How Could You Not See It Coming

I remember what I said to a friend at work when I first saw Power Balance Bands (or whatever they're called) for sale. I thought there must have been a marketing meeting where everyone had a bet. The person who could sell the cheapest, crappiest item for the most money would win.

Seriously, I couldn't think of another reason they would come up with the idea.

The most vehement anti-power band campaigner in our area has been my twelve year-old son. How does that make you feel, Shaquille O'Neal?

In my search for guitar parts from across the world, I had found the exact items available from the Chinese manufacturer for 15c a unit. Yes, these were the same items being sold for $60 in Aussie sport stores. The total amount of money made on this rort must have been obscene.

For a while, I considered buying 10,000 of them and selling them for $10 each. No-one would believe it would work, though. It just wouldn't be expensive enough to work.

I know a number of guys who bought the bands. Some believed they worked, some decided to eat the loss and pretend they never saw the damn things. The ones who believed they worked referred to the "tests" that the makers published with the bands and that were touted as proof they worked.

The results of the tests are easily explained by two things. One, placebo effect and two, practice. More so practice, I suspect. I never met anyone who did the tests with the Power Band first. The tests seem to always be done without it first. Have you ever done a complex task worse the second time you did it?

No, would be the answer in most cases. You could wrap yourself in toilet paper and do the tests. You'll still do better the second time. That'd make toilet paper prices go up, as well.

So, the ACCC have declared the bands a rort and told the maker to refund everyone who bought them.

Prepare for phase two of the rort, where athletes and celebrities claim to have been duped like everyone else into purchasing the bands - rather than having been paid to participate in the deceit.

Of Drought and Flooding Rain

I've got a note book of dozens of posts I need to get up here, but I want to take a moment to reflect on the forces of nature and how much we depend on them. No matter how powerful we become as a people, nature can change our world in an instant.

For the last God-knows how many years, the area we live in here in the middle of New South Wales, Australia, has been in drought. This is a farming community. When there's no water, there's no crops. When a crop fails, a farmer and his or her employees suffer. Then, the town does, too.

In fact, everyone does. Prices rise, quality falls. Consumers demand lower prices, so the supermarkets offer the farmers lower margins. And so, the cycle continues.

For years, now, the people around here have been praying for rain. When I arrived here, my friends would joke about the cardboard plains surrounding Parkes. The place really was the colour of cardboard. There were no emerald-greens grassfields here.

A year ago, farmers were receiving government drought assistance.

Then, in Febraury this year, we got rain. 150mm of it. And it kept coming through the year. A fantastic season was upon us. The rain held off enough for the farmers to get their crops in and then it came back to make it grow. The whole place has been full of hope and optimism.

But to harvest those bumper crops, you need some dry weather. Harvest hasn't happened the way it should, this year. The rain has continued through the harvest period. This means the crops - especially wheat crops - had to be left longer than they should have.

Then, to add insult to injury, the big rains came. Massive rains. A week ago friday, we were ferrying people out of the mine site to get them home from work. Roads were closed. Telecommunications services cut off (a good story for another time, right there). One of the guys on my team was isolated and couldn't get to work. Another couldn't get home.

There was even a fatality due to the flooding not far from where I work. A sober reminder of the realities this kind of weather can bring.

Then, it got worse. More rain. More flooding.

The upshot? Those bumper crops are ruined. Those that aren't can't be harvested because the ground's too soft. In some areas, they're letting fruit di on the tree. Many wheat farmers are planning to cut their wheat and let it lie.

I'm no farmer. But I know a few. I know the devastating effect the weather has on a community like this one and I see the hardships that those who rely on the weather endure.

Most of all, I realise that a few years ago, I had no idea. I had opinions, but I didn't have a clue. Neither do most of us in our comfortable offices and homes.

That government drought assistance, less than a year on, has turned now to natural disaster assistance. Just a month after residential water restrictions were lifted, I was up to my hips in water crossing a road. The farmers just can't take a trick.

A land of drought andf looding rain, indeed.....