Ricochet's members.

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She@She2y

ReplyingtoSisyphus

The Reticulator (View Comment):
She (View Post):
She (View Post):
If the climatistas can’t reliably tell me what’s going to happen tomorrow afternoon, why should I trust their “science” when it tries to frighten me about sea levels in the Maldives, 100 years from now?)
I’m pretty sure they can be pretty accurate about the climate tomorrow. Tomorrow’s weather is more difficult, though there are people who are good at that. I find the short-term weather forecasts extremely useful for planning my bicycle rides and gardening plans, especially compared to the weather forecasts we used to get in the 60s. For short-term planning they are more useful than the short-term climate forecasts.
A hundred years from now is a more difficult matter.
Sisyphus (View Comment):
The forecasters’ checks will have cleared by then.

LOL. When I come back in my next life, I want to be a meteorologist. Because I can't think of another job in which it's possible to be wrong about everything, every day, and suffer no consequences at all. (OK, have at it, I am sure there are more.)

My own short-term weather forecasts are almost useless, and I never plan anything based on them. I am in extreme SW PA (20 miles to WV in a southerly direction, and 10 miles to the sticky-uppy panhandle to the west.) Almost any national weather map will show a break in the weather pattern right by me, and it's a toss-up whether I'll be snowed in, flooded, freeze to death, or burn to a crisp while my neighbors enjoy a temperate, beautiful day.. Many of the "garden growing zone maps" reflect the same sort of thing:

My own growing zone is completely surrounded by a different one. I'm sure there are reasons for that (I don't need to know them) but it makes weather forecasting very unreliable. And perhaps it has something to do with the awful cellular and satellite coverage here, too. Somewhat like my own little Bermuda Triangle, where all things communicative go to die. I'd have thought by now that TPTB would have figured out how to compensate, when announcing tomorrow's weather, or that they would at least hedge their bets. But no. They're sure. It's only by looking at the maps and radar myself that I can summon what might perhaps be a more accurate idea of the weather in the next few hours..

Things might be different in the Great Plains, or in a more stable weather environment. But not here.

Discussion (11)

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The Reticulator@TheReticulator2y
She (View Post):
If the climatistas can’t reliably tell me what’s going to happen tomorrow afternoon, why should I trust their “science” when it tries to frighten me about sea levels in the Maldives, 100 years from now?)
I'm pretty sure they can be pretty accurate about the climate tomorrow. Tomorrow's weather is more difficult, though there are people who are good at that. I find the short-term weather forecasts extremely useful for planning my bicycle rides and gardening plans, especially compared to the weather forecasts we used to get in the 60s. For short-term planning they are more useful than the short-term climate forecasts.
A hundred years from now is a more difficult matter.
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Sisyphus@Sisyphus2y
ReplyingtoThe Reticulator
The Reticulator (View Comment):
She (View Post):
She (View Post):
If the climatistas can’t reliably tell me what’s going to happen tomorrow afternoon, why should I trust their “science” when it tries to frighten me about sea levels in the Maldives, 100 years from now?)
I’m pretty sure they can be pretty accurate about the climate tomorrow. Tomorrow’s weather is more difficult, though there are people who are good at that. I find the short-term weather forecasts extremely useful for planning my bicycle rides and gardening plans, especially compared to the weather forecasts we used to get in the 60s. For short-term planning they are more useful than the short-term climate forecasts.
A hundred years from now is a more difficult matter.
The forecasters' checks will have cleared by then.
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Annefy@Annefy2y
I refuse to speak of the winner of the decathlon in 1976 as anyone other than Bruce Jenner. It wasn't Caitlyn; it was Bruce.
Recently spent some time with son #1 watching Billions, a show that has a "they" character. Son kept correcting me. I scolded him and said I don't play the pronoun game with real-life people, I'm certainly not going to be corrected regarding a fictional character.
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TBA@RobtGilsdorf2y
Females who win events under their maiden names or a no-longer-applicable married name never got this treatment.
I say if you're going to make history, then that history stops where you've made it.
Added: We used to print books and they were innately no-takebacks. The wikipeding of event recording is partly responsible for this 'update' mania.
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She@She2y
ReplyingtoSisyphus
The Reticulator (View Comment):
She (View Post):
She (View Post):
If the climatistas can’t reliably tell me what’s going to happen tomorrow afternoon, why should I trust their “science” when it tries to frighten me about sea levels in the Maldives, 100 years from now?)
I’m pretty sure they can be pretty accurate about the climate tomorrow. Tomorrow’s weather is more difficult, though there are people who are good at that. I find the short-term weather forecasts extremely useful for planning my bicycle rides and gardening plans, especially compared to the weather forecasts we used to get in the 60s. For short-term planning they are more useful than the short-term climate forecasts.
A hundred years from now is a more difficult matter.
Sisyphus (View Comment):
The forecasters’ checks will have cleared by then.
LOL. When I come back in my next life, I want to be a meteorologist. Because I can't think of another job in which it's possible to be wrong about everything, every day, and suffer no consequences at all. (OK, have at it, I am sure there are more.)
My own short-term weather forecasts are almost useless, and I never plan anything based on them. I am in extreme SW PA (20 miles to WV in a southerly direction, and 10 miles to the sticky-uppy panhandle to the west.) Almost any national weather map will show a break in the weather pattern right by me, and it's a toss-up whether I'll be snowed in, flooded, freeze to death, or burn to a crisp while my neighbors enjoy a temperate, beautiful day.. Many of the "garden growing zone maps" reflect the same sort of thing:
My own growing zone is completely surrounded by a different one. I'm sure there are reasons for that (I don't need to know them) but it makes weather forecasting very unreliable. And perhaps it has something to do with the awful cellular and satellite coverage here, too. Somewhat like my own little Bermuda Triangle, where all things communicative go to die. I'd have thought by now that TPTB would have figured out how to compensate, when announcing tomorrow's weather, or that they would at least hedge their bets. But no. They're sure. It's only by looking at the maps and radar myself that I can summon what might perhaps be a more accurate idea of the weather in the next few hours..
Things might be different in the Great Plains, or in a more stable weather environment. But not here.

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