China has suspended exports of rare earth minerals and magnets crucial to the world’s automakers, aerospace manufacturers and military contractors. The crackdown is part of the country’s retaliation for President Trump’s sharp increase in tariffs.
An incredible stat here. Someone has done IQ estimates of the “Swedish elite”
Look at the political class. The PARLIAMENTARIANS barely edge over IQ 110. THEY ARE 115 tops. That means quintessential midwits like @kinabalu and @IanB2 are running Sweden. People who should be running second hand bookshops or amateur ballet classes are running entire countries. Hence, perhaps, Sweden’s many modern problems, many of them entirely avoidable if you’re not governed by mediocrities
I am pretty sure we would find the same in the UK. I adduce David Lammy, Jess Philips and Ed Miliband as probative evidence
We need a new word for this phenomenon. Government by the averagely dim
The Tories and LDs, indeed, all parties, are equally stuffed with these twats. It is not a partisan thing
You are the classic example of the Dunning-Krueger effect. Both those guys run circles around you and yet you are completely oblivious.
Alternatively Leon is an example of someone with a very high IQ, but the conclusion would be the same: thank god he's spending his sober waking hours trying on edgy political opinions for kicks on an obscure forum rather than holding the reins of power.
Which is correct
I am insanely clever. I once “ceilinged” on a verbal iq test. That is to say: I scored so highly the test was unable to cope with such a high score. I got 100% and should have got more but obvs you can’t get more than 100%
However I’d be a terrible politician. I’d be shutting Sikhs in gulags one week, drunk the next, and then going to war with Alderney and Quebec by Easter Sunday. I’m an alcoholic manic depressive loner extrovert with high libido and drug issues and a terrible terrible tendency to hyperbolise even if I can extrapolate like a fucker
To be a good democratic politician you need an utterly different skill set. Much more measured and stable and forensic along with high intelligence. I’d be useless, potentially disastrous
My complaint is not that “I should be a politician” but that liberal democratic politics is now attracting real dullards. Look at our fucking prime minister FFS
I don’t think I’ve ever done an IQ test, they’re the kind of thing I thought only crossword geeks or people who take puzzle books on holiday with them do, but they seem to have become a bizarre new obsession of parts of the internet and MAGA, presumably because of some sort of online racial eugenics revival.
I have never been a fan of the likes of Sudoku, chess or cryptic crosswords so at a guess I’d assume my IQ is around average or a bit below, but I don’t think that says much about my ability to hold down a decent job competently.
I did a compulsory test at a previous employer which suggested I had very high integrity but very low conformity. Apparently that indicated "whistleblower risk".
They weren't wrong.
Presumably the employer thought high integrity was a bad thing.
The death toll from Russia’s Palm Sunday ballistic missile attack on Sumy is now 34 killed and 117 people injured, according to Zelensky and the state emergency service of Ukraine. 68 of those injured people are currently being treated in hospitals, with 8 in serious condition. Many children were among the victims, the youngest a baby born in 2025. https://x.com/ChristopherJM/status/1911492888372126140
China has suspended exports of rare earth minerals and magnets crucial to the world’s automakers, aerospace manufacturers and military contractors. The crackdown is part of the country’s retaliation for President Trump’s sharp increase in tariffs.
It's almost like the US is not the only country with agency.
If they’re blocking those exports full stop (which I assume they are) that’s bad news for Europe, Japan, Korea and Ukraine. Collateral damage.
As I have been discovering on uToob, MAGA morons will believe anything they are told. And boy howdy they are going to have to be told some absolute whoppers when Trump fully reverses his strategy.
Then again Steve Bannon has told the News Agents that this is all phase 1. And that phase 2 will be bigger.
The simplest way to trade with the US is don't. China doesn't have to worry about what the tariff will be tomorrow if it simply says "we're not selling to you"
Thus far it seems safe to assume that friends of the Mad King have made out like bandits during the tariffs on, tariffs off phase
It will be entertaining when he makes an announcement and nothing happens because the markets no longer care what he says
I don’t think I’ve ever done an IQ test, they’re the kind of thing I thought only crossword geeks or people who take puzzle books on holiday with them do, but they seem to have become a bizarre new obsession of parts of the internet and MAGA, presumably because of some sort of online racial eugenics revival.
I have never been a fan of the likes of Sudoku, chess or cryptic crosswords so at a guess I’d assume my IQ is around average or a bit below, but I don’t think that says much about my ability to hold down a decent job competently.
I did a compulsory test at a previous employer which suggested I had very high integrity but very low conformity. Apparently that indicated "whistleblower risk".
They weren't wrong.
IQ tests were routine at the primary school I attended in the late ‘40’s. Modesty forbids, of course! And memory is, traditionally, a lying jade.
British police warn an elderly, partially-deaf man that saying "speak English" is a hate crime.
Yeah except that isn't true is it. Why not post what actually happened rather than post lies.
He said 'Some people could potentially perceive that to be a hate crime'
Note the words 'Some people', 'potentially' and 'perceive'.
It is people like you who stir up hatred.
Nonsense. The copper is way out of line.
@scampi25 I didn't comment on whether I agreed with what the policeman said or not. I simply pointed out that @williamglenn lied and that is the sort of lie that stirs up hatred.
I accurately reposted the content of a tweet. Against whom do you think I am stirring up hatred?
"I accurately reposted the content of a tweet."
Ah, the old "I didn't really accuse Lord McAlpine of being a paedophile" excuse.
You know, I thought that was a really shit hot response, and yet you lot didn't appreciate it
British police warn an elderly, partially-deaf man that saying "speak English" is a hate crime.
Yeah except that isn't true is it. Why not post what actually happened rather than post lies.
He said 'Some people could potentially perceive that to be a hate crime'
Note the words 'Some people', 'potentially' and 'perceive'.
It is people like you who stir up hatred.
Nonsense. The copper is way out of line.
@scampi25 I didn't comment on whether I agreed with what the policeman said or not. I simply pointed out that @williamglenn lied and that is the sort of lie that stirs up hatred.
I accurately reposted the content of a tweet. Against whom do you think I am stirring up hatred?
We all know the answer to this already.
I don't know the answer. I don't hate anyone.
Really?
I hate several people.
Mostly people who slighted me in some minor, probably accidental, way. That I have blown up out of all proportion in my mind.
Still, it keeps me busy.
There are a billion people who hate Radiohead to keep you busy...
No no no.
There are people who love and appreciate Radiohead.
And there are people who just haven't listened to enough Radiohead yet
Would playing Radiohead on a loop at Gitmo fall foul of the Constitution?
British police warn an elderly, partially-deaf man that saying "speak English" is a hate crime.
Yeah except that isn't true is it. Why not post what actually happened rather than post lies.
He said 'Some people could potentially perceive that to be a hate crime'
Note the words 'Some people', 'potentially' and 'perceive'.
It is people like you who stir up hatred.
Nonsense. The copper is way out of line.
@scampi25 I didn't comment on whether I agreed with what the policeman said or not. I simply pointed out that @williamglenn lied and that is the sort of lie that stirs up hatred.
I accurately reposted the content of a tweet. Against whom do you think I am stirring up hatred?
"I accurately reposted the content of a tweet."
Ah, the old "I didn't really accuse Lord McAlpine of being a paedophile" excuse.
You know, I thought that was a really shit hot response, and yet you lot didn't appreciate it
I'd be better off conversing with ChatGPT.
You’re lucky McAlpine died 10 years ago…
I imagine he would have been more circumspect if otherwise
British police warn an elderly, partially-deaf man that saying "speak English" is a hate crime.
Yeah except that isn't true is it. Why not post what actually happened rather than post lies.
He said 'Some people could potentially perceive that to be a hate crime'
Note the words 'Some people', 'potentially' and 'perceive'.
It is people like you who stir up hatred.
Nonsense. The copper is way out of line.
@scampi25 I didn't comment on whether I agreed with what the policeman said or not. I simply pointed out that @williamglenn lied and that is the sort of lie that stirs up hatred.
I accurately reposted the content of a tweet. Against whom do you think I am stirring up hatred?
"I accurately reposted the content of a tweet."
Ah, the old "I didn't really accuse Lord McAlpine of being a paedophile" excuse.
You know, I thought that was a really shit hot response, and yet you lot didn't appreciate it
I'd be better off conversing with ChatGPT.
You’re lucky McAlpine died 10 years ago…
I imagine he would have been more circumspect if otherwise
Indeed. Which is rather unfair when you think about it. You may not be able to libel the dead, but you can still smear their memory. Better to refer to it as the Bercow Affair
China has suspended exports of rare earth minerals and magnets crucial to the world’s automakers, aerospace manufacturers and military contractors. The crackdown is part of the country’s retaliation for President Trump’s sharp increase in tariffs.
