[Johnny Brown]

Lol, I was about to add a comment about Twight but no need. Strange what appeals to some people, I tried to listen to a recent podcast with him while painting the kitchen but it was incredibly dull.

Worse than climbers would seem to be successful businessmen. Concentrating on odds that might look like a decent punt for investment while ignoring the fact that being wrong here has a rather more serious downside.

[mrjonathanr]

Mark Twight may be intelligent

Not much evidence of that there.

[Ged]

One has to be concerned about the short to long term future of the US and the effects of covid. With what looks like a gathering movement of people up for sacking off social distancing and any kind of precautions, and a completely incompetent government, are we going to see a stratospheric epidemic there more than anywhere else? The death curve is saw in BBC for the US  is taking on a distinctly exponential shape.

[tomtom]

It’s interesting in the US. Some states will be well in top of it (California springs to mind) others hit bad but co-ordinated (New York). Some are sparsely populated and may not be badly hit at all.

But it’s not going to go away for a while. There’s a good item on the BBC about a cluster of 800 cases stemming from a slaughterhouse that wouldn’t shut down after several people there got it. I could envisage that happening repeatedly in different contexts across the states. Little or large clusters popping up repeatedly.

I don’t know enough about the federal and state structure but is this fuck up happening because the state governers call the shots - but ideally would follow a federal line. Which in this case is batshit?

[lagerstarfish]

https://www.nonprophet.media/stand-up

Read this from Mark Twight with interest and no little incredulity. It’s interesting in the states how similar arguments can be trotted out by disparate groups, and that it would seem even intelligent people are not immune to conspiracy theories.

Gosh.

Sounds just like me as an angry 16 year old (before I started climbing)

[TobyD]

Mark Twight may be intelligent

Not much evidence of that there.

Doesn't he like quoting nietzsche? Which is as good a marker of intelligence as large furry dice hanging on someone's car mirror.

[Offwidth]

In the meantime, the orange one gets more crazy by the day.

https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-coronavirus-press-conference-transcript-april-18

I got frustrated for a while watching the BBC live coverage last night, as the graphs were all off screen,  then I rememberd the context.

[lagerstarfish]

When he started rambling about having "many platforms" I found myself waiting for Nine and Three Quarters to get a mention

[petejh]

I understand all that, having lived in rural Alberta for 4 years and spent plenty of time in Montana, Wyoming and Utah. But his blog is basically attached to his business, which is some kind of 'movement' selling anti-authoritarian merchandise and artwork, and fitness programmes. He's like a hench neo-liberal John Redhead. And many of his clientele will be wealthy people from urban areas of the US who idolise Twight for his bullshit pseudo-punk-Nietzschean literature about climbing and training. 

[teestub]

It’s slightly disingenuous to talk about the BC population as a whole when more than half of that population lives within the Vancouver metropolitan area (not sure how far this extends but I remember the corridor all the way to Squamish being pretty continuously settled).

In an area like this it seems a very easy decision to close the public lands so you don’t get thousands of people heading up every chance they get, stopping at petrol stations, Mags, etc.

And if you closed the public lands nearer to Vancouver and left more remote ones open then people would just drive further!

[Ged]

"I’d say there’s a big difference between 6% and 60"

Can't argue with that donald.

[petejh]

It’s slightly disingenuous to talk about the BC population as a whole when more than half of that population lives within the Vancouver metropolitan area

That is true (though only a few blocks of downtown Vancouver are as crowded as say, central London) but regardless the covid stats here are as good or better than South Korea, which is held up as an exemplary model. Sustaining aggressive lockdowns is a hard sell in that context.

Canada is basically 95% a gigantic empty wasteland, with 30 million people living in 5% of the country south of a certain latitude. And even in that 'populated' little strip along the southern border with the US, there's huge amounts of open space for people to spread out into. Apart from literally a few blocks of Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto or Montreal population is spread out - even in Canadian cities the housing is often large detached houses.
For an infection which spreads through human contact, I'd be astounded if the infection stats in Canada weren't miles better than just about any country in the world. 
I love this map showing population density. Basically, outside of Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary and Montreal, there isn't any!
 

Compare with Europe:

[SA Chris]

Same could be said for Scotland.

[Oldmanmatt]

Same could be said for Scotland.

Yeah...

But you lot batter and deep fry Mars bars, so you’re all basically walking “underlying health conditions” with Tartan skirts...

😜

[SA Chris]

Even in extreme states of inebriation I've yet to be tempted by one.

Opt for a slice of deep fried pizza instead.

[Sasquatch]

Even in extreme states of inebriation I've yet to be tempted by one.

Opt for a slice of deep fried pizza instead.

Deep fried pizza   

I had to look that up. 

[tomtom]

Even in extreme states of inebriation I've yet to be tempted by one.

Opt for a slice of deep fried pizza instead.

Deep fried pizza   

I had to look that up.

It’s good. Deep fried haggis is/was a favourite of mine.

[nai]

No it's not. I remember my first climbing trip to Scotland, stopping at a chippy on the outskirts of Glasgow, ordering pizza and realising what I'd done when the "chef" took one, folded it and move it towards the oil.  I made it to "N" before it went in and I was resigned to having it 

[SA Chris]

You don't eat it sober, it's rank.

[SA Chris]

What he put in place is what Trump removed.

[mrjonathanr]

Trump's outdone himself this time. Ever noticed those childproof caps and labels on the bottle saying ingesting bleach isn't a good idea? POTUS takes a different view; internal UV (??) seems to be on the agenda too:
http://youtu.be/QtgVxGkrX1Y?t=102

Walter Shaub, former Director of US Gov ethics, has an interesting thread on this:
It is incomprehensible to me that a moron like this holds the highest office in the land and that there exist people stupid enough to think this is OK
https://twitter.com/waltshaub/status/1253506214257975298

[SA Chris]

Not sure what is more dangerous, the novel virus or his novel stupidity.

Can you imagine being the guy off screen he is talking to, who has to agree with him? You'd have to have your cringe surgically removed.

[mrjonathanr]

https://twitter.com/Daniel_Lewis3/status/1253482576699969537

[remus]

https://twitter.com/Daniel_Lewis3/status/1253482576699969537

Being an advisor to a powerful idiot who ignores all your advice must be a stressful job!

[teestub]

https://twitter.com/Daniel_Lewis3/status/1253482576699969537

Just needs the Curb Your Enthusiasm music adding over the top!