I was going to put this up on the day I heard about it but I forgot. It is a tragedy that most people (like me until 2 days ago) knew about this man's existence. So here is a tribute two days late to Stanislav Petrov -the man who literally saved the world. It was written by Eliezer Yudkowsky from one of my favorite blogs: overcoming bias

On September 26th, 1983, Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov was the officer on duty when the warning system reported a US missile launch. Petrov kept calm, suspecting a computer error.

Then the system reported another US missile launch.

And another, and another, and another.

What had actually happened, investigators later determined, was sunlight on high-altitude clouds aligning with the satellite view on a US missile base.

In the command post there were beeping signals, flashing lights, and officers screaming at people to remain calm. According to several accounts I've read, there was a large flashing screen from the automated computer system saying simply "START" (presumably in Russian). Afterward, when investigators asked Petrov why he hadn't written everything down in the logbook, Petrov replied,"Because I had a phone in one hand and the intercom in the other, and I don't have a third hand."

The policy of the Soviet Union called for launch on warning. The Soviet Union's land radar could not detect missiles over the horizon, and waiting for positive identification would limit the response time to minutes. Petrov's report would be relayed to his military superiors, who would decide whether to start a nuclear war.

Petrov decided that, all else being equal, he would prefer not to destroy the world. He sent messages declaring the launch detection a false alarm, based solely on his personal belief that the US did not seem likely to start an attack using only five missiles.

Petrov was first congratulated, then extensively interrogated, then reprimanded for failing to follow procedure. He resigned in poor health from the military several months later. According to Wikipedia, he is spending his retirement in relative poverty in the town of Fryazino, on a pension of $200/month. In 2004, the Association of World Citizens gave Petrov a trophy and $1000. There is also a movie scheduled for release in 2008, entitled The Red Button and the Man Who Saved the World.

Maybe someday, the names of people who decide not to start nuclear wars will be as well known as the name of Britney Spears. Looking forward to such a time, when humankind has grown a little wiser, let us celebrate, in this moment, Petrov Day.

Here is the Wikipedia article. I love the quote at the end about his reaction to his decision not to start a nuclear war:

All that happened didn't matter to me — it was my job. I was simply doing my job, and I was the right person at the right time, that's all. My late wife for 10 years knew nothing about it. 'So what did you do?' she asked me. I did nothing."

Thank you Stanislav Petrov, we owe you more than we can say.

I’m almost positive that if you haven’t heard the Carly Simon original of the song that gives this post its name you have heard the Janet Jackson – Missy Elliot version. I should also reassure my suddenly apprehensive readers that I haven’t followed Uzo to do a monumental soundbyte thing. I just decided to name my latest navel-gazing post after the song title. Yes I will admit that I am proud of that little bit of irony. I suppose that I should big up the girl who used this line for me recently, and therefore facilitated my inspirational title but I feel no need to. After all if everyone went around giving women credit for things they do, they will start to put on airs, and once they do that it's a short step to them burning bras and calling for equality.

I suppose I should warn you that this navel gazing post doesn’t have a point, and is only being written cos I can’t study at the moment (don’t have my cfa book) and there is still too much traffic for me to make the trip down to ikoyi club to swim. Oh and please feel free to irrationally attack me for name dropping; I haven’t had an angry anonymous commenter in a while.

So one of the things that people find random (okay weird) about me is that I tend to be indifferent to the outcome when I block girls. If you think about it, it makes sense. After all most girls you hit on, you do so because of the way the look. So caring about the outcome simply because a girl is fine is kinda dumb. I mean think about it.

Since this narrative has to have a point, I suppose it’s kinda obvious that I met someone with whom that I cared about the outcome. It was also annoying to realize that my miniscule game (false modesty alert) becomes non-existent when I meet someone I like. We went on a few dates, we had fun hanging out but it was the fun of people who are cool rather than that of people who are attracted. Since I was invested in the outcome I was in denial for a while, but luckily for me work got crazy and I didn’t talk to her for a week. I didn’t notice - which is not a good sign – and neither did she – an even worse sign.

