The Third Slip: Issue 90 - Public Interest Mitigation
Hello, Slippers! Welcome to The Third Slip - the weekly newsletter that we use as a device mostly to poke fun at ourselves, but we’re so clumsy that we miss often and poke fun at the rest of the world instead. Yes, that’s right, the metaphors here collapse faster than an Australian batting lineup at home against India but is dragged on regardless like an Australian commentator’s relentless delusional optimism of his team’s chances despite being further behind the game with each passing session.
This is issue 90. 90 of course, is what Hitler usually said at around 4 PM. (“Will you have coffee, mein fuhrer?” “Nein tea”). It seems tea is a common theme in the origin myths of megalomaniacal world leaders of different eras... No, wait. Don’t unsubscribe just yet. It’s just a joke. Here, take a modified intro. With national pride and all...
This is issue 90. In a week that’s historical, because for the first time 1.3 Billion people in the world are actually looking forward to Monday morning as India look poised to make history in Adelaide. They probably already have by the time you’re reading this. So let’s tell you stuff you don’t know...
At Home
TL;DR: All your favourite political parties are acting completely ridiculously to ensure there’s no public interest in a participative democracy.
Hind-sight bias: Hindutva is the new Brexit. Now you can find it in several forms including soft Hindutva, hard Hindutva, gentle on your skin Hindutva, no animals were harmed in the making of this (we can’t say the same about humans) Hindutva, and much more. The exit polls seem to suggest BJP may be losing ground in several states to the Congress which has regressively decided that it’s going to embrace soft hindutva. Much like Brexit, no one knows what the difference is except that it’s all bad for the democracy.
A hard PIL to swallow: Meanwhile in Kerala, the High Court dismissed BJP leader Sobha Surendran’s PIL claiming that police were filing false cases to arrest violent protesters in Sabarimala. The court observed that the petition was filed with mischievous intentions and for cheap publicity, dismissed it, and asked her to pay a fine. Sobhad it's good.
Cattle fodder: It’s easy to tell the state of our democracy as run by the party that won an obnoxious majority in 2014 on the plank of development by looking at the live stock ticker. Sorry, we mean the livestock ticker. In UP, a cop was killed by a mob allegedly incited by cow slaughter and the CM assured that strict action would be taken against - yes, you guessed it - people who can’t enforce protection against cow slaughter. There were also Babri-demolition celebrations and anger at no Ram Mandir yet even while farmers (from Rajasthan this week) protested against the government.
In short, they’ll continue to make the monkey out of people with false promises. What we mean is, we don’t know about mandir wahi banayenge, but bandar wohi banayenge.
Around the world
Fees, sire? Ceasefire: Economies around the world are sighing in relief now that the US & China are pulling off tariffs for 90 days and not in a trade war anymore. Except that nobody knows what’s changed. Sort of like when you’re super-confused about work, and after a 2-hour meeting, your boss gives everyone ‘clarity’ that just leaves everyone even more confused? That, but geopolitics.
Maple stir-up: Oh, wait. Huawei’s CFO got arrested in Canada (for violating some sanctions and things) and China is not happy. Plot twist! Get the popcorn.
Stop opera: The Mueller investigation right now feels like a long crime drama that asymptotically feels like it should reach the ending where Trump’s guilty but just doesn’t… Though each week it feels closer… And closer… (oh and his chief of staff quit) (and his slimy son-in-law hearts the Saudi crown prince who murdered a journalist) (and the US still supports the war in Yemen)
Corridor of uncertainty: Imran Khan wants to build a corridor that will allow Indian Sikhs to easily enter one of their most revered sites, in Pakistan. Now that’s the sort of border infrastructure L’Orange could take inspiration from.
Cooking with gas: Qatar left OPEC to focus on Natural Gas. The reason you haven’t heard of this is nobody could coin a catchy word (Qatrexit? Dohleave?)
Choking with gas: There was a massive climate conference (for some reason, in the heart of coal country in Poland) where all the big folks went “enh” at the UN Report saying we need to get our shit together. Sell off your property and live it up for 2 more decades, folks - and buy stock of gas mask companies.
Brooking with gas: Emmanuel Macron had to finally give up his proposed fuel tax raises as people in yellow vests protested violently for days in Paris. Good to see a compromise. After all, hate baguettes hate.
By the way
Lagos raho Munna bhai: Nigeria’s president insists he’s not been replaced by an impostor, which is the sort of thing an impostor would say.
Danes feign being benign: Looks like Scandinavia might not rock as much as we might think! Denmark wants to send unwanted immigrants to a remote island. Any campaign that wants to make Danes great again is an indication that things are going to the dogs.
Tech
Data-day activities: Why are we consistently surprised when each week, something new about Facebook’s workings come to fore - even if it’s 250 pages of internal documents dropped by the UK Parliament which talk about how the company actively tried to gain more user data?!
Somnambulanceism?: These cops were smart enough to figure that a Tesla was on auto-pilot after seeing a sleeping driver and averted a trip to the hospital.
An AI for an AI: In what is almost Orwell-meets-Wired satire: AI janitors are coming to Walmart - but one over at Amazon punctured a bear repellant can and sent many employees to the hospital.
LinkedOut
Work friendships are underrated for some reason, but they can be very powerful. Here’s the story of the friendship that made Google huge.
Snap and Tesla - RIP.Maybe.
Also, RIP - the 107-year-old Indian ‘cooking granny’.
A fascinating read about Trump’s housekeeper, who’s an… Illegal immigrant. Oops.
That’s it for this week. To get in touch with us and find out what we’re up to outside of TTS, follow us on Twitter (Chuck | Tony). If you’d like to send us feedback or Christmas cheer or a happy hoppy beer, you can email us. If you enjoy reading this, sign up your friends too. Santa will look upon you kindly. Until next week, may you rediscover a picture of you that’s so happily wonderful that it can’t be shared. Bye!