Nobody Asked Me…

How many times must we ‘reinvent’ the wheel???

A couple of different threads in different groups have once again resurrected the proverbial dead horses…

And the ‘new kids’ are determined to show they know better than any old farts/fogies/dinosaurs.  Even if said old farts, etc. were there… Sigh…

Of note, all of these ‘wheels’ were dissected, flayed, and buried ten or more years ago (at least once if not more).

One is a discussion about a particular rifle based on an old ad by a well known company (dated to the late 70s) alluding to a military rifle designation. Said rifle was prototyped by a particular company, but never entered service. The company did advertise it with the ‘designation’ it would have had, had it entered service.

Remember how Ruger ‘sold’ the 5.56 range rifle? Said it was a ‘mini-14’ which looked strangely like an M-1 carbine…

This particular kerfuffle around the ad and whether it was real or not, and was put to bed back around 2010, if I remember correctly, But the new kids ‘know better’, hence it reared up again. After probably 25-30 comments, including folks that actually built the prototypes, the new kids finally disappeared… Sigh. But never admitted they were wrong.

Another surrounds a pistol holster that a kid ‘invented’ and crows about how neat his holster is. But it’s a copy of a thirty year old holster, just in a different material. Same same… ‘They’ are honest and upright, and us old farts are just trying to ‘tear them down’…

And a military thread about how us old farts couldn’t find our asses with both hands, a flashlight, and a map, but the new kids can because… superior equipment, better training, more ‘knowledge’, and, and, and…

Of course they skip over the whole knowledge thing, never admitting that what is in the database is stuff ‘we’ collected back in the day, and the TTP they are using today are what we developed over 30 years ago based on thousands of hours of actual interactions with the bad guys.

Nor will they admit the new equipment they are using was, by and large, developed by us old farts after we retired and went to work for various companies. Unpossible! Y’all are out of touch with reality, ‘we’ are the Subject Matter Experts (SME’s) because we say so (even though the entire community has less interactions that probably six or eight of us old farts)!

I’m sure there are plenty more of these ‘reinventions’ going on every day out there, but damn, it gets old… Why do these people not do the research, and when information is provided they refuse to accept it?

Are they that insecure? Or is it because they’ve been coddled to the point that they’ve never failed? Or expect a ‘participation trophy’ for showing up? Or were they never told they were wrong?

I really don’t understand this mentality…

What say y’all? Am I that far off base?

Another food ‘shortage’ on the horizon, as if we didn’t ‘see’ this one coming…

NEW DELHI (AP) – India has banned exports of wheat effective immediately, citing a risk to its food security, partly due to the war in Ukraine.

A notice in the government gazette by the Directorate of Foreign Trade, dated Friday, said a spike in global prices for wheat was threatening the food security of India and neighboring and vulnerable countries.

A key aim is to control rising domestic prices. Global wheat prices have risen by more than 40% since the beginning of the year.

Full article HERE, from the Daily Mail. Funny how the Brit media seems to do a better job of covering not only US stuff, but worldwide issues…

When you add in the ‘issues’ with Russia (sanctions) and Ukraine (war), there is a significant loss of production.

Ukraine and Russia produce a substantial amount of grain and other food for export. Ukraine alone produces a whopping 6% of all food calories traded in the international market. At least it used to, before it was invaded by the world’s largest nuclear power.

Full article HERE, from The Conversation.

Why, you may ask, am I pointing out the obvious?

That was brought home yesterday morning at our local Cracker Barrel. Peter, Dot, and I usually get a plate of biscuits at the start of our meal to tide us over until the food actually shows up. Cracker Barrel has done this for years at all meals, for any kind of bread (as long as it was biscuits or cornbread). Yesterday, the waitress apologized and said she had to charge us for the biscuits as a ‘side dish’…

So, what was once a give away, cheap product has now become a price point due to the rise in raw, processed, and delivered prices, with the expectation that scarcity and MORE price hikes are ahead.

And I went to the store after breakfast to pick up some distilled water. I checked the aisle and there was a definite lack of anything other than plain flour. There was also a surprising lack of product on a lot of aisles, mainly the breakfast cereals, juices, and soups (again)… sigh