The incident reminded me of the fact that if you have to think about whether a girl is attracted to you, then she probably isn’t. The other bright side from all this was that I provided my friends with much amusement when I did catch feelings, and even more hilarity ensued when I informed them of the lady’s lack of interest. Clearly they have beef.

Funnily enough just before I met this chick, one of my friends swore for me and said that I would chase and chase a girl who would not like me. Can you imagine! However I am of the opinion that though I did not chase and chase, this incident counts, and the swearing for me has been canceled (just in case it worked).

Aiight it’s eight and traffic has cleared, so I’m done.

Two days before (or after) I was last at Yellow Chilli it became the latest in a litany of Island hotspots to be hit by armed robbers. I know what you are thinking – after all armed robbers hitting Island restaurants and clubs is not a new phenomenon and is hardly newsworthy. However this time the robbery happened with a slight twist; the thieves made all the ladies take off their tops and proceeded to fondle them before leaving with their loot.

On average if you are a guy reading this your first reaction is probably the same as my title. If you are a girl I’m guessing it’s not. When a guy’s standard reaction happened in mixed company, he always had to explain what exactly he meant by “at least she wasn’t raped.” It was kinda funny watching guys hastily backpedaling and swearing that they understood that “even though the women weren’t raped, they were still violated.” Luckily for me I was told by a girl, and I wasn’t stupid enough to make the comment (well out loud anyway).

Like most of the other places that have been hit, the incident did not affect attendance all that much. I wouldn’t even be surprised if some of the ladies that were assaulted have been back to the zone. After all we Lagosians are known for our hurricane mentality. That is - we don’t worry about it until we are in it, and we forget about it when we are out of it. That’s why I could be at News Café the weekend after they were hit and not even think about it, or my friend could go to a salon that had been robbed two days previously. Some (mostly us, the Israelis and those folk from Zimbabwe) would call it the triumph of the human spirit over adversity, and others (everyone else) would probably call it walking around in rose-plated shades.

One interpretation of the act is that a bunch of boys saw some hot rich girls and decided to take what they would never have been given. This interpretation fits into the hurricane mentality and says that this was a one off. However this action could also be read as an act of malice. A bit of class warfare between the haves and have-nots; an act intended to humiliate both the victims and the bystanders. I know these are the two extremes, and things are somewhere in the middle, but I really believe that the class warfare element is going to become more prominent if nothing changes for most, and the rich continue to get more obviously wealthy.

So once again nothing was in the papers about the incident, sometimes I don't know if that strategy is a good one or not. I mean granted you don't want to scare your clientele away by announcing that you got jacked, but doesn't this signal to the thieves that if you can get away with it you are good cos there will be no pursuit. I suppose that's just one more worry to add to the drama that is lagos.

I'm sure you have heard the saying coyote ugly. It's when you wake up the next morning and rather than wake the person up, you prefer to chew your arm off to escape. For any of you that remember Mo Money think of Marlon Wayans when he woke up with that woman (that was disturbingly played by his sister). It's basically WTF was I thinking, I need to get out of here by any means necessary.

This feeling happens a lot in the Nigerian environment, I mean you go into business with some one and then all of a sudden, some random general shows up and tells us he's the beneficial owner of the company. Or the government promises you certain aids to carry out your business and then once you start, you discover that they renege on all their promises and start making demands of you.

Anyway so that's how I feel at the moment with Nigeria's judiciary. I have been the cheerleader in chief for our judiciary since I got to this country, saying that unlike the executive and the legislature they have for the most part done their job. Well there was that incident with the judge in ibadan that tried to void a Supreme Court judgement but we all thought he was crazy outlier guy.

Flash forward a few months and there have been judgements that prove that he is not so crazy after all.

