Tag Archives: carp

Barnaby-the-bloody-carp Joyce caught out in citizenship drama

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Ancestry is all the rage.

And we all have bare-knuckle boxing champs in our past.

My 30-year-old daughter e-mailed me this morning to ask about our family. She said she had a DNA test.

I took the don’t-ask-a-question-unless-you-want-an-answer route – and told her it’s all on ancestry.com, go look it up, but you may have to like your step-sister.

I’ve got three passports: Canadian, American, Australian.

It’s homogenized white, but at least I can remember them.

Sorenne is about to get her third, once we find her Canadian thingy under my name.

Australian politicians are apparently brain-dead.

Barnaby Joyce (right, not exactly as shown), the Donald Trump of Australia, deputy Prime Minister and Agricrlture Minister, didn’t know he was born a kiwi (like Russell Crowe)

Section 44 of the Australian Constitution says

Any person who –

(i.) Is under any acknowledgement of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or citizen of a foreign power: or

(ii.) Is attainted of treason, or has been convicted and is under sentence, or subject to be sentenced, for any offence punishable under the law of the Commonwealth or of a State by imprisonment for one year or longer: or

(iii.) Is an undischarged bankrupt or insolvent: or

(iv.) Holds any office of profit under the Crown, or any pension payable during the pleasure of the Crown out of any of the revenues of the Commonwealth: or

(v.) Has any direct or indirect pecuniary interest in any agreement with the Public Service of the Commonwealth otherwise than as a member and in common with the other members of an incorporated company consisting of more than twenty-five persons:

shall be incapable of being chosen or of sitting as a senator or a member of the House of Representatives.

Australian politics is as awfull as the country’s ability to hook up decent Internet.

Herpes for all in Australia: First the carp — THE CARP – now turtles

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Following an impassioned speech by Australian deputy PM Barnaby Joyce (right, not exactly as shown) on government plans to deliberately infect invasive carp with herpes, an increasing number of green sea turtles on barnaby.jonesAustralia’s Great Barrier Reef, with pollution being investigated as the prime culprit.

The animals have a turtle-specific herpesvirus that causes fibropapillomatosis – a condition in which disfiguring tumours grow on the eyes, flippers, tail, shell or internal organs.

“The tumours are benign but can grow up to 30 centimetres in size and block the turtles’ vision, says Karina Jones of James Cook University in Townsville, Australia. “This means they can’t find food or see predators or boats.”

Turtles with tumours are also more vulnerable to other infections, she says. “Severely affected turtles are quite skinny and have other pathogens affecting them – that’s why they die.”

The unpublished results of surveys by Jones’s team this year show that herpesvirus is most prevalent within a narrow stretch of Cockle Bay at Magnetic Island, a popular tourist destination in the middle of the reef. Roughly half the turtles in this hotspot have fibropapillomatosis, compared with less than 10 per cent of turtles sampled across the rest of Cockle Bay.

The cause remains unclear, but environmental contaminants are at the top of the suspect list. “We see these tumours in turtles in very localised hotspots around the world where there is heavy human activity,” says Jones.