Separately, this is also dumb from the Chinese, because (a) the Americans cannot backdown, and therefore the chances of escalation have grown significantly, and (b) this just ensures that other sources of rare earths come on stream soonest.
An incredible stat here. Someone has done IQ estimates of the “Swedish elite”
Look at the political class. The PARLIAMENTARIANS barely edge over IQ 110. THEY ARE 115 tops. That means quintessential midwits like @kinabalu and @IanB2 are running Sweden. People who should be running second hand bookshops or amateur ballet classes are running entire countries. Hence, perhaps, Sweden’s many modern problems, many of them entirely avoidable if you’re not governed by mediocrities
I am pretty sure we would find the same in the UK. I adduce David Lammy, Jess Philips and Ed Miliband as probative evidence
We need a new word for this phenomenon. Government by the averagely dim
The Tories and LDs, indeed, all parties, are equally stuffed with these twats. It is not a partisan thing
You are the classic example of the Dunning-Krueger effect. Both those guys run circles around you and yet you are completely oblivious.
Alternatively Leon is an example of someone with a very high IQ, but the conclusion would be the same: thank god he's spending his sober waking hours trying on edgy political opinions for kicks on an obscure forum rather than holding the reins of power.
Which is correct
I am insanely clever. I once “ceilinged” on a verbal iq test. That is to say: I scored so highly the test was unable to cope with such a high score. I got 100% and should have got more but obvs you can’t get more than 100%
However I’d be a terrible politician. I’d be shutting Sikhs in gulags one week, drunk the next, and then going to war with Alderney and Quebec by Easter Sunday. I’m an alcoholic manic depressive loner extrovert with high libido and drug issues and a terrible terrible tendency to hyperbolise even if I can extrapolate like a fucker
To be a good democratic politician you need an utterly different skill set. Much more measured and stable and forensic along with high intelligence. I’d be useless, potentially disastrous
My complaint is not that “I should be a politician” but that liberal democratic politics is now attracting real dullards. Look at our fucking prime minister FFS
Keith Raniere, who is currently serving 120 years in a Federal prison for running a sex cult, human trafficking, and fraud, was featured in the Australian Guinness Book of Records for several years for having the highest IQ in the world at 240.
China has suspended exports of rare earth minerals and magnets crucial to the world’s automakers, aerospace manufacturers and military contractors. The crackdown is part of the country’s retaliation for President Trump’s sharp increase in tariffs.
Separately, this is also dumb from the Chinese, because (a) the Americans cannot backdown, and therefore the chances of escalation have grown significantly, and (b) this just ensures that other sources of rare earths come on stream soonest.
I suspect that China believes that it is in control of the situation and wishes to impose as much punishment as possible on Trump before some kind of peace is brokered.
Other sources of minerals? For America? Which friend is going to sell it to them?
As for American escalation, Trump is frit. He's wussed out over electronics, he wussed out over the bond markets, he is the living demonstration of limp-dick negotiation.
Xi knows what he's doing. And what he's doing is America. Right up Trump's kazoo.
An incredible stat here. Someone has done IQ estimates of the “Swedish elite”
Look at the political class. The PARLIAMENTARIANS barely edge over IQ 110. THEY ARE 115 tops. That means quintessential midwits like @kinabalu and @IanB2 are running Sweden. People who should be running second hand bookshops or amateur ballet classes are running entire countries. Hence, perhaps, Sweden’s many modern problems, many of them entirely avoidable if you’re not governed by mediocrities
I am pretty sure we would find the same in the UK. I adduce David Lammy, Jess Philips and Ed Miliband as probative evidence
We need a new word for this phenomenon. Government by the averagely dim
The Tories and LDs, indeed, all parties, are equally stuffed with these twats. It is not a partisan thing
You are the classic example of the Dunning-Krueger effect. Both those guys run circles around you and yet you are completely oblivious.
Alternatively Leon is an example of someone with a very high IQ, but the conclusion would be the same: thank god he's spending his sober waking hours trying on edgy political opinions for kicks on an obscure forum rather than holding the reins of power.
Which is correct
I am insanely clever. I once “ceilinged” on a verbal iq test. That is to say: I scored so highly the test was unable to cope with such a high score. I got 100% and should have got more but obvs you can’t get more than 100%
However I’d be a terrible politician. I’d be shutting Sikhs in gulags one week, drunk the next, and then going to war with Alderney and Quebec by Easter Sunday. I’m an alcoholic manic depressive loner extrovert with high libido and drug issues and a terrible terrible tendency to hyperbolise even if I can extrapolate like a fucker
To be a good democratic politician you need an utterly different skill set. Much more measured and stable and forensic along with high intelligence. I’d be useless, potentially disastrous
My complaint is not that “I should be a politician” but that liberal democratic politics is now attracting real dullards. Look at our fucking prime minister FFS
China has suspended exports of rare earth minerals and magnets crucial to the world’s automakers, aerospace manufacturers and military contractors. The crackdown is part of the country’s retaliation for President Trump’s sharp increase in tariffs.
Separately, this is also dumb from the Chinese, because (a) the Americans cannot backdown, and therefore the chances of escalation have grown significantly, and (b) this just ensures that other sources of rare earths come on stream soonest.
I suspect that China believes that it is in control of the situation and wishes to impose as much punishment as possible on Trump before some kind of peace is brokered.
Other sources of minerals? For America? Which friend is going to sell it to them?
As for American escalation, Trump is frit. He's wussed out over electronics, he wussed out over the bond markets, he is the living demonstration of limp-dick negotiation.
Xi knows what he's doing. And what he's doing is America. Right up Trump's kazoo.
Nah… this is about twisting the knife on Ukraine and Greenland… alternative sources of rare earth minerals
Undermining the unity of the west is far more valuable long term to China than this temporary scrap
British police warn an elderly, partially-deaf man that saying "speak English" is a hate crime.
Yeah except that isn't true is it. Why not post what actually happened rather than post lies.
He said 'Some people could potentially perceive that to be a hate crime'
Note the words 'Some people', 'potentially' and 'perceive'.
It is people like you who stir up hatred.
Nonsense. The copper is way out of line.
@scampi25 I didn't comment on whether I agreed with what the policeman said or not. I simply pointed out that @williamglenn lied and that is the sort of lie that stirs up hatred.
I accurately reposted the content of a tweet. Against whom do you think I am stirring up hatred?
"I accurately reposted the content of a tweet."
Ah, the old "I didn't really accuse Lord McAlpine of being a paedophile" excuse.
You know, I thought that was a really shit hot response, and yet you lot didn't appreciate it
I'd be better off conversing with ChatGPT.
One of the brightest chaps I ever worked with regularly got terrific ideas whilst sitting in the launderette watching the stuff go round inside the little window.
An incredible stat here. Someone has done IQ estimates of the “Swedish elite”
Look at the political class. The PARLIAMENTARIANS barely edge over IQ 110. THEY ARE 115 tops. That means quintessential midwits like @kinabalu and @IanB2 are running Sweden. People who should be running second hand bookshops or amateur ballet classes are running entire countries. Hence, perhaps, Sweden’s many modern problems, many of them entirely avoidable if you’re not governed by mediocrities
I am pretty sure we would find the same in the UK. I adduce David Lammy, Jess Philips and Ed Miliband as probative evidence
We need a new word for this phenomenon. Government by the averagely dim
The Tories and LDs, indeed, all parties, are equally stuffed with these twats. It is not a partisan thing
You are the classic example of the Dunning-Krueger effect. Both those guys run circles around you and yet you are completely oblivious.
Alternatively Leon is an example of someone with a very high IQ, but the conclusion would be the same: thank god he's spending his sober waking hours trying on edgy political opinions for kicks on an obscure forum rather than holding the reins of power.
Which is correct
I am insanely clever. I once “ceilinged” on a verbal iq test. That is to say: I scored so highly the test was unable to cope with such a high score. I got 100% and should have got more but obvs you can’t get more than 100%
However I’d be a terrible politician. I’d be shutting Sikhs in gulags one week, drunk the next, and then going to war with Alderney and Quebec by Easter Sunday. I’m an alcoholic manic depressive loner extrovert with high libido and drug issues and a terrible terrible tendency to hyperbolise even if I can extrapolate like a fucker
To be a good democratic politician you need an utterly different skill set. Much more measured and stable and forensic along with high intelligence. I’d be useless, potentially disastrous
My complaint is not that “I should be a politician” but that liberal democratic politics is now attracting real dullards. Look at our fucking prime minister FFS
Albeit IQ also includes numeracy and ability to manipulate shapes.