1.) The Abia State High Court granting an injunction banning EFCC from prosecuting Kalu (the origin of the entire EFCC - AGF war)

2.) The Rivers State High Court granting an injunction banning the EFCC and the AGF from prosecuting Odili (I think Odili decided to err on the side of caution and not allow any prosecution at all)

3.) Some court (I think Abuja, but could be Lagos) granted NICON an injuction banning the insurance commission (NAICOM) from verifying the shareholders funds of NICON.

I'm not a lawyer so clearly I'm no expert. So can someone please explain to me how a court can ban a prosecutor from doing its job. I mean I know a court can throw out a case for various reasons, but banning prosecution?

The NICON one is also crazy, I mean granted the government should not have been dumb and put the chairman of an insurance company on the committee doing the verification (the guy checked everybody else and there were no complaints) but that does not mean that the court can randomly decide to stop the verification of one company. After all if NAICOM doesn't verify the company NICON can't write any insurance, and so it goes out of business anyway. Yeah Jimoh clearly that was well thought out.

Anyway I'm done ranting. I hope that this is not symptomatic going forward but as we say in the biz, This is Naij.

P.S. I'll still be back with the Yellow Chilli thing.

The Origin

One fine Lagos evening I was in my default restaurant this time with my dater hat on. At one point we were talking about Lagos traffic. You know how people always talk about the weather in England, that’s how Lagos peeps do with traffic. So she made a comment about how Lagos drivers are not as bad as people say. So I asked her what she meant (secretly thinking that delusional girls should be avoided at all costs). She told me about a time when she was driving in Apapa, the traffic black hole of Lagos, and how the danfo drivers were letting her change lanes and enter in front of them. Even at one stage the danfo guy stopped and advised her to get in front of him. As she was telling me this story I was trying to figure out what twilight zone that she lives cos that’s definitely not my Lagos. Then the bartender made a comment about how hot she was (the second one of the night) and it hit me. I was like it’s because you are hot otherwise… Anyway she tried to deny it, but I mean the fact that it was Apapa defeated all her arguments. As we were arguing instead of saying “it’s because you’re hot”, I started saying “it’s the hot girl syndrome.”

The Definition

To fully qualify as an example of the Hot Girl Syndrome three things have to happen. First, the Hot Girl in question has to think that what is happening is the normal state of affairs. Second, the other party’s action has to involve a sacrifice of some sort that would not normally occur to him or her (it happens to girls too, and they don’t even have to be lesbian). Third, it’s a “just because she’s hot thing” as in there is a low possibility of future action.

The Best Hypothetical I Could Think Of

You’ve been chilling at the cab stand for like an hour at around 2 a.m. and then a stunner walks up. Five minutes later a cab shows up. You tell the stunner “you get in I’ll wait for the next one.” You my friend have just been “hot girl syndromed.”

I mean it has everything. The girl drives off thinking that guy are not all dogs, you get to pam in the rain for a little bit, and barring a minor miracle there is no chance of…

The Conclusion

Any of you who feel like leaving examples should feel free to do so. Think of the comments page as HGS Anonymous, where sharing is caring :D

P.S. I’ll be back even sooner than I was last time, and next time I’ll talk about the Yellow Chilli incident.

For the first time in a long time it has been about a week between my posts. I blame this on my decision to take the CFA in December. Having to study at least 2hrs a day means that it is getting harder to find the 30 mins to an hour to pull a post out of my... All this long story means that I will be less frequent from now until about december. I will still try to put out like two posts a week, but I make no promises.

Anyway so I found time to pull out a post that had been trying to write itself all week. IMO it's a throwaway piece that uses different words to talk about an age-old event. In the words of a friend it's the kain kain chocolate in the chocolate box (the one you're not sure if you like or not). So having reduced your expectations sufficiently, I will now give you the post. Oh and I didn't bother to give it a title (or an ending for that matter)

If for some reason you get a hankering to read Milton’s Paradise lost, and you are able to get over the fact that it is english written in latin syntax, you will discover the character that is the best example of the truism that evil is more interesting than good. However if you want to spare yourself all those pages you could go for the explanatory power of the phrase: “you go to heaven for the weather and hell for the company.”

