The Third Slip: Issue 58 - Marvel at Finite War!
Hello, Slippers! Welcome to The Third Slip - the weekly newsletter run by two hipster nerds who pretend to know everything about everything but actually have a very limited understanding of anything. While these qualities make us suitable for the highest political office in the greatest democracies around the world, we have chosen to politely pass up on polity and policy in order to polish off polemics with political correctness through a missive that misses the point to manufacture mirth and merriment.
This is issue 58 and the one in which we shall establish our hipsterity by loudly proclaiming that we care about superhero movies as much as the rest of the world cares about The Third Slip - consumed only if your friend insists that you must, and then politely tell them “wow that was nice” while you secretly mark it as spam and set a rule to automatically mark it as read. But, to preserve our know-it-all-ery we shall make references to everything pop culture and agree with the rest of the world that this week marked...
The most ambitious crossover event in history
That’s right, that’s Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in crossing the military demarcation line to effectively bring an endpoint to the infinity war between North Korea and South Korea which started in 1950 and never officially ended despite an armistice in 1953. They committed to complete denuclearisation and reunification of the two countries and planted a tree together.
This is easily the biggest story that we have covered in the short history of TTS - huge, unexpected and absolutely heartening. And while the finer details and the way forward is not without pitfalls, we shall suspend our cynicism for the time being and give this piece a chance.
Toot your horn: It’s not just the world that’s happy this week, but the universe itself. Scientists have confirmed that Uranus smells like farts. It feels like the whole of time and history have conspired just to make this happen. Somewhere Paulo Coelho is writing another book.
If the world is happy, and the universe is happy... Good news from home (what!)
Freedom ka feel: Dr. Kafeel Khan is granted bail! It’s incredible that we need to celebrate the fact that a doctor who used his own money to rescue babies, because a corrupt government didn’t pay suppliers on time, was imprisoned only for 8 months by the same government. In cricketing terms, this is like an Indian player getting the man of the match award for and the Bharat Ratna for helping the other team win - by running out his own teammates while batting, and sledging his own bowler. In the World Cup final. The last one. Against Pakistan.
Godawfulman: Asaram Bapu was jailed (till death) for rape. Despite the president and netas trying to make the opposite happen. This is the same Asaram Bapu who was showcased as a saint in the class III textbook in Rajasthan.
Outlawed: The North-East is officially a more peaceful place: The draconian AFSPA Law (which gives armed forces a lot of power) has been scrapped.
Now then, back to a dollop of reality #JaiHindside
Your nose is longer than a telephone wire: In a revelation that deserves wider coverage, the government this week admitted that it had misguided an entire nation by telling us that the Supreme Court had made linking of mobile numbers to the Aadhaar mandatory. The admission did not come on its own accord, it happened when the SC asked, “Bro, what? When did I say that?”. This is all a fait accompli now, so we should just let lying dogs sleep let sleeping dogs lie.
Putting the press in suppress and oppress and depress: Since bhakts are proud of India and high numbers, here’s one: We’re the 138th ‘best’ nation for journalists, after, um, Syria and Iraq.
Where’s your loyalty?: The anti-national publication Scroll.in has said that Modi has not done anything despite zipping around the world for the last few years. How dare they. He’s gathered a lot of Airmiles, which should count for some loyalty points. Now he’s in China, essentially to tell Emperor the World, Xi Jinping, bro plz don’t attack before elections next year thx.
Data chappar phad ke: Stop complaining, newsletter-reading urban elite. Aadhaar was for poor people only. For eg: 8 lakh MNREGA workers’ data has been compromised. So screw you and your paranoia about your Vodafone caller-back-tune details being leaked.
Depression Cure interlude: Get used to life without Google. Because the RSS is definitely going to get into outrage mode after… Well… This.
(one of our readers sent this in, check out his insanely cool project where he makes random brand extensions)
International
Meet and potatoheads
Macron and Trump met. It looked like all was well in bromanceland till Macron spoke in the Senate about why nationalism and global warming are bad things and hoped the US would pull up its - forgive our French - le soques de le fuque.
Angela Merkel is scheduled to visit Trump, and this should be interesting - the two leaders have all the miscibility of oil and water. (One half of us clearly showing off his Chemical Engineering degree)
This week in Trumpland
Trump let it slip that his personal lawyer Mike Cohen paid a porn star to keep quiet about their affair. Cohen facepalmed and used a superpower that defends him from self-incrimination - which just makes everyone suspect him more.
Wearing a MAGA cap was a great way to be identified as a twat, now it can help you live healthier as well - a court ruled that bars can refuse to serve you if you wore said cranial appendage.
Do not ape the Kanye West. Who is in some kind of freshly minted bromance with Donald Trump. It was bound to happen. After all, they both love the same thing the most - themselves.
His personal doctor drank on the job and was generally incompetent, and famously said the Prez could live to 200. So Trump naturally wanted him to head the dept of Veteran Affairs, until enough pressure forced him to drop his candidature, hence drastically setting a new record for leaving the Trump administration - before even joining!
Comic Belief: You’re prefired
Tech and Biz
Gently up the stream: It’s official. Streaming is the biggest contributor to the music industry - ahead of physical, downloads and even performance fees!
Limit - putting the mi in lit: Xiaomi promised never to make profits more than 5%, and will, um, give anything more back to the people.
Add to mart: Well, well, Walmart wants to buy Flipkart. Big billion day sale anyone?
Seek and you shall mint: Google is making a lot of money. Most of it from search, of course.
Boot pe booty: Amazon will now deliver to your car trunk (or… Frunk, if you’re a Tesla guy), and its Echo for Kids will teach the young twats to say ‘please’.
Sad reacts: Facebook is making even more money. Scandal? What scandal? In fact, marketers are worried Facebook might give them access to less data! Capitalism <3 So it’s probably with that confidence that it went and made an ad about what a bad boy it’s been, spank me.
Love reacts: But, using Facebook to make misleading political ads got a wee bit tougher. And they are walking the talk with respect to making the platform safer.
LinkedOut
It was referenced in the latest Silicon Valley episode, so we read up about it. The scary thought experiment - Roko’s Basilisk.
It’s a boom time to be a neurosurgeon, we suppose because more people are at their wits' ends than ever before. Anyway, it’s forcing companies to have a political stance.
Left-liberals of the world unite, you have nothing to do but facepalm. Finland chose not to extend the Universal Basic Income experiment. Report next year, so look forward to that TTS issue.
You knew the facts, but what a beautiful visualization of Amazon’s behemothness (behemothery? behemotherofgod?) by The Guardian.
PM Modi said last week that he welcomed criticism. But what happens to the people arrested for insulting him?
That’s it for issue 58. If you’d like to get in touch with us or generally keep tabs on our bad taste outside of this newsletter, you can reach us on Twitter (Tony | Chuck). Also, share your thoughts with us over email. We’d love to hear from you. If you haven’t done so already, subscribe now (it’s free).
Parting thought: the humour in this newsletter is as funny as you read to yourself because jokes are not about the writing, it’s about being delivered properly. Also, jokes are funnier with when you have enough alcohol and you’re de-livered properly. Until next week, may you have a joyous week and meet with a friend you’ve been avoiding, and like Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in bury the hatchet and share many laughs. Bye!