Starmer is many things but not stupid, he has a 1st class degree in law and an Oxford Masters
An incredible stat here. Someone has done IQ estimates of the “Swedish elite”
Look at the political class. The PARLIAMENTARIANS barely edge over IQ 110. THEY ARE 115 tops. That means quintessential midwits like @kinabalu and @IanB2 are running Sweden. People who should be running second hand bookshops or amateur ballet classes are running entire countries. Hence, perhaps, Sweden’s many modern problems, many of them entirely avoidable if you’re not governed by mediocrities
I am pretty sure we would find the same in the UK. I adduce David Lammy, Jess Philips and Ed Miliband as probative evidence
We need a new word for this phenomenon. Government by the averagely dim
The Tories and LDs, indeed, all parties, are equally stuffed with these twats. It is not a partisan thing
You are the classic example of the Dunning-Krueger effect. Both those guys run circles around you and yet you are completely oblivious.
Alternatively Leon is an example of someone with a very high IQ, but the conclusion would be the same: thank god he's spending his sober waking hours trying on edgy political opinions for kicks on an obscure forum rather than holding the reins of power.
Which is correct
I am insanely clever. I once “ceilinged” on a verbal iq test. That is to say: I scored so highly the test was unable to cope with such a high score. I got 100% and should have got more but obvs you can’t get more than 100%
However I’d be a terrible politician. I’d be shutting Sikhs in gulags one week, drunk the next, and then going to war with Alderney and Quebec by Easter Sunday. I’m an alcoholic manic depressive loner extrovert with high libido and drug issues and a terrible terrible tendency to hyperbolise even if I can extrapolate like a fucker
To be a good democratic politician you need an utterly different skill set. Much more measured and stable and forensic along with high intelligence. I’d be useless, potentially disastrous
My complaint is not that “I should be a politician” but that liberal democratic politics is now attracting real dullards. Look at our fucking prime minister FFS
Keith Raniere, who is currently serving 120 years in a Federal prison for running a sex cult, human trafficking, and fraud, was featured in the Australian Guinness Book of Records for several years for having the highest IQ in the world at 240.
The Nazis leaders who survived the War and were tried at Nuremberg for war crimes had a high average IQ of 128. Most notably; Hermann Goering scored a 138, Arthur Seyss-Inquart a 141, and Hjalmar Schacht (acquitted) a 143.
British police warn an elderly, partially-deaf man that saying "speak English" is a hate crime.
Yeah except that isn't true is it. Why not post what actually happened rather than post lies.
He said 'Some people could potentially perceive that to be a hate crime'
Note the words 'Some people', 'potentially' and 'perceive'.
It is people like you who stir up hatred.
Nonsense. The copper is way out of line.
@scampi25 I didn't comment on whether I agreed with what the policeman said or not. I simply pointed out that @williamglenn lied and that is the sort of lie that stirs up hatred.
I accurately reposted the content of a tweet. Against whom do you think I am stirring up hatred?
"I accurately reposted the content of a tweet."
Ah, the old "I didn't really accuse Lord McAlpine of being a paedophile" excuse.
You know, I thought that was a really shit hot response, and yet you lot didn't appreciate it
I'd be better off conversing with ChatGPT.
You’re lucky McAlpine died 10 years ago…
I imagine he would have been more circumspect if otherwise
Indeed. Which is rather unfair when you think about it. You may not be able to libel the dead, but you can still smear their memory. Better to refer to it as the Bercow Affair
Indeed: I didn't mean to libel him, I was merely pointing out how hollow the "I was only posting a tweet" defense is.
China has suspended exports of rare earth minerals and magnets crucial to the world’s automakers, aerospace manufacturers and military contractors. The crackdown is part of the country’s retaliation for President Trump’s sharp increase in tariffs.
Separately, this is also dumb from the Chinese, because (a) the Americans cannot backdown, and therefore the chances of escalation have grown significantly, and (b) this just ensures that other sources of rare earths come on stream soonest.
Except the timescales don't match.
Developing new sources of rare earth materials won't be quick. The current tariff brouhaha will be played out well before then, I suspect.
China has suspended exports of rare earth minerals and magnets crucial to the world’s automakers, aerospace manufacturers and military contractors. The crackdown is part of the country’s retaliation for President Trump’s sharp increase in tariffs.
Separately, this is also dumb from the Chinese, because (a) the Americans cannot backdown, and therefore the chances of escalation have grown significantly, and (b) this just ensures that other sources of rare earths come on stream soonest.
I suspect that China believes that it is in control of the situation and wishes to impose as much punishment as possible on Trump before some kind of peace is brokered.
Other sources of minerals? For America? Which friend is going to sell it to them?
As for American escalation, Trump is frit. He's wussed out over electronics, he wussed out over the bond markets, he is the living demonstration of limp-dick negotiation.
Xi knows what he's doing. And what he's doing is America. Right up Trump's kazoo.
Other sources already have a lower 10% tariff than Trump has imposed on China.
Even Biden imposed tariffs on China but at a lower rate than Trump has as that is the major economic rivalry now, the US and China and China's dominance of cheap manufactured goods and their export balanced by US dominance in services
British police warn an elderly, partially-deaf man that saying "speak English" is a hate crime.
Yeah except that isn't true is it. Why not post what actually happened rather than post lies.
He said 'Some people could potentially perceive that to be a hate crime'
Note the words 'Some people', 'potentially' and 'perceive'.
It is people like you who stir up hatred.
Nonsense. The copper is way out of line.
@scampi25 I didn't comment on whether I agreed with what the policeman said or not. I simply pointed out that @williamglenn lied and that is the sort of lie that stirs up hatred.
I accurately reposted the content of a tweet. Against whom do you think I am stirring up hatred?
"I accurately reposted the content of a tweet."
Ah, the old "I didn't really accuse Lord McAlpine of being a paedophile" excuse.
You know, I thought that was a really shit hot response, and yet you lot didn't appreciate it
I'd be better off conversing with ChatGPT.
Viewcode: Good evening CoPilot. An acquaintance said that he liked conversing with ChatGPT. Can you recommend other AIs (including yourself) he would enjoy?
CoPilot: Good evening! I’m delighted you asked—there’s quite the variety of conversational AIs out there that your acquaintance might enjoy exploring. Here are a few suggestions:
Microsoft Copilot (yours truly): Known for providing helpful insights and lively, engaging interactions. I specialize in brainstorming, solving problems, sharing knowledge, and bringing a touch of personality to our chats.
Claude by Anthropic: Renowned for its focus on safety and ethical AI interactions, Claude offers a collaborative, thoughtful approach to conversations.
Bard by Google: An AI built for creative collaboration. Bard can assist in generating ideas, storytelling, and answering queries.
Replika: Replika is geared more toward emotional connection. Users enjoy its companion-like vibe and its ability to evolve based on your interests and preferences.
Of course, each AI has its own unique flavor—it's all about finding the one that best fits your acquaintance’s interests and needs. If they have specific goals in mind, I can help suggest a match! What do you think? 😊
British police warn an elderly, partially-deaf man that saying "speak English" is a hate crime.
Yeah except that isn't true is it. Why not post what actually happened rather than post lies.
He said 'Some people could potentially perceive that to be a hate crime'
Note the words 'Some people', 'potentially' and 'perceive'.
It is people like you who stir up hatred.
Nonsense. The copper is way out of line.
@scampi25 I didn't comment on whether I agreed with what the policeman said or not. I simply pointed out that @williamglenn lied and that is the sort of lie that stirs up hatred.
I accurately reposted the content of a tweet. Against whom do you think I am stirring up hatred?
"I accurately reposted the content of a tweet."
Ah, the old "I didn't really accuse Lord McAlpine of being a paedophile" excuse.
You know, I thought that was a really shit hot response, and yet you lot didn't appreciate it
I'd be better off conversing with ChatGPT.
Viewcode: Good evening CoPilot. An acquaintance said that he liked conversing with ChatGPT. Can you recommend other AIs (including yourself) he would enjoy?
CoPilot: Good evening! I’m delighted you asked—there’s quite the variety of conversational AIs out there that your acquaintance might enjoy exploring. Here are a few suggestions:
- **Microsoft Copilot** (yours truly): Known for providing helpful insights and lively, engaging interactions. I specialize in brainstorming, solving problems, sharing knowledge, and bringing a touch of personality to our chats.
- **Claude** by Anthropic: Renowned for its focus on safety and ethical AI interactions, Claude offers a collaborative, thoughtful approach to conversations.
- **Bard** by Google: An AI built for creative collaboration. Bard can assist in generating ideas, storytelling, and answering queries.
