Pacu, Testicle-Eating Fish Species, Caught In Lake Lou Yaeger In Illinois

When biologists say the pacu fish eats nuts, they may be correct in more ways than one.

The pacu, a toothy fish that can weigh up to 55 pounds, has been spotted in Lake Lou Yaeger in Illinois, KSDK reports.

Responding to a report that a fisherman had reeled in a piranha on June 7, lake superintendent Jim Caldwell brought the fish to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, where it was identified as a pacu. Some reports say another pacu was seen a couple of weeks later.

Caldwell said he is still swimming in the lake nearly every day. Pacus primarily eat nuts, aquatic vegetation and snails, he told KDSK, and pose no real threat to humans.

Residents of Papua New Guinea may beg to differ. There, according to British fisherman Jeremy Wade, the pacu is known as the "ball cutter." In 2011, Wade said locals informed him that two fisherman had died from blood loss after something in the water had bitten off their testicles.

"The locals told me that this thing was like a human in the water, biting at the testicles of fishermen," Wade said.

Wade determined that the perpetrator was the pacu, which is known for having human-like teeth. The angler did note that such attacks are uncommon, the Daily Mail reports.

Though pacus are native to the Amazon Basin, they were released into Papua New Guinea waters in the 1990s as part of an initiative to boost fisheries.

Biologists say any pacus in the Illinois lake are most likely former aquarium pets, according to the Journal-News. Anyone caught dumping the fish in the lake could face criminal charges.

 

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New Zealand court delays Megaupload extradition hearing to next year

The founder of file-sharing website Megaupload Kim Dotcom, a German national also known as Kim Schmitz, is seen at court in Auckland in this still image taken from video January 23, 2012.

 

A New Zealand court has delayed an extradition hearing for internet tycoon and Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom until March 2013 because of questions about the search and seizure of evidence by the United States where he faces charges of internet piracy and fraud.

William Akel, one of Dotcom's lawyers, said on Tuesday a hearing scheduled for August has now been postponed to a tentative date of March 25 because two judicial reviews regarding illegal search warrants and evidence disclosure are still underway.

"It was inevitable that the hearing for August was going to be vacated because we have two existing cases in the High Court," Akel told Reuters.

In its highest-profile investigation into online piracy, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation alleges that Dotcom, also known as Kim Schmitz, led a group that has netted $175 million since 2005 by copying and distributing music, movies and other copyrighted content without authorization.

Dotcom's lawyers say the company simply offered online storage.

The extradition hearing delay follows the New Zealand High Court's ruling in June that search warrants used by police to search the flamboyant Dotcom's house to collect evidence were illegal. The court also ruled that copying the evidence by the FBI and sending it to the United States was also unlawful.

Dotcom's lawyers and the prosecution are awaiting a decision on how to handle evidence obtained under the illegal warrants and whether evidence to be used in the U.S. criminal case will be disclosed to the defense team at the extradition hearing.

Akel said he was "disappointed" about the delay.

"You obviously want the extradition case to go ahead as soon as you can, but you have to put up with the inevitable," he said.

Acting on a request from the FBI, New Zealand armed police, backed by helicopters, swept into the 38-year-old Dotcom's rented estate outside Auckland in January, confiscating computers and hard drives. Dotcom and three others were arrested.

Dotcom was originally denied bail after the raid and jailed for a month, but the courts have progressively eased restrictions on him, allowing him back into his mansion, giving him access to hundreds of thousands of dollars for living and legal expenses and removing some travel and meeting restrictions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Talking Urinal Cakes Deployed to Curb Drunk Driving

 

"Listen up. That's right, I'm talking to you," the chatty cakes greet their visitors

Next time you get piss drunk 

listen to your urinal.

Michigan officials are deploying 400 talking urinal cakes to 200 restaurants and watering holes across the Great Lake State as part of a stepped up anti-drunk driving campaign for the Fourth of July, the Detroit News reported.

The Crownsville, Md.-based company at the center of the campaign, Healthquest Technologies Inc., has named their motion-activated deodorizing cakes Wizmark “Interactive Urinal Communicators.”

“There are many places you can put your ad, but most of them don't guarantee three seconds of attention, let alone a consumer's undivided attention,” the firm says on its website.

Wizmarks can “talk, sing or flash a string of lights” to greet their visitors, the company boasts.

According to the Detroit News, the urinal cakes being sent across Michigan will broadcast this message: "Listen up. That's right, I'm talking to you. Had a few drinks? Maybe a few too many? Then do yourself and everyone else a favor: Call a sober friend or a cab. Oh, and don't forget to wash your hands."

The Detroit Free Press notes that the cakes have also been used in other states to battle drunk driving. 

