The Third Slip: Issue 86 - What sin a name?
Hello, Slippers! Welcome to The Third Slip - the weekly newsletter that William Shakespeare once described as “a cracker!”. Well, actually he described it as “full of sound and fury. Signifying nothing.”, but as you know this newsletter is all about summarising accurately without a bias for self-aggrandisement or pushing forward our worldview.
This is issue 86, and by now we've made all possible puns in the universe. So in a Douglas Adamsian manner, the puns in this issue will be replaced by even more bizarre and inexplicable ones. Don't panic or throw in the towel though. This issue comes with a free on-demand Joke Explainer. After all, footnotes make jokes better. But first, the news…
At Home
The real name changer: They said he’d be a game changer, they were only one letter off. It turns out Adityanath’s favourite keyboard shortcut is F2 for rename. Even as the rest of the state screams for F1. For sane people, the answer lies one key to the left - Escape. In other news, the BJP in Kerala admitted that the Sabarimala agitation is part of its agenda and a golden opportunity. Elsewhere, the BJP is seeking a ban on the film Kedarnath because allegedly it promotes “love jihad”. Brace for more impact as the elections approach, because their plank for winning 2019 is ‘bigotry’, which you will remember was renamed in 2014 as ‘development’.
The yo-yo test: Long before Virat Kohli became the batting icon and the fitness enforcer that he is, he had done enough to be immortalised for carrying Sachin Tendulkar on his shoulders after the 2011 world cup win and following it up with the best possible unscripted TV moment when he said “He carried the burden of the nation for 21 years, so it is the time we carried him on our shoulders.”. Ever since, he has been known for his unminced but progressive words when he speaks. Until now. This week, he asked people who don’t like Indian batsmen to go live in other countries before backtracking and saying he was only “trolling”. As Harsha Bhogle opines, this is reflective of the bubble and echo chambers that celebrities often end up in. Also, a clear indicator of the mainstreaming of hate.
DeMon King Anniversary: Fire up the crackers! Even as the showdown between the central government and the RBI continues with the government holding the RBI against the turnbuckle and administering multiple StinkFaces (it is likely that Urjit Patel will resign soon), the nation celebrated the second anniversary of demonetisation. Raghuram Rajan opined that demonetisation and hasty rollout of GST held back India’s growth. But what does he know, let’s ask Virat Kohli or some common man instead of these experts.
You’ll never walk a loan: In some good news, there’s a new government website where MSMEs can get loans in under an hour. Yay.
The Dark Nightie: In a bizarre fun story, a village in Andhra Pradesh has banned the national outfit of homemakers in India - the nightie - from being worn during daytime. TTS speculates that the vote on this issue was very close - it was a nigh tie.
By the way
Roll and Rock: The US government is looking for someone to roll their joints. That sound you hear is a million college students updating their CVs.
Putting the con in conference: The irony of a World Internet Conference being hosted in China! This is like the World Vegan Conference being held in Mohd. Ali Road.
Taking the Mickey: That NASA photo might be fake, but yes, even Disneyland celebrated Diwali.
In the same bot: China has an AI news anchor, which makes making jokes about ‘puppet of the government’ all too easy.
Australia™ presents Stupidest Ways To Die: Eating a poisonous slug on a dare.
International news
May or May Not: Does Brexit continue to be a farce this week? Yes. Fun fact: we never delete this sentence from our draft document. Only the hyperlink is updated each week.
Ping Pong Diplomacy: President Xi Jinping of China thinks he’s a bigger dude than Deng Xiaoping, the chap largely credited with making China prosperous today. He previously used to revere him. Say what you will of our PM, at least he only builds statues of others. Okay, maybe we should stop giving ideas.
Putting the sanction in sanctimony: For sanctions fans: US x Iran is back. Iran is bracing for a reimposition of US sanctions this week, after it was lifted in 2015.
Francaise Alliance: France wants to build a EU army to protect itself from the US, China & Russia. No, we will not make one because French army jokes are not funny. Yes, we gave up on that joke too easily. Hehe.
Recycle Bin Laden: Saudi Arabia still has too much money for other countries (or Softbank) to sever ties with it entirely, even as it sent a squad to ‘clean up’ after the murder. Well, homicidal they might be, but at least they care about hygiene. Oh, not that sort of clean up? Oops.
MidTerm Madness
Post Lunch Sessions: The Democrats won the House in the midterm elections, and that’s big - basically a massive roadblock to anything Trump wants to do, including possibly derailing the Russia investigation. The Tangerine Turd took it all out on the poor Attorney General (Jeff Sessions), someone who steadfastly refuses to end the damn Russia thing, and replaced him with some malleable douche. Anyway, this is progress - even if it means the US is more divided than ever before (PS: Superb read here) - after all, several districts that voted for Trump have voted against him, after they probably realised that it wasn’t China & Mexico taking away their jobs after all.
The Upshot: Why is this important? This is good for climate change (Phew! Finally some people who believe in science), stock market (Phew! Less chance of some silly regulation) and Facebook (Phew! Less chance of scrutiny, now we can be left alone to make billions off people’s insecurities using evil algorithms).
The Shoot Up: In any case, don’t worry about the US too much - thanks to the rate at which they’re shooting each other, there won’t be too many people left. They are putting the amen in second amendment.
Tech & Biz
Jeff Cessions: The world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos, basically made cities fight over where its new headquarters were going: And at the end, Amazon HQ2 is being split between Virginia & NY.
Flip Flop: Samsung is coming with bendable phones!
LinkedOut: Some superb things we read this week
That Google walkout is a watershed moment in tech.
The psychology of selling - fabulous read about, well, how to sell.
In Delhi and still coughing? Thank the Green Revolution.
That’s it for this week. If you’d like to get in touch with us and add to our follower count after Twitter made a user purge this week, find us (Chuck | Tony). If you’d like to share some thoughts, we are listening. Email us. If you’d like to do a good deed for Diwali, get your friends to subscribe to us with a click. Until next week, may you have a debate that both parties feel good about after. Bye!