- **Replika**: Replika is geared more toward emotional connection. Users enjoy its companion-like vibe and its ability to evolve based on your interests and preferences.
Of course, each AI has its own unique flavor—it's all about finding the one that best fits your acquaintance’s interests and needs. If they have specific goals in mind, I can help suggest a match! What do you think? 😊
China has suspended exports of rare earth minerals and magnets crucial to the world’s automakers, aerospace manufacturers and military contractors. The crackdown is part of the country’s retaliation for President Trump’s sharp increase in tariffs.
Separately, this is also dumb from the Chinese, because (a) the Americans cannot backdown, and therefore the chances of escalation have grown significantly, and (b) this just ensures that other sources of rare earths come on stream soonest.
Why can't Trump back down? So far he has backed down with Israel, Russia, Ukraine, Canada, Mexico, almost the entire rest of the World and the bond markets on tariffs, and with China on laptops, mobiles and any other shit Americans buy. Why would this be different?
China has suspended exports of rare earth minerals and magnets crucial to the world’s automakers, aerospace manufacturers and military contractors. The crackdown is part of the country’s retaliation for President Trump’s sharp increase in tariffs.
Separately, this is also dumb from the Chinese, because (a) the Americans cannot backdown, and therefore the chances of escalation have grown significantly, and (b) this just ensures that other sources of rare earths come on stream soonest.
Except the timescales don't match.
Developing new sources of rare earth materials won't be quick. The current tariff brouhaha will be played out well before then, I suspect.
Rare earths are often chemically extracted from the tailings of existing mines for other minerals.
The past blocks have mainly been the environmental concerns leading to intense lawfare against such extraction.
In quite a few places, such tailings extraction would take about a year to setup.
An incredible stat here. Someone has done IQ estimates of the “Swedish elite”
Look at the political class. The PARLIAMENTARIANS barely edge over IQ 110. THEY ARE 115 tops. That means quintessential midwits like @kinabalu and @IanB2 are running Sweden. People who should be running second hand bookshops or amateur ballet classes are running entire countries. Hence, perhaps, Sweden’s many modern problems, many of them entirely avoidable if you’re not governed by mediocrities
I am pretty sure we would find the same in the UK. I adduce David Lammy, Jess Philips and Ed Miliband as probative evidence
We need a new word for this phenomenon. Government by the averagely dim
The Tories and LDs, indeed, all parties, are equally stuffed with these twats. It is not a partisan thing
You are the classic example of the Dunning-Krueger effect. Both those guys run circles around you and yet you are completely oblivious.
Alternatively Leon is an example of someone with a very high IQ, but the conclusion would be the same: thank god he's spending his sober waking hours trying on edgy political opinions for kicks on an obscure forum rather than holding the reins of power.
Which is correct
I am insanely clever. I once “ceilinged” on a verbal iq test. That is to say: I scored so highly the test was unable to cope with such a high score. I got 100% and should have got more but obvs you can’t get more than 100%
However I’d be a terrible politician. I’d be shutting Sikhs in gulags one week, drunk the next, and then going to war with Alderney and Quebec by Easter Sunday. I’m an alcoholic manic depressive loner extrovert with high libido and drug issues and a terrible terrible tendency to hyperbolise even if I can extrapolate like a fucker
To be a good democratic politician you need an utterly different skill set. Much more measured and stable and forensic along with high intelligence. I’d be useless, potentially disastrous
My complaint is not that “I should be a politician” but that liberal democratic politics is now attracting real dullards. Look at our fucking prime minister FFS
Albeit IQ also includes numeracy and ability to manipulate shapes.
With weightings of the three components arrived at in the best possible expert taste, ditto across-the-board agreement on what to exclude etc.
Only morons believe in IQ. Funny, though, how the very same morons who ask how can you "believe" or "not believe" in something that they believe is obviously true - because some people are better than others at answering certain kinds of question - like to recite Popper on falsification.
All "geniuses" in the history of the world have been highly trained. There's your falsification right there. And there's much more, but I don't have the time. Pinker sounds like he's writing "amazing twin stories" for Reader's Digest and Plomin reckons genes determine how many books there are in your house.
British police warn an elderly, partially-deaf man that saying "speak English" is a hate crime.
Yeah except that isn't true is it. Why not post what actually happened rather than post lies.
He said 'Some people could potentially perceive that to be a hate crime'
Note the words 'Some people', 'potentially' and 'perceive'.
It is people like you who stir up hatred.
Nonsense. The copper is way out of line.
@scampi25 I didn't comment on whether I agreed with what the policeman said or not. I simply pointed out that @williamglenn lied and that is the sort of lie that stirs up hatred.
I accurately reposted the content of a tweet. Against whom do you think I am stirring up hatred?
"I accurately reposted the content of a tweet."
Ah, the old "I didn't really accuse Lord McAlpine of being a paedophile" excuse.
You know, I thought that was a really shit hot response, and yet you lot didn't appreciate it
I'd be better off conversing with ChatGPT.
Viewcode: Good evening CoPilot. An acquaintance said that he liked conversing with ChatGPT. Can you recommend other AIs (including yourself) he would enjoy?
CoPilot: Good evening! I’m delighted you asked—there’s quite the variety of conversational AIs out there that your acquaintance might enjoy exploring. Here are a few suggestions:
Microsoft Copilot (yours truly): Known for providing helpful insights and lively, engaging interactions. I specialize in brainstorming, solving problems, sharing knowledge, and bringing a touch of personality to our chats.
Claude by Anthropic: Renowned for its focus on safety and ethical AI interactions, Claude offers a collaborative, thoughtful approach to conversations.
Bard by Google: An AI built for creative collaboration. Bard can assist in generating ideas, storytelling, and answering queries.
Replika: Replika is geared more toward emotional connection. Users enjoy its companion-like vibe and its ability to evolve based on your interests and preferences.
Of course, each AI has its own unique flavor—it's all about finding the one that best fits your acquaintance’s interests and needs. If they have specific goals in mind, I can help suggest a match! What do you think? 😊
Crikey, I just had a look at "Replika". It's really weird. It's basically "design your own online friend" for different values of "friend" and I really don't think I can trust it.
Should I need such a thing I would require something to devise strategies to cope with problems such as lack of money/health/opportunity for myself or my family, not something that acts like a sympathetic friend or a wank partner. Damn, it's such a swing-and-a-miss. Is there such a thing that would properly help and not go "there, there"?
(additionally I hate the fact that it implies the "I need my pain" scene from Star Trek 5)
China has suspended exports of rare earth minerals and magnets crucial to the world’s automakers, aerospace manufacturers and military contractors. The crackdown is part of the country’s retaliation for President Trump’s sharp increase in tariffs.
Separately, this is also dumb from the Chinese, because (a) the Americans cannot backdown, and therefore the chances of escalation have grown significantly, and (b) this just ensures that other sources of rare earths come on stream soonest.
Why can't Trump back down? So far he has backed down with Israel, Russia, Ukraine, Canada, Mexico, almost the entire rest of the World and the bond markets on tariffs, and with China on laptops, mobiles and any other shit Americans buy. Why would this be different?
Trump's original campaign promise was a 10% tariff on all global imports and higher for China, he has just 'backed down' largely to what he said in the campaign
An incredible stat here. Someone has done IQ estimates of the “Swedish elite”
Look at the political class. The PARLIAMENTARIANS barely edge over IQ 110. THEY ARE 115 tops. That means quintessential midwits like @kinabalu and @IanB2 are running Sweden. People who should be running second hand bookshops or amateur ballet classes are running entire countries. Hence, perhaps, Sweden’s many modern problems, many of them entirely avoidable if you’re not governed by mediocrities
I am pretty sure we would find the same in the UK. I adduce David Lammy, Jess Philips and Ed Miliband as probative evidence
We need a new word for this phenomenon. Government by the averagely dim
The Tories and LDs, indeed, all parties, are equally stuffed with these twats. It is not a partisan thing
You are the classic example of the Dunning-Krueger effect. Both those guys run circles around you and yet you are completely oblivious.
Alternatively Leon is an example of someone with a very high IQ, but the conclusion would be the same: thank god he's spending his sober waking hours trying on edgy political opinions for kicks on an obscure forum rather than holding the reins of power.
Which is correct
I am insanely clever. I once “ceilinged” on a verbal iq test. That is to say: I scored so highly the test was unable to cope with such a high score. I got 100% and should have got more but obvs you can’t get more than 100%
However I’d be a terrible politician. I’d be shutting Sikhs in gulags one week, drunk the next, and then going to war with Alderney and Quebec by Easter Sunday. I’m an alcoholic manic depressive loner extrovert with high libido and drug issues and a terrible terrible tendency to hyperbolise even if I can extrapolate like a fucker
To be a good democratic politician you need an utterly different skill set. Much more measured and stable and forensic along with high intelligence. I’d be useless, potentially disastrous
My complaint is not that “I should be a politician” but that liberal democratic politics is now attracting real dullards. Look at our fucking prime minister FFS
Albeit IQ also includes numeracy and ability to manipulate shapes.
