“Same goes for Iraq that had a mostly secular regime before the US fucked up the place and now has become a hotbed for religious violence.”

This is 100% possible and even likely in my experience working with government. We consulted on a change management and turnover management at a large federal agency where we were helping document processes and procedures for outgoing (retiring, not fired) employees. It wasn’t uncommon to find that they were the…

That’s not true. The history of Europe and the near East is a long history of people killing each other over the same god. 

Uh, we’ve had heavily religious governments in the past 30 years and we didn’t turn into the little town from Footloose. 

This is a bad take. They’ve been this regressive regardless of the US administration’s position on Iran. This is what Islamic theocracies look like. The ones we are friendly with look like this. The ones we hate look like this. They all look like this regardless of their geopolitical global orientation. 

So less people than die of heat stroke in the US each year?

Why would you assume that? To date, all of those issues have been seriously reduced, not increased. Are you just repitching An Essasy on the Principle of Population?

“blunting the tips of knives is a good idea”

This is good kinja. 

Sure, but they should absolutely stop going into the “gun violence” category. Otherwise, Japan, where I’m sure someone has been murdered via hanging, apparently has a lynching crisis right now (if you add in all the self lynchings). 

The UK doesn’t really have privacy rights when compared to the US. Every populated portion of the country has 24/7 CCTV, the government has special police squads to patrol social media posts, they have instituted “knife control” (including arguing to have people file the points off of kitchen knifes), and they are…

It would be a hell of take if that was mine. My take is that they don’t pose a public safety hazard. It would be like lumping suicides into Japan’s violence statistics. It isn’t relevant for the purpose of figuring out if I am going to get murdered in Japan. 

It seems weird to use firearm deaths instead of murders given the majority are suicides and thus aren’t a danger to anyone, but the shooter. Do it for murders and assaults with a weapon because as sad as suicide can be, it isn’t particularly worrisome for the safety of the general public. 

There have already been mass acid attacks. While it isn’t likely to kill you. It disfigures you and leaves you with chronic pain for the rest of your life. Here is an example of the results of an attack.

Acid attacks are also common in the UK. I’d much rather be shot than have acid thrown in my face.

“I remember it well”

Indiana, New York, and WV don’t have an excuse. To be fair to the deep South, I’d never leave my home in that muggy hot-ass weather. Similarly for South Dakota, but with the worst winters. 

LMFAO. My company has the same program (they match donations up to a certain amount per year). They aren’t getting the tax break on your half of the donations. They don’t give a shit if you donate or not. They just pretend to care because it seems like some large enough percent of staff like their employer to appear…

‘Salesforce did say on Wednesday it would pledge $1 million towards helping reunite the children and “match employee donations on the issue”’

You also have the ability to master your fear and anxiety. Some people do it through meditation, others through stoicism. This isn’t an irregular thing.