This is Hollywood’s central dilemma: good is basically boring. I’m sure it’s perverse of us humans to feel that way, but there it is. So when you have to make a movie to the standard good versus evil formula you have to find away to “evilize” your hero. Not to a crazy amount but enough that he is interesting to watch. I think the technical term is “humanize” but since we’re all friends we can be honest with each other and call a spade a spade.

The classic example of “evilising” is “My name is Bond, James Bond.” Dude is a a narcissistic womanizer with violent (almost sadomasochistic ) tendencies and let's not forget a totally deplorable tendency towards punning. He is also one of the best loved characters in movie history.

One other thing Hollywood movies do is that if they start with an all good character, they “evilize” the character during the course of the movie. The character most susceptible to “evilising” in movies is the young priest. I honestly have not seen a Hollywood movie in which the young priest has managed to hold to the vows he swore. Also high on the list of easily “evilizable” characters are young cops. I mean is there any young cop paired with an old partner that does not become “evilized”

This leads us into the other standard Hollywood movie staple. The “evilized” and the good who are best friends. Normally the evilized is the second lead but there are movies where this isn’t the case (Lethal Weapon). However one other classic example of this phenomenon is Star Wars. I mean take the evilised Han Solo and the all good Luke Skywalker; I haven’t met anyone who prefers Luke to Han.

See what I mean... anyway will be back in a few days with the Hot Girl Syndrome. That's been ruminating for a while, and here is to hoping that it turns out better than this did. Laters.

So for some reason (probably based on friday evening work thinggy) we started talking about emotional cheating. The obesssion with the definition is pretty much an american thing as far as I know. Anyway it's pretty much when you have a meaningful connection with someone other than your partner when it precludes your partner having deep emotional intimacy with you (I googled to get the definition, thanks msnbc).

From some of the other definitions, any type of connection is cheating even when it doesn't preclude your partner's emotional connection. So we talked about it (me and a group of married men). We came to the conclusion that some form of emotional cheating is a necessary compromise for monogamous relationships to function.

So What Do You Think:

Surprisingly Good Insight For Friday at 6pm or Clearly They Need a Vacation?

Have a good weekend y'all

Aiight I saw this ad at the back of one of the soccer dailies that sell in Naij for like N20 to N30. This one is from Soccer Star, and is pure poetry. I have underlined my favorite bits.

Begin Ad

HAVE YOU BEEN EXPERIENCING WEAK ERECTION? THEN I HAVE GOOD NEWS FOR YOU @ AYO HERBS INTERNATIONAL CENTRE FOR ALTERNATIVE REMEDY FOR PROBLEMS OF WEAK ERECTIONS

Introduction
Prince Ayo Alabi studied microbiology at the University of Lagos. He is a Yoruba man of Ijebu origin popularly known as the king of manpower nationwide as well as in the African subregion. He inherited the knowledge and solutions to the problem of weak organ from his forefathers at the tender age of 6 years, with over 28 years work experience. Weak erection is the inability of a man to perform his sexual responsibility as expected of him or the inability of a man to perform more than once because a man that cannot perform more than once is automatically not a man.

Causes
There are three major causes of weak erection. They are (i) sexually transmitted diseases eg staphylococcus aurous, syphillis, E coli gonorrhea, Herpex etc. (ii) chronic pile (Heamorrhord) (iii) diabetes

Symptoms
Movement in the body, body itching after and before bath, noisy stomach, general weakness of the body, internal heat, lower abdominal pain, waist pain, weak organ, quick ejaculation, low sperm ount, asoopermia

Assurance
We give 100% guarantee on all our product, medication and treatment. We also deliver our product through courier services.