With weightings of the three components arrived at in the best possible expert taste, ditto across-the-board agreement on what to exclude etc.
Only morons believe in IQ. Funny, though, how the very same morons who ask how can you "believe" or "not believe" in something that they believe is obviously true - because some people are better than others at answering certain kinds of question - like to recite Popper on falsification.
All "geniuses" in the history of the world have been highly trained. There's your falsification right there. And there's much more, but I don't have the time. Pinker sounds like he's writing "amazing twin stories" for Reader's Digest and Plomin reckons genes determine how many books there are in your house.
All elite athletes are highly trained. Would you deny that there is a genetic component to athletic talent?
An incredible stat here. Someone has done IQ estimates of the “Swedish elite”
Look at the political class. The PARLIAMENTARIANS barely edge over IQ 110. THEY ARE 115 tops. That means quintessential midwits like @kinabalu and @IanB2 are running Sweden. People who should be running second hand bookshops or amateur ballet classes are running entire countries. Hence, perhaps, Sweden’s many modern problems, many of them entirely avoidable if you’re not governed by mediocrities
I am pretty sure we would find the same in the UK. I adduce David Lammy, Jess Philips and Ed Miliband as probative evidence
We need a new word for this phenomenon. Government by the averagely dim
The Tories and LDs, indeed, all parties, are equally stuffed with these twats. It is not a partisan thing
You are the classic example of the Dunning-Krueger effect. Both those guys run circles around you and yet you are completely oblivious.
Alternatively Leon is an example of someone with a very high IQ, but the conclusion would be the same: thank god he's spending his sober waking hours trying on edgy political opinions for kicks on an obscure forum rather than holding the reins of power.
Which is correct
I am insanely clever. I once “ceilinged” on a verbal iq test. That is to say: I scored so highly the test was unable to cope with such a high score. I got 100% and should have got more but obvs you can’t get more than 100%
However I’d be a terrible politician. I’d be shutting Sikhs in gulags one week, drunk the next, and then going to war with Alderney and Quebec by Easter Sunday. I’m an alcoholic manic depressive loner extrovert with high libido and drug issues and a terrible terrible tendency to hyperbolise even if I can extrapolate like a fucker
To be a good democratic politician you need an utterly different skill set. Much more measured and stable and forensic along with high intelligence. I’d be useless, potentially disastrous
My complaint is not that “I should be a politician” but that liberal democratic politics is now attracting real dullards. Look at our fucking prime minister FFS
Albeit IQ also includes numeracy and ability to manipulate shapes.
With weightings of the three components arrived at in the best possible expert taste, ditto across-the-board agreement on what to exclude etc.
Only morons believe in IQ. Funny, though, how the very same morons who ask how can you "believe" or "not believe" in something that they believe is obviously true - because some people are better than others at answering certain kinds of question - like to recite Popper on falsification.
All "geniuses" in the history of the world have been highly trained. There's your falsification right there. And there's much more, but I don't have the time. Pinker sounds like he's writing "amazing twin stories" for Reader's Digest and Plomin reckons genes determine how many books there are in your house.
Trump just posted a new rant claiming the tariff exceptions on electronics announced late Friday aren’t actually exceptions and they’ll still get hit with tariffs.
So the market gonna crash again tomorrow and then Wednesday he'll say he's pausing tariffs again and then Thursday he'll make another one of those videos in the Oval Office where he tells everyone how many billions his friends made on the trade
China has suspended exports of rare earth minerals and magnets crucial to the world’s automakers, aerospace manufacturers and military contractors. The crackdown is part of the country’s retaliation for President Trump’s sharp increase in tariffs.
Separately, this is also dumb from the Chinese, because (a) the Americans cannot backdown, and therefore the chances of escalation have grown significantly, and (b) this just ensures that other sources of rare earths come on stream soonest.
Why can't Trump back down? So far he has backed down with Israel, Russia, Ukraine, Canada, Mexico, almost the entire rest of the World and the bond markets on tariffs, and with China on laptops, mobiles and any other shit Americans buy. Why would this be different?
Trump's original campaign promise was a 10% tariff on all global imports and higher for China, he has just 'backed down' largely to what he said in the campaign
He's not just 'backed down' he's continually backing down. Buckling in fact, as each fresh but entirely predictable consequence smacks him in the face.
China has suspended exports of rare earth minerals and magnets crucial to the world’s automakers, aerospace manufacturers and military contractors. The crackdown is part of the country’s retaliation for President Trump’s sharp increase in tariffs.
Separately, this is also dumb from the Chinese, because (a) the Americans cannot backdown, and therefore the chances of escalation have grown significantly, and (b) this just ensures that other sources of rare earths come on stream soonest.
Except the timescales don't match.
Developing new sources of rare earth materials won't be quick. The current tariff brouhaha will be played out well before then, I suspect.
The Chinese have just put themselves on the “Unreliable Trade Partners” list.
Good luck stopping rare earth projects outside China now.
An incredible stat here. Someone has done IQ estimates of the “Swedish elite”
Look at the political class. The PARLIAMENTARIANS barely edge over IQ 110. THEY ARE 115 tops. That means quintessential midwits like @kinabalu and @IanB2 are running Sweden. People who should be running second hand bookshops or amateur ballet classes are running entire countries. Hence, perhaps, Sweden’s many modern problems, many of them entirely avoidable if you’re not governed by mediocrities
I am pretty sure we would find the same in the UK. I adduce David Lammy, Jess Philips and Ed Miliband as probative evidence
We need a new word for this phenomenon. Government by the averagely dim
The Tories and LDs, indeed, all parties, are equally stuffed with these twats. It is not a partisan thing
You are the classic example of the Dunning-Krueger effect. Both those guys run circles around you and yet you are completely oblivious.
Alternatively Leon is an example of someone with a very high IQ, but the conclusion would be the same: thank god he's spending his sober waking hours trying on edgy political opinions for kicks on an obscure forum rather than holding the reins of power.
Which is correct
I am insanely clever. I once “ceilinged” on a verbal iq test. That is to say: I scored so highly the test was unable to cope with such a high score. I got 100% and should have got more but obvs you can’t get more than 100%
However I’d be a terrible politician. I’d be shutting Sikhs in gulags one week, drunk the next, and then going to war with Alderney and Quebec by Easter Sunday. I’m an alcoholic manic depressive loner extrovert with high libido and drug issues and a terrible terrible tendency to hyperbolise even if I can extrapolate like a fucker
To be a good democratic politician you need an utterly different skill set. Much more measured and stable and forensic along with high intelligence. I’d be useless, potentially disastrous
My complaint is not that “I should be a politician” but that liberal democratic politics is now attracting real dullards. Look at our fucking prime minister FFS
Albeit IQ also includes numeracy and ability to manipulate shapes.
With weightings of the three components arrived at in the best possible expert taste, ditto across-the-board agreement on what to exclude etc.
Only morons believe in IQ. Funny, though, how the very same morons who ask how can you "believe" or "not believe" in something that they believe is obviously true - because some people are better than others at answering certain kinds of question - like to recite Popper on falsification.
All "geniuses" in the history of the world have been highly trained. There's your falsification right there. And there's much more, but I don't have the time. Pinker sounds like he's writing "amazing twin stories" for Reader's Digest and Plomin reckons genes determine how many books there are in your house.
All elite athletes are highly trained. Would you deny that there is a genetic component to athletic talent?
I don't think anyone would deny that, nor that some people are blessed with an intellectual advantage thanks to their genes.
Where people usually go wrong is forgetting that there's far more generic variance among -say- Swiss people than between an average Swiss and an average Nigerian.
China has suspended exports of rare earth minerals and magnets crucial to the world’s automakers, aerospace manufacturers and military contractors. The crackdown is part of the country’s retaliation for President Trump’s sharp increase in tariffs.
It's almost like the US is not the only country with agency.
That NYT piece seems a little thin on thoroughness of research:
China paused the mining of heavy rare earths near Longnan a few years ago because it was causing severe chemical pollution.
On Friday, at the site of one mine near Longnan, a diesel generator was humming and liquids were gurgling through plastic pipes, indicating that at least some mining operations had probably resumed.
but notes that the "ban" is a "pause" whilst they introduce a new system to control exports:
Michael Silver, the chairman and chief executive of American Elements, a chemicals supplier based in Los Angeles, said his company had been told it would take 45 days before export licenses could be issued and exports of rare earth metals and magnets would resume.