 

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Durex's Facebook app picks sex soundtrack for partner's pleasure

 

Have you ever been in a situation where you’re about to make love to your partner, the mood is just right, and then you decided to put on a song like Kid Rock’s ”Bawitdaba” and completely ruined everything?

Well Durex Condoms knows how you feel, so it has just rolled out a new Facebook application to help you find that tune to bump and grind to.

In a new $15 million campaign, Durex has rolled out a Durex In-Sync Song Generator. The generator is part of the campaign to promote Durex Performance, a new line of condoms designed by Reckitt Benckiser that have climax controlling lubrication.

The colorful Generator asks users about their love-making patterns like “What time of day are you at your best?” and “How loud is your personality?” Then the user can send the poll to their partner and depending on their answers, the generator will spit out the perfect love making tune— from Shakira’s “Underneath your Clothes” to “Let’s Stay Together” by Al Green.

“In the U.S., there's a group of consumers that's kind of been forgotten about,"  Reckitt Benckiser marketing director Kevin Harshaw told AdAge. "These are the lovers. ... The whole Durex vision going forward is to become the sexual well-being brand of choice for lovers age 25 to 39.”

Durex’s clever ad campaign comes seven months after Olla, a Brazilian condom manufacturer, also used Facebook to push its product. Olla’s campaign called “Unexpected Babies” claimed to have selected random men on Facebook and “created actual Facebook profiles for their unborn children (by tacking "Jr." on to their names), who then attempt to friend daddy,” AdWeek reported.

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Assange to UK cops: 

No, I will not come out of my Ecuadorean embassy

 

Julian Assange will stay in Ecuador's embassy in London, having decided not to comply with a British police order to turn himself in for extradition to Sweden, a spokeswoman for the WikiLeaks founder said Friday.

"Julian will remain in the embassy under the protection of the Ecuadorian government," spokeswoman Susan Benn told reporters outside the embassy.

Scotland Yard on Thursday served a "surrender notice" on the 40-year-old Australian requiring him to attend a police station at a date and time of their choosing.

British media reports indicated he had been ordered to present himself at a central London police station at 11:30am on Friday.

A Scotland Yard spokesman confirmed that Assange had not yet gone to a police station, but refused to confirm the date or time he had been told to present himself.

Asked if he would leave the Ecuadoran embassy, Assange told BBC television in a telephone interview late Thursday: "Our advice is that asylum law both internationally and domestically takes precedence over extradition law so almost certainly not."

The embassy confirmed to AFP on Friday that Assange remained inside the property -- a flat in a mansion block in the plush Knightsbridge district of central London, across the street from the famous Harrods emporium.

In a statement Thursday on the embassy's website, the diplomatic mission also confirmed that Scotland Yard officers had delivered a letter to Assange through them.

Separately, the South America department of the Foreign and Commonwealth
Office has written to the Ecuadoran embassy reaffirming its commitment to "promoting excellent bilateral relations between the Republic of Ecuador and the United Kingdom government," the statement added.

"The government of Ecuador will continue to foster good relations with the UK government whilst assessing Mr Assange's application for asylum."

He faces allegations in Sweden of sexual assault and rape against two former female volunteers at his WikiLeaks website and was arrested on an extradition warrant in December 2010.

He was bailed and embarked on a marathon round of court battles, but finally exhausted all his options under British law earlier this month when the Supreme Court overturned his appeal against extradition.

Assange says he fears that from Sweden he will be extradited to the United States to face possible espionage charges, after releasing more than 250,000 US diplomatic cables on the WikiLeaks anti-secrecy website.

He sought refuge at Ecuador's embassy in London on June 19, asking the South American country for political asylum.

He has therefore breached his bail conditions -- which state he must be at a given address between 10:00 pm and 8:00 am -- and is liable for arrest.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said officers on Thursday "served a surrender notice upon a 40-year-old man that requires him to attend a police station at date and time of our choosing.

"This is standard practice in extradition cases and is the first step in the removal process.

"He remains in breach of his bail conditions. Failing to surrender would be a further breach of conditions and he is liable to arrest."

But while he remains in the embassy, he is beyond the reach of British authorities.

Following the end of his legal challenges, he was given until June 28 to make a final appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, at which point extradition procedures in Britain could commence.

 

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Anonymous Tweets to Japanese Public After 6.27 Attacks, Japanese Public Responds: 

“Kawaii”

 

International “hactavist” collective Anonymous caught Japan’s attention on June 27 after they launched a series of DDoS attacks against several Japanese government institutions in response to a new copyright law punishing the downloading of pirated content with fines of up to \2,000,000 (US $25,180) and/or a maximum of two years in prison.

Acting under the banner “Operation Japan”, Anonymous issued a formal press release via Twitter two days before the attack warning: “you can now expect us the same way we have come to expect you in violating our basic rights to privacy and to an open internet.”

