A very funny site called FED Valentines features Valentines Day love letters straight from Ben Bernanke himself. We wish we had thought of this!

FED Valentines lets you submit your own FED Valentines Day message to your sweetheart, using an image of Ben Bernanke as a backdrop. It’s full of LOLs like:

• “You had me at QE1″
• “I like the way your yields curve!”
• “I only have eyes for you. And inflation. But mostly you.”
• “I’ll be your lover of last resort.”
• “Every time I see you, my balance sheet expands!”
• “My love is elastic. My commitment – too big to fail!”

You get the idea. Send your wife, girlfriend, or lending officer a FED Valentine today!

If you enjoyed that bit of irrational exuberance and are looking for more Valentines Day fun, check out our TARPentines from a few years ago.

That’s right, folks. Now you know why you have to add .com at the end of almost every internet address; that particular nomenclature was named after this guy.

Alright, I’m full of crap, but I bet that’s the kind of story Kim Dotcom tells unsuspecting people. In fact, the Daily Mail calls him Dr. Evil. I think he’s more likely to be Dr. Evil’s dad, who as you recall would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Upon further reflection, maybe he’s more like Fat Bastard.

Everything about Kim Dotcom, aka Kim Schmitz, aka Kim Tim Jim Vestor, is mega. That’s why he runs the infamous Megaupload.com, the file-hosting website that, along with sites like Rapidshare.com, is a hotbed of digital pirate activity. I should say was a hotbed of activity, since the US government just shut it down.

MEGAFAIL

As for the 37 year old Mr. Big himself, well police raided his $24 million mansion in New Zealand, broke into his panic room (not much of a panic room if people can break in) and arrested him. (He was found clinging to his sawed off shotgun.)

The Megaupload site was part of Kim’s Hong Kong-based company Megaupload Limited, which also ran MegaVideo, MegaPix, MegaLive (live video streaming), MegaBox (music-hosting), and MegaPorn. As far as I can tell, all these domain names have been Mega-seized.

On January 5th of this year, indictments were filed in the US against Kim Dotcom, Július Benčko (aka “Juice”, a Slovak web designer who worked on Megaupload.com) , and 5 other associates. Dr. Evil was taken in along with Finn Batato, Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk by the New Zealand police (Juice is still at large). The Kiwis are cooperating with the United States Justice department and the FBI, as well as Hong Kong authorities, Netherlands authorities, London authorities, Germans, Canadians, etc. Yep, the whole freakin world banded together to take Dr. Evil down. They are serious. Kim Dotcom faces charges of copyright infringement, racketeering, and money laundering. He could get as many as 55 years in prison if he is extradited to the United States and convicted. Kim has been accused of costing Hollywood about $500 million because of all the pirated content his sites have hosted.

As part of the arrests, officers served 10 search warrants at businesses and homes around the city of Auckland. Police seized a bunch of stuff from Dotcom’s property, including a Rolls Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe (worth at least $400K), a bunch of Mercedes, 2 shotguns, and an assortment of valuable pieces of art. In addition, more than $8 million sitting in bank accounts was frozen. Prosecutors called Kim’s company a:

Mega Conspiracy, a worldwide criminal organisation whose members engaged in criminal copyright infringement and money laundering on a massive scale

They really make it sound like some serious James Bond shiz, something that should make Mr. Big feel pretty good, since he loves feeling like a spy.

Here are some more awesome facts about Kim Dotcom, a man who lives large in every sense of the word:

• He made at least £27million from MegaUpload in 2010
• was granted residency in New Zealand after he invested £5million in government bonds and donated to the Christchurch earthquake fund
• has hired Bob Bennett to defend him (Bennett represented Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal)
• His cars have license plates with names like STONED, HACKER, GUILTY, CEO, and GOD.
• Has been treated with kid gloves in Germany. Afer being convicted in of fraud/embezzlement, he got a fine and 2 years probation, the judge saying it was just “youthful foolishness.”
• Has a hacker name of Kimble (from The Fugitive)
• Created Megacar, a Mercedes that sports a wireless computer, 16 phone lines, video conferencing, and 4 televisions. The idea was to create a vehicle attractive to diplomats and politicians
• loves fireworks, shotguns, and wrap-around shades
• Takes part in the Gumball 3000 rally.