British police warn an elderly, partially-deaf man that saying "speak English" is a hate crime.
Yeah except that isn't true is it. Why not post what actually happened rather than post lies.
He said 'Some people could potentially perceive that to be a hate crime'
Note the words 'Some people', 'potentially' and 'perceive'.
It is people like you who stir up hatred.
Nonsense. The copper is way out of line.
@scampi25 I didn't comment on whether I agreed with what the policeman said or not. I simply pointed out that @williamglenn lied and that is the sort of lie that stirs up hatred.
I accurately reposted the content of a tweet. Against whom do you think I am stirring up hatred?
"I accurately reposted the content of a tweet."
Ah, the old "I didn't really accuse Lord McAlpine of being a paedophile" excuse.
You know, I thought that was a really shit hot response, and yet you lot didn't appreciate it
I'd be better off conversing with ChatGPT.
One of the brightest chaps I ever worked with regularly got terrific ideas whilst sitting in the launderette watching the stuff go round inside the little window.
That's right; it gave John Logie Baird the idea for television.
An incredible stat here. Someone has done IQ estimates of the “Swedish elite”
Look at the political class. The PARLIAMENTARIANS barely edge over IQ 110. THEY ARE 115 tops. That means quintessential midwits like @kinabalu and @IanB2 are running Sweden. People who should be running second hand bookshops or amateur ballet classes are running entire countries. Hence, perhaps, Sweden’s many modern problems, many of them entirely avoidable if you’re not governed by mediocrities
I am pretty sure we would find the same in the UK. I adduce David Lammy, Jess Philips and Ed Miliband as probative evidence
We need a new word for this phenomenon. Government by the averagely dim
The Tories and LDs, indeed, all parties, are equally stuffed with these twats. It is not a partisan thing
You are the classic example of the Dunning-Krueger effect. Both those guys run circles around you and yet you are completely oblivious.
Alternatively Leon is an example of someone with a very high IQ, but the conclusion would be the same: thank god he's spending his sober waking hours trying on edgy political opinions for kicks on an obscure forum rather than holding the reins of power.
Which is correct
I am insanely clever. I once “ceilinged” on a verbal iq test. That is to say: I scored so highly the test was unable to cope with such a high score. I got 100% and should have got more but obvs you can’t get more than 100%
However I’d be a terrible politician. I’d be shutting Sikhs in gulags one week, drunk the next, and then going to war with Alderney and Quebec by Easter Sunday. I’m an alcoholic manic depressive loner extrovert with high libido and drug issues and a terrible terrible tendency to hyperbolise even if I can extrapolate like a fucker
To be a good democratic politician you need an utterly different skill set. Much more measured and stable and forensic along with high intelligence. I’d be useless, potentially disastrous
My complaint is not that “I should be a politician” but that liberal democratic politics is now attracting real dullards. Look at our fucking prime minister FFS
Albeit IQ also includes numeracy and ability to manipulate shapes.
With weightings of the three components arrived at in the best possible expert taste, ditto across-the-board agreement on what to exclude etc.
Only morons believe in IQ. Funny, though, how the very same morons who ask how can you "believe" or "not believe" in something that they believe is obviously true - because some people are better than others at answering certain kinds of question - like to recite Popper on falsification.
All "geniuses" in the history of the world have been highly trained. There's your falsification right there. And there's much more, but I don't have the time. Pinker sounds like he's writing "amazing twin stories" for Reader's Digest and Plomin reckons genes determine how many books there are in your house.
All elite athletes are highly trained. Would you deny that there is a genetic component to athletic talent?
I don't think anyone would deny that, nor that some people are blessed with an intellectual advantage thanks to their genes.
Where people usually go wrong is forgetting that there's far more generic variance among -say- Swiss people than between an average Swiss and an average Nigerian.
China has suspended exports of rare earth minerals and magnets crucial to the world’s automakers, aerospace manufacturers and military contractors. The crackdown is part of the country’s retaliation for President Trump’s sharp increase in tariffs.
Separately, this is also dumb from the Chinese, because (a) the Americans cannot backdown, and therefore the chances of escalation have grown significantly, and (b) this just ensures that other sources of rare earths come on stream soonest.
Except the timescales don't match.
Developing new sources of rare earth materials won't be quick. The current tariff brouhaha will be played out well before then, I suspect.
The Chinese have just put themselves on the “Unreliable Trade Partners” list.
Good luck stopping rare earth projects outside China now.
That was pretty likely to happen anyway. And they'll still likely be the most competitive producer, owing to their approach to environmental regs.
The virtual monopoly's no use if you don't use it, anyway.
China has suspended exports of rare earth minerals and magnets crucial to the world’s automakers, aerospace manufacturers and military contractors. The crackdown is part of the country’s retaliation for President Trump’s sharp increase in tariffs.
Separately, this is also dumb from the Chinese, because (a) the Americans cannot backdown, and therefore the chances of escalation have grown significantly, and (b) this just ensures that other sources of rare earths come on stream soonest.
Except the timescales don't match.
Developing new sources of rare earth materials won't be quick. The current tariff brouhaha will be played out well before then, I suspect.
The Chinese have just put themselves on the “Unreliable Trade Partners” list.
Good luck stopping rare earth projects outside China now.
That was pretty likely to happen anyway. And they'll still likely be the most competitive producer, owing to their approach to environmental regs.
The virtual monopoly's no use if you don't use it, anyway.
Not really. It’s kind of a myth that you can do mega scale industrial chemistry like this and just not care. To start with you get purity concerns. Basically, the difference between a real shit show and a competent operation isn’t that big, financially.
On rare earths, deposits, resources and reserves, I tend to trust Tim Worstall who dealt in some of them, rather than any number of economists and criminologists: A mineral resource is what we think might be worth digging up and processing. A mineral reserve is what we’ve proven is worth digging up to process. ... What’s actually happened here is that someone’s started waving around old Soviet era surveys of mineral deposits and then shifted the meaning to mineral reserves. ... Sure there are minerals in Ukraine. Sure there are rare earths. Mineral reserves, minerals proven to be actually worth extracting and refining, not so much.
An incredible stat here. Someone has done IQ estimates of the “Swedish elite”
Look at the political class. The PARLIAMENTARIANS barely edge over IQ 110. THEY ARE 115 tops. That means quintessential midwits like @kinabalu and @IanB2 are running Sweden. People who should be running second hand bookshops or amateur ballet classes are running entire countries. Hence, perhaps, Sweden’s many modern problems, many of them entirely avoidable if you’re not governed by mediocrities
I am pretty sure we would find the same in the UK. I adduce David Lammy, Jess Philips and Ed Miliband as probative evidence
We need a new word for this phenomenon. Government by the averagely dim
The Tories and LDs, indeed, all parties, are equally stuffed with these twats. It is not a partisan thing
You are the classic example of the Dunning-Krueger effect. Both those guys run circles around you and yet you are completely oblivious.
Alternatively Leon is an example of someone with a very high IQ, but the conclusion would be the same: thank god he's spending his sober waking hours trying on edgy political opinions for kicks on an obscure forum rather than holding the reins of power.
Which is correct
I am insanely clever. I once “ceilinged” on a verbal iq test. That is to say: I scored so highly the test was unable to cope with such a high score. I got 100% and should have got more but obvs you can’t get more than 100%
However I’d be a terrible politician. I’d be shutting Sikhs in gulags one week, drunk the next, and then going to war with Alderney and Quebec by Easter Sunday. I’m an alcoholic manic depressive loner extrovert with high libido and drug issues and a terrible terrible tendency to hyperbolise even if I can extrapolate like a fucker
To be a good democratic politician you need an utterly different skill set. Much more measured and stable and forensic along with high intelligence. I’d be useless, potentially disastrous
My complaint is not that “I should be a politician” but that liberal democratic politics is now attracting real dullards. Look at our fucking prime minister FFS
It’s a good job you are so modest with all the rest, otherwise you’d come across as a complete arse.
China has suspended exports of rare earth minerals and magnets crucial to the world’s automakers, aerospace manufacturers and military contractors. The crackdown is part of the country’s retaliation for President Trump’s sharp increase in tariffs.
Separately, this is also dumb from the Chinese, because (a) the Americans cannot backdown, and therefore the chances of escalation have grown significantly, and (b) this just ensures that other sources of rare earths come on stream soonest.
Except the timescales don't match.
Developing new sources of rare earth materials won't be quick. The current tariff brouhaha will be played out well before then, I suspect.
The Chinese have just put themselves on the “Unreliable Trade Partners” list.
