The State Department Is Hilarious

It seems the State Department has been hiding its comedic talents from the rest of the world and suddenly decided to best them out all at once, with this report. One should also not discount the possibility that State has been saving up jokes since the Dean Rusk era, and this represents the sum total of their humor over the past half century.

Anyway, it is a report on the dangers one finds abroad. It focuses on the eternal, mundane problems of crime and traffic accidents rather than the headline-catching (but far rarer) dangers of terrorism. Here are my top four favorite warnings, in reverse order (to ensure suspense).

4) "Driving in Qatar is (like) participating in an extreme sport."

3) "The tragedy of Haiti is that Haitians have become great leaders in every profession and in every country, with the exception of Haiti."

2) "Reporting crime is an archaic, exhausting process in Mexico, and is widely perceived to be a waste of time."

1) "Despite Malta's geographic proximity to Italy, organized crime is almost nonexistent."