Believe it or not, Megaupload had support from some celebrities like Kanye West, Lil Jon, Mary J. Blige, Wil I Am, Snoop Dogg, Alycia Keys, and Brett Ratner (LOL!), who agreed to appear in a commercial, as seen below:

They even did a song that pissed off Universal Music Group who tried to take the song down from YouTube. Ultimately, they failed to do so.

Since the arrests, the hacker group Anonymous hit the websites of the U.S. Justice Department, FBI, and other music corporations, with a DDOS attack. Of course, they were already pissed over SOPA and PIPA, so this didn’t help matters.

- Bill

Sources for this article included: The Daily Mail, MSNBC, and The Financial Times.

From their Craigslist posting:

Wu-Tang Management is a multi-faceted independent management company that was established in 1993 with our headquarters in Staten Island New York. After the tremendous international success of the first group released, the famed Wu-Tang Clan, we have gone down in history as the only management company to manage the entire Wu-Tang Clan, and in doing so, brought them from being a local group to international super stars.

What we are looking for:
Excellent written communication skills, with ability to communicate with diverse audiences; Interest in the music/entertainment industry; Professional demeanor; Experience with social networking (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Ning, Blogspot, etc.)

Roles and Responsibility:
online research of music blogs and social networking; expansion of online fan base; composing correspondence; Maintenance of companies social networks (Wu-World.com, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, etc.)

We might suggest that someone applying for this role provide the Wu with a business plan to spend your internship exploring newer technologies; cultivating a presence on turntable.fm and Spotify will likely be more advantageous in the long term than MySpace. Oh, and maybe disabling the music that auto-plays on wu-world.com, because 1999 called and wants its Shoutcast back.

A few other skills that might be of use come to mind, such as competency at chess (or any form of game theory) as well as knowledge of the pharmaceutical industry and military nobility of pre-industrial Japan:

All in all, this internship looks like a great opportunity… but personally, I’ll be holding out for a position at Wu-Tang Financial (wankstas need not apply; language NSFW):

Which way should we choose?
more bottom up or more top down
the fight continues…
Keynes and Hayek’s second round

You better work!

And you better pay your taxes too, or else, a tranny is gonna show up on your doorstep to collect the funds. At least that’s the reality in Pakistan:

Riffee — like her tax-collector friends Sana and Kohan — is physically a man, but prefers to be called and dress as a woman. Their job is quite simple: each morning they turn up to work and get a list of missed payments. One by one, they make house-calls, causing trouble at each debtor’s home or office, trying to get them to pay up. It’s not clear how effective this tactic is, but officials insist they would not do it if it did not work.

“Their appearance causes great embarrassment amongst the people,” said Sajid Hussein Bhatti, the tax superintendent who gives Riffee her orders every morning.

Now having a tranny show up on my doorstep to demand cash wouldn’t make most of my neighbors bat an eye. In fact, I would be disappointed to learn it hadn’t happened on my block before. And if a pack of trannies wandered into your average business, most people in the States would probably think it was a flash mob of some sort and start filming it for Youtube.

But in Pakistan, this sort of thing is less than divine (pun intended). They’re also a bit strapped (no pun intended) for cash:

There is a serious side though to this theatrical tactic. Pakistan’s tax take is dire: barely 1 per cent of Pakistanis pay any income tax, and the government is frantically trying to increase its income — partially to placate the International Monetary Fund. Pakistan wants to borrow up to another $5 billion from the IMF, which insists the state improves its tax collection.

Okay, so this is all the IMF’s doing. I’d like to thank them for yet again bringing the lulz. I can only hope that this tactic becomes a universal best practice for countries with poor internal controls and corrupt legal systems.

(h/t to May for the link to this one )