Good luck stopping rare earth projects outside China now.
That was pretty likely to happen anyway. And they'll still likely be the most competitive producer, owing to their approach to environmental regs.
The virtual monopoly's no use if you don't use it, anyway.
Incidentally, the smart move with a virtual monopoly is keep the prices low, and the deliveries constant.
That way your customers are not motivated to break the monopoly. Plus you use the economy of scale to keep entrants out.
Thoroughly entertaining round of golf, for all the wrong reasons
And again...
Imagine what his score might be if he could hit a single drive
"We must stop the terror. I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers. Thank you. Now watch this drive!" - Dubya.
Oliver Wendell Holmes supposedly once said that FDR had a "second class" intellect, but a "first class" temperament. (I'd agree with that conclusion.)
A good case can be made for Abraham Lincoln as the president with the highest IQ. He had a few years of grade school, but taught himself to be, first a surveyor, and then a lawyer. (He was good at both.)
He read and studied every book he could get his hands on, and was famous for his ability to lean by listening.
Oliver Wendell Holmes supposedly once said that FDR had a "second class" intellect, but a "first class" temperament. (I'd agree with that conclusion.)
A good case can be made for Abraham Lincoln as the president with the highest IQ. He had a few years of grade school, but taught himself to be, first a surveyor, and then a lawyer. (He was good at both.)
He read and studied every book he could get his hands on, and was famous for his ability to lean by listening.
He also corralled and led a cabinet largely composed of people who thought they should have been President instead of him. And dominated them by argument, humour and personality.
Oliver Wendell Holmes supposedly once said that FDR had a "second class" intellect, but a "first class" temperament. (I'd agree with that conclusion.)
A good case can be made for Abraham Lincoln as the president with the highest IQ. He had a few years of grade school, but taught himself to be, first a surveyor, and then a lawyer. (He was good at both.)
He read and studied every book he could get his hands on, and was famous for his ability to lean by listening.
He also corralled and led a cabinet largely composed of people who thought they should have been President instead of him. And dominated them by argument, humour and personality.
That's very out of fashion these days. These days the fashion is slavish loyalty and devotion.
Trump just posted a new rant claiming the tariff exceptions on electronics announced late Friday aren’t actually exceptions and they’ll still get hit with tariffs.
So the market gonna crash again tomorrow and then Wednesday he'll say he's pausing tariffs again and then Thursday he'll make another one of those videos in the Oval Office where he tells everyone how many billions his friends made on the trade
Trump’s on-off again tariffs rapidly approaching the mixed state stage where we get both tariffs and not-tariffs simultaneously.
Trump just posted a new rant claiming the tariff exceptions on electronics announced late Friday aren’t actually exceptions and they’ll still get hit with tariffs.
So the market gonna crash again tomorrow and then Wednesday he'll say he's pausing tariffs again and then Thursday he'll make another one of those videos in the Oval Office where he tells everyone how many billions his friends made on the trade
Trump’s on-off again tariffs rapidly approaching the mixed state stage where we get both tariffs and not-tariffs simultaneously.
Trump just posted a new rant claiming the tariff exceptions on electronics announced late Friday aren’t actually exceptions and they’ll still get hit with tariffs.
So the market gonna crash again tomorrow and then Wednesday he'll say he's pausing tariffs again and then Thursday he'll make another one of those videos in the Oval Office where he tells everyone how many billions his friends made on the trade
Trump’s on-off again tariffs rapidly approaching the mixed state stage where we get both tariffs and not-tariffs simultaneously.
Tariffs are both a particle and wave
US-China trade is both dead and... dead.
(The Stable Genius has managed to create a situation with most of the downsides of protectionism but none of the benefits. Maybe he meant that he was a genius compared with the usual inhabitants of stables.)
Trump just posted a new rant claiming the tariff exceptions on electronics announced late Friday aren’t actually exceptions and they’ll still get hit with tariffs.
So the market gonna crash again tomorrow and then Wednesday he'll say he's pausing tariffs again and then Thursday he'll make another one of those videos in the Oval Office where he tells everyone how many billions his friends made on the trade
Trump’s on-off again tariffs rapidly approaching the mixed state stage where we get both tariffs and not-tariffs simultaneously.
Trump just posted a new rant claiming the tariff exceptions on electronics announced late Friday aren’t actually exceptions and they’ll still get hit with tariffs.
So the market gonna crash again tomorrow and then Wednesday he'll say he's pausing tariffs again and then Thursday he'll make another one of those videos in the Oval Office where he tells everyone how many billions his friends made on the trade
Trump’s on-off again tariffs rapidly approaching the mixed state stage where we get both tariffs and not-tariffs simultaneously.
Yup - we have a kind of quantum superimposition bullshit going on here.
Oliver Wendell Holmes supposedly once said that FDR had a "second class" intellect, but a "first class" temperament. (I'd agree with that conclusion.)
A good case can be made for Abraham Lincoln as the president with the highest IQ. He had a few years of grade school, but taught himself to be, first a surveyor, and then a lawyer. (He was good at both.)
He read and studied every book he could get his hands on, and was famous for his ability to lean by listening.
He also corralled and led a cabinet largely composed of people who thought they should have been President instead of him. And dominated them by argument, humour and personality.
That's very out of fashion these days. These days the fashion is slavish loyalty and devotion.
Trump just posted a new rant claiming the tariff exceptions on electronics announced late Friday aren’t actually exceptions and they’ll still get hit with tariffs.
So the market gonna crash again tomorrow and then Wednesday he'll say he's pausing tariffs again and then Thursday he'll make another one of those videos in the Oval Office where he tells everyone how many billions his friends made on the trade
Trump’s on-off again tariffs rapidly approaching the mixed state stage where we get both tariffs and not-tariffs simultaneously.
Scoop: There is significant division inside the @WhiteHouseover@howardlutnick’s comments on the temporary nature of the tariff exemptions, an apparent 180 from where the world thought the trade negotiations were going, sources tell me. Of course the only opinion that really matters in the president’s but I am told plenty of people really believe he is “off message” of trying to create a trade regime that involves negotiations even with China and actions that don’t roil the markets including the all important bond market. This story is developing
Trump just posted a new rant claiming the tariff exceptions on electronics announced late Friday aren’t actually exceptions and they’ll still get hit with tariffs.
So the market gonna crash again tomorrow and then Wednesday he'll say he's pausing tariffs again and then Thursday he'll make another one of those videos in the Oval Office where he tells everyone how many billions his friends made on the trade
Trump’s on-off again tariffs rapidly approaching the mixed state stage where we get both tariffs and not-tariffs simultaneously.
Passenger numbers on the new Northumberland line are 5 times higher than expected. They've only managed to open half of the stations so far, and are now scrambling to get longer trains to deal with overcrowding.
As ever with British public transport, institutional pessimism nearly killed off a brilliant project even as the evidence slapped us about the face.
Labour don’t appear to appreciate that lawyers in cahoots with judges have levered the Equality Act as a backdoor way to implement socialism in one country.
Different jobs have different pay rates? No problem: claim that one job has a different male:female ratio & wield the Equality Act to force the employer to pay them both the same hourly rate! Bonus points if you can point to racial differences, although so far only gender differences have been necessary to win in court.
When the employer goes bankrupt due to being unable to pay the legally enforced back pay that isn’t the lawyers problem, is it? When one side of the pair of jobs goes on strike because their employer is forced to change their terms & conditions to make the two jobs match that isn’t the lawyers problem either. When the basis of market forces for labour break down & it becomes impossible to recruit for certain jobs which are now mandated to be paid the same as other, completely different ones that definitely isn’t the lawyers problem.
(I exaggerate only slightly - but this is a real issue that the government is going to have to face up to somehow, because the lawyers are not going to stop now that they’ve got the bit between their teeth. Judges should not be setting pay rates for radically different jobs - that’s the job of the market &/or the government.)
Passenger numbers on the new Northumberland line are 5 times higher than expected. They've only managed to open half of the stations so far, and are now scrambling to get longer trains to deal with overcrowding.
As ever with British public transport, institutional pessimism nearly killed off a brilliant project even as the evidence slapped us about the face.
To be /slightly/ fair to the pessimists, the local council appears to be heavily subsidising the ticket prices. Whether permanently or just in the short term to kick start usage of the new line I don’t know.
