Matt Taibbi, who once called Goldman Sachs “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity”, writing in Rolling Stone about the Levin report on the causes of the GFC:

Thus, while much of the Levin report describes past history, the Goldman section describes an ongoing? crime — a powerful, well-connected firm, with the ear of the president and the Treasury, that appears to have conquered the entire regulatory structure and stands now on the precipice of officially getting away with one of the biggest financial crimes in history.

Yikes. Well worth a read – and after this, have a read of The Big Short by Michael Lewis (the guy behind Liar’s Poker, the original expose of the banking industry).

How Stuxnet inflitrated and frustrated Iran’s nuclear program:

At Natanz, for almost 17 months, Stuxnet quietly worked its way into the system and targeted a specific component — the frequency converters made by the German equipment manufacturer Siemens that regulated the speed of the spinning centrifuges used to create nuclear fuel. The worm then took control of the speed at which the centrifuges spun, making them turn so fast in a quick burst that they would be damaged but not destroyed. And at the same time, the worm masked that change in speed from being discovered at the centrifuges’ control panel.

At Bushehr, meanwhile, a second secret set of codes, which Langner called “digital warheads,” targeted the Russian-built power plant’s massive steam turbine.

Here’s how it worked.

Possibly the first instance of computer-based state-sponsored espionage that has been caught and exposed. But seriously, who the hell runs Windows to control a nuclear facility, for civillian use or otherwise?!

In a word? Brilliant. In two? Fecking Brilliant. Go watch and see if you don’t want to sing along:

The Complaints Choir of Chicago

What a great idea!