Testimonies
"... it's real I never believed it until I met Dr Ayo who privided a permanent solution to my problem of weak organ (Mr. Emeka 60 years NIPOST)

"...Am too young to be impotent I never took it serious until it became worse. Thanks to Dr Ayo that I could regain my manhood" (Yaya 25 years ABU Zaria)

WE ALSO SPECIALIZE ON ENLARGMENT AND REDUCTION OF PENIS BUTTOCKS HIP AND ALL SPIRITUAL PROBLEMS

End Ad

Aiight I decided that I would not put the addresses and phone numbers on here cos that wasn't the point. Anyway hope you enjoyed it. And if you are feeling a hankering for the number leave a request with ur email in the comments and I'll holla :D

So in today's businessday there is an article about a company that has just been given a $1 billion contract to execute the Niger Delta Power Holding Project. The name of the company is Phil Nugent Group. Taking a break from power point I entered those words into google, based on the sneaking suspicion that the poor people of the region had just been had again.

The top ranked websites were the businessday and all africa articles reporting on the award. I continued down and I saw this harper's article that mentioned a Phil Nugent. Worryingly they mentioned this Phil Nugent in connection with Congressman William Jefferson of the Atiku bribery scandal fame. This Philip Nugent was also mentioned in connection with ERHC a company that partners with Addax (the Nigerian domestic oil success story) in the development of certain oil fields in Nigeria and Sao Tome. So it is plausible that this is the same guy that won the contract, as the guy they talked about in Harpers clearly has Nigerian connects.

The other guy mentioned in businessday is known as George Salof of the Salof Group. According to the google results, there is no Salof Group but there are the Salof Companies which are part of a group known as Kryopak and they build LNG plants and are not refinery specialists as the businessday article claimed. On their website there is an interesting group of emails between them and some Nigerian man who wanted to set up an LNG plant.

I'm not saying that this is automatically a prelude to fraud, it's just that it would have been more comforting if a firm that had any experience of building power plants was placed in charge of something this crucial. Even if it is a turnkey project, you want the guy running the damn thing to have a name that inspires confidence. Anyway I suppose we will find out if EFCC of ICPC ever probes the handling of the Niger Delta Power Holding Project.


P.S. It took me longer to write this post, than it did to do the research on these companies. I am getting even more worried about our journalists.

Aiight so I was fresh out of good stuff to write, and since I free associated last time that happened I decided to wander through the journal and see if there was anything that young snazz had to say. So I came across this piece that was written based on a prompt about a James Baldwin essay.

The business of a writer is to write in such a way as to be read. He [or she] does not need to and in truth should not write with only his audience in mind. As Polonius says he must be true. That is a selfish admonition but pardon the pun, it rings true. There is nothing more irritating and hard to read than a writer doing it for an audience. If you doubt me read "the Firm" and "The Chamber " both by John Grisham.

The writer should have his audience in mind but his goal is to challenge the audience not merely pander to their interests. Most authors mistake the two and that results in most of the pap that circulates around today. Writing should be a selfish enterprise, the writer writing to drag his reader from his set ways because he [the writer] believes that he is right. A writer does need to be separate in order to write but not so separated that he cannot be read or there is no interest in reading. A writer that does not find an audience is a failed writer in my estimation. A writer needs to be able to communicate his ideas or what's the point?

A book is basically a contract between the reader and the writer. It's a promise that the reader would feel that his time would be well spent. As I noted in an earlier essay writing is an inclusive process and the goal is to make the reader appreciate it, not rail against it. This is how a writer grows as an artist by constantly finding new ways to guide or push (if the situation calls for it) his audience.

So I read this and for some reason I thought of confused, who just left the fold... but not before demanding a tribute... and this fit perfectly. I think that she embodied a lot of the characteristics that Young Snazz thought made a good writer. She communicated well with her audience, she challenged them, and she was always [and sometimes almost too rawly] true to herself. Granted she was expecting me to write the tribute, but I feel Young Snazz did that damn thing. Hey sometimes it helps to be Young.