They continue to post updates of their activities to Twitter and while most of their tweets are made in English, Anonymous also seems to have someone who speaks Japanese working at the keyboard. However, despite Anonymous’ best attempts to translate their lofty rhetoric, most Japanese people can’t help but feel their faulty Japanese makes them just the most adorable little hacker group ever.

While Anonymous had posted two tweets in Japanese before the DDoS attack, it wasn’t until a series of three tweets after the attacks that they began to win the hearts of the Japanese people (arguably for the wrong reasons).

It would take a lesson in Japanese to explain what exactly it is about the tweets that tickled people so much, so instead we’ve decided to run them through Google Translate hoping it will give you an idea of what they might sound like to a native Japanese reader:

“Yesterday was busy. But was a little mistake. (Laughs) and I’m sorry Yappari Japanese bombing is difficult. But everyone is friendly. Said the description of the mistake. Thank you. I will do my best.”

“However, the LDP and the Democratic Party was not a mistake. They are made from a vote in favor of the illegal downloads, has been punished.”

“Do not attack JASRAC (Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers) why?” But everyone says. Is a good idea. Party is not a good target maybe. Would you change?”

Okay, so maybe their Japanese isn’t that bad. A number of people even gave them props for the semi-correct usage of the internet slang word gobaku (誤爆), which means “bombing the wrong target” but can also refer to posting a comment to the wrong thread on internet message boards like 2ch.

While awkwardly translated above as “Japanese bombing is difficult”, the word actually refers to how Anonymous accidentally hacked the homepage of the Kasumigaura River Office in Ibaraki Prefecture, mistaking “Kasumigaura” for “Kasumigaseki”, the district of Tokyo where many central government offices are located.

A more accurate translation of the tweet would be: “We made a slight mistake. Sorry to hit the wrong target (lol). Japanese is difficult.”

Luckily, the Japanese are known for having an appreciation for foreigners learning their language and many netizens think the tweets are kawaii (cute) and appreciate the group’s honesty in admitting their mistake.

Anonymous seems to be off to a good start in Japan with their endearing Japanese and straightforward attitude. Japanese is indeed a difficult language and even native speakers mix up “Kasumigaura” and “Kasumigaseki”.

But still, imagine if a group of Japanese hackers had just made the news after taking down the DOJ site in the name of online privacy. Curious or concerned, you check their Twitter looking for more information on the group’s activities only to see the tweet: “Lets fighting American governments to save the free pirate! For great justice!” You might chuckle, you might put them up on Engrish.com, but in whatever case you’d probably be less likely to take them seriously…

 

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Kim DotCom warrants invalid, New Zealand judge rules

 

High Court judge finds search warrants were too general and rules the data in cloned drives should not have been released to the FBI.

The U.S. piracy case against MegaUpload founder Kim DotCom appears to have run aground, with a New Zealand court ruling that the search warrants issued in January were invalid.

New Zealand High Court Judge Helen Winkelmann ruled Thursday that the warrants did not adequately describe the offenses alleged, according to a report in the New Zealand Herald. "Indeed they fell well short of that," she said. "They were general warrants, and as such, are invalid.''

She also ruled that it was unlawful for the data confiscated in the raid to have been sent offshore, saying "the release of the cloned hard drives to the FBI for shipping to the United States was contrary to the 16 February direction" [given by the court] "that the items seized were to remain in the custody and control of the Commissioner of Police."

MegaUpload is a cloud-storage locker that DotCom claims was completely legitimate and protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. U.S. officials, who are trying to extradite Dotcom and six associates to face piracy and wire fraud charges, say he encouraged users to store pirated videos, music, software, and other media and then share them with others. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

DotCom, 38, was arrested in January at the mansion he leases near Auckland, New Zealand, after the U.S. handed down an indictment cars, and other possessions belonging to DotCom were seized during a sensational raid on his estate. on criminal copyright violations and racketeering. Millions of dollars worth of cash,

Soon after his arrest, news reports were filled with images of his $30 million mansion and of New Zealand police hauling away his pink Cadillac and Mercedes Benz. The United States said MegaUpload had cost Hollywood studios and other copyright owners $500 million.

Since that January raid, DotCom and some of the other MegaUpload defendants have won a string of favorable court decisions in New Zealand that have led to their release on bail, the return of some of their assets, and a court order that requires the FBI to show the evidence it has against the company. MegaUpload's lawyers are expected to appear in a Virginia federal court on Friday to argue that the charges should be tossed out.

DotCom recently received the support of Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and famed former hacker Kevin Mitnick, who told DotCom, "I hope you win." 

Full text of Justice Winkelmann’s ruling below.

Dotcom v AG

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