Comments
I am insanely clever. I once “ceilinged” on a verbal iq test. That is to say: I scored so highly the test was unable to cope with such a high score. I got 100% and should have got more but obvs you can’t get more than 100%
However I’d be a terrible politician. I’d be shutting Sikhs in gulags one week, drunk the next, and then going to war with Alderney and Quebec by Easter Sunday. I’m an alcoholic manic depressive loner extrovert with high libido and drug issues and a terrible terrible tendency to hyperbolise even if I can extrapolate like a fucker
To be a good democratic politician you need an utterly different skill set. Much more measured and stable and forensic along with high intelligence. I’d be useless, potentially disastrous
My complaint is not that “I should be a politician” but that liberal democratic politics is now attracting real dullards. Look at our fucking prime minister FFS
https://x.com/ChristopherJM/status/1911492888372126140
It will be entertaining when he makes an announcement and nothing happens because the markets no longer care what he says
And memory is, traditionally, a lying jade.
Some of our readers are, you know, Radiohead fans...
Other sources of minerals? For America? Which friend is going to sell it to them?
As for American escalation, Trump is frit. He's wussed out over electronics, he wussed out over the bond markets, he is the living demonstration of limp-dick negotiation.
Xi knows what he's doing. And what he's doing is America. Right up Trump's kazoo.
https://bsky.app/profile/pickardje.bsky.social/post/3lmm6dbihfc2e
Undermining the unity of the west is far more valuable long term to China than this temporary scrap
https://newrepublic.com/post/193930/ports-not-collecting-trump-tariffs-glitch
Starmer is many things but not stupid, he has a 1st class degree in law and an Oxford Masters
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Diary
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/11p97ea/did_the_nazi_leadership_actually_have_high_iqs/?rdt=54603#:~:text=They had an average IQ,Schacht (acquitted) a 143.
Developing new sources of rare earth materials won't be quick. The current tariff brouhaha will be played out well before then, I suspect.
Even Biden imposed tariffs on China but at a lower rate than Trump has as that is the major economic rivalry now, the US and China and China's dominance of cheap manufactured goods and their export balanced by US dominance in services
CoPilot: Good evening! I’m delighted you asked—there’s quite the variety of conversational AIs out there that your acquaintance might enjoy exploring. Here are a few suggestions:
- Microsoft Copilot (yours truly): Known for providing helpful insights and lively, engaging interactions. I specialize in brainstorming, solving problems, sharing knowledge, and bringing a touch of personality to our chats.
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- Bard by Google: An AI built for creative collaboration. Bard can assist in generating ideas, storytelling, and answering queries.
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Of course, each AI has its own unique flavor—it's all about finding the one that best fits your acquaintance’s interests and needs. If they have specific goals in mind, I can help suggest a match! What do you think? 😊https://x.com/smc429/status/1911081200300826681
So far he has backed down with Israel, Russia, Ukraine, Canada, Mexico, almost the entire rest of the World and the bond markets on tariffs, and with China on laptops, mobiles and any other shit Americans buy.
Why would this be different?
The past blocks have mainly been the environmental concerns leading to intense lawfare against such extraction.
In quite a few places, such tailings extraction would take about a year to setup.
Here's Nassim Taleb's take on this crock:
https://archive.is/NZ82M
Only morons believe in IQ. Funny, though, how the very same morons who ask how can you "believe" or "not believe" in something that they believe is obviously true - because some people are better than others at answering certain kinds of question - like to recite Popper on falsification.
All "geniuses" in the history of the world have been highly trained.
There's your falsification right there. And there's much more, but I don't have the time. Pinker sounds like he's writing "amazing twin stories" for Reader's Digest and Plomin reckons genes determine how many books there are in your house.
Should I need such a thing I would require something to devise strategies to cope with problems such as lack of money/health/opportunity for myself or my family, not something that acts like a sympathetic friend or a wank partner. Damn, it's such a swing-and-a-miss. Is there such a thing that would properly help and not go "there, there"?
(additionally I hate the fact that it implies the "I need my pain" scene from Star Trek 5)
https://medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-pseudoscientific-swindle-f131c101ba39
Trump just posted a new rant claiming the tariff exceptions on electronics announced late Friday aren’t actually exceptions and they’ll still get hit with tariffs.
https://bsky.app/profile/paleofuture.bsky.social/post/3lmpsjcja2c2y
@coachfinstock.bsky.social
So the market gonna crash again tomorrow and then Wednesday he'll say he's pausing tariffs again and then Thursday he'll make another one of those videos in the Oval Office where he tells everyone how many billions his friends made on the trade
Good luck stopping rare earth projects outside China now.
Where people usually go wrong is forgetting that there's far more generic variance among -say- Swiss people than between an average Swiss and an average Nigerian.
China paused the mining of heavy rare earths near Longnan a few years ago because it was causing severe chemical pollution.
On Friday, at the site of one mine near Longnan, a diesel generator was humming and liquids were gurgling through plastic pipes, indicating that at least some mining operations had probably resumed.
but notes that the "ban" is a "pause" whilst they introduce a new system to control exports:
Michael Silver, the chairman and chief executive of American Elements, a chemicals supplier based in Los Angeles, said his company had been told it would take 45 days before export licenses could be issued and exports of rare earth metals and magnets would resume.
https://archive.is/20250413193622/https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/business/china-rare-earths-exports.html#selection-831.0-831.264
Highly recommended.
And they'll still likely be the most competitive producer, owing to their approach to environmental regs.
The virtual monopoly's no use if you don't use it, anyway.
A mineral resource is what we think might be worth digging up and processing. A mineral reserve is what we’ve proven is worth digging up to process.
...
What’s actually happened here is that someone’s started waving around old Soviet era surveys of mineral deposits and then shifted the meaning to mineral reserves.
...
Sure there are minerals in Ukraine. Sure there are rare earths. Mineral reserves, minerals proven to be actually worth extracting and refining, not so much.
The Donald’s going to be real pissed when he finds out, isn’t he?
https://thecritic.co.uk/the-ukrainian-minerals-myth/
*TRUMP: NOBODY GETTING “OFF THE HOOK” FOR UNFAIR TRADE
*TRUMP: THERE WAS NO TARIFF 'EXCEPTION' ANNOUNCED ON FRIDAY
*TRUMP: CHIPS TO BE ASSESSED IN NATIONAL SECURITY TARIFF PROBES
https://x.com/DeItaone/status/1911505247211803078
That way your customers are not motivated to break the monopoly. Plus you use the economy of scale to keep entrants out.
- Dubya.
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/5246802-shapiro-arsonist-set-fire-pennsylvania-governors-house/
Passover weekend.
A good case can be made for Abraham Lincoln as the president with the highest IQ. He had a few years of grade school, but taught himself to be, first a surveyor, and then a lawyer. (He was good at both.)
He read and studied every book he could get his hands on, and was famous for his ability to lean by listening.
How much corruption? All the corruption: There’s no upper limit to how much corruption this administration is capable of.
(The Stable Genius has managed to create a situation with most of the downsides of protectionism but none of the benefits. Maybe he meant that he was a genius compared with the usual inhabitants of stables.)
Schrödinger’s Tarrifs?
Military personnel take up office-based role to help during strike"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/04/13/angela-rayner-calls-in-army-to-tackle-birmingham-bin-crisis/
EDIT: damn, jinxed it
Charles Gasparino @CGasparino
Scoop: There is significant division inside the @WhiteHouseover @howardlutnick’s comments on the temporary nature of the tariff exemptions, an apparent 180 from where the world thought the trade negotiations were going, sources tell me. Of course the only opinion that really matters in the president’s but I am told plenty of people really believe he is “off message” of trying to create a trade regime that involves negotiations even with China and actions that don’t roil the markets including the all important bond market. This story is developing
https://x.com/CGasparino/status/1911464722139865578
Surely even Rory can't lose this.
That makes what is happening now even funnier
Which is the better LA film - “Heat” or “Collateral” ?
As ever with British public transport, institutional pessimism nearly killed off a brilliant project even as the evidence slapped us about the face.
Just hope he doesn't go to pieces like when the 2-footer he missed that killed his confidence...
Different jobs have different pay rates? No problem: claim that one job has a different male:female ratio & wield the Equality Act to force the employer to pay them both the same hourly rate! Bonus points if you can point to racial differences, although so far only gender differences have been necessary to win in court.
When the employer goes bankrupt due to being unable to pay the legally enforced back pay that isn’t the lawyers problem, is it? When one side of the pair of jobs goes on strike because their employer is forced to change their terms & conditions to make the two jobs match that isn’t the lawyers problem either. When the basis of market forces for labour break down & it becomes impossible to recruit for certain jobs which are now mandated to be paid the same as other, completely different ones that definitely isn’t the lawyers problem.
(I exaggerate only slightly - but this is a real issue that the government is going to have to face up to somehow, because the lawyers are not going to stop now that they’ve got the bit between their teeth. Judges should not be setting pay rates for radically different jobs - that’s the job of the market &/or the government.)