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Libya Elects Engineer To Acting Prime Minister Post
PolygamousRanchKid writes in with this quote from CNN: "Libya's transitional government picked an engineering professor and longtime exile as its acting prime minister Monday, with the new leader pledging to respect human rights and international law. The National Transitional Council elected Abdurrahim El-Keib, an electrical engineer who has held teaching posts at the University of Alabama and Abu Dhabi's Petroleum Institute, to the post with the support of 26 of the 51 members who voted. ... El-Keib emerged victorious from a field that initially included 10 candidates. ... He is currently listed as 'former faculty' on the website of The Petroleum Institute, which said he served as chairman of its electrical engineering department and lists him as an expert in power system economics, planning and controls."
PRK adds: "Has there ever been an engineer in the top spot? ... Is this a good idea? Or are techies doomed in politics?"
Does Jimmy Carter count?
the record for humanities is horrific:
Hitler was a painter.
Mao was a librarian.
Stalin was a preacher.
Yours In Moscow,
K. Trout, C.I.O.
was an electrical engineer (PhD).
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
There are several engineers some of them are good leaders and some of them are not.
Ahmadinejad (Iran) is a civil engineer and has a PhD.... Doesn't keep him from spouting nonsense.
Ah, but there's essentially a political vacuum in Libya right now. The "status quo" is practically anarchy - there's no politicians interested in maintaining it. So it just might actually work, there.
No he was not. http://atomicinsights.com/2006/01/picking-on-the-jimmy-carter-myth.html
https://engineering.purdue.edu/Engr/AboutUs/News/Announcements/egyptian-prime-minister-earned-two-engineering-degrees-at-purdue
Go Boilers!
Considering that one of the crisis Libya faces involves oil production and gaining control of the resources generated from it, having an engineer who knows the industry is quite possibly the smartest decision they could make. Much of the corruption of the old Libyan government involved the oil production industry and misappropriation of profits by the companies that drill there. Hopefully this dude is honest and will help put an end to the worst of the oil abuses.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
26 of 51 with 10 candidates is actually quite impressive.
That does not predict what will happen to simple pass/fail votes, but on the other hand, if he can continue to keep that barely-majority intact for a lot of pass/fail votes that don't require supermajorities, he'll do fine.
Of course, he's an engineer, so he probably lacks in the social skills department, and that might be much worse for trying to maintain that minimal majority.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Turkmenbashi, aka Saparmurat Niyazov was an electrical engineer. Arguably was a pretty bad idea to let him get that position.
Attitudes make the difference between Space and Time: we want to MAX our temporal, and MIN our spatial extension.
On December 12, 1952, an accident with the experimental NRX reactor at Atomic Energy of Canada’s Chalk River Laboratories caused a partial meltdown. The resulting explosion caused millions of liters of radioactive water to flood the reactor building’s basement, and the reactor’s core was no longer usable.[16] Carter was now ordered to Chalk River, joining other Canadian and American service personnel. He was the officer in charge of the U.S. team assisting in the shutdown of the Chalk River Nuclear Reactor.[17]
So yeah, I would say overseeing a nuclear reactor shutdown/cleanup (including being lowered in personally to work on the reactor) qualifies him for, if not "nuclear engineer", at least "knows a lot about nuclear power." Which is just about "nuclear engineer", considering what most politicians/presidents know about the issue.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
James Carter was a US Navy officer in the nuclear power field.
No, that doesn't make him a nuclear engineer.
It makes him pretty knowledgeable about Naval Nuclear Power Plants, but most any Senior Chief in Naval Nuclear Power would have been at least as knowledgeable.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Carter had been greatly influenced by a sermon he had heard as a young man, called, "If you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?"
Jimmy Carter is a, let's say,"complex" subject.
In the real axis he's a nuclear engineer. In the imaginary axis he's a Baptist preacher.
NYC Mayor Bloomberg: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Bloomberg
EE from Johns Hopkins
John Sununu Sr.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_H._Sununu
John Sununu Jr: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_E._Sununu
Both MechE's from MIT
He didn't say "nucular" but then he didn't quite say "nuclear" either... it was more like "nukiyuh" as I recall.
I don't think he personally deserves 100% of the blame for the "failure" of his presidency, but he certainly deserves some of it. (They all do.) He presided over a rough time for the country with some unpleasant structural shifts underway. But in any case, he has been much more successful as an ex-president.
As for Lybia, I'm somewhat encouraged by their choice of an engineer for this job, rather than a career politician or clergyman, or some other charismatic type. The last thing that country needs is a new "Dear Leader." They need someone who can learn quickly in a wide range of topics, someone who can make informed decisions with a minimum of tribal bias, and deal with the myriad problems of getting the country back on its feet again.
Good luck to them! I hope they can make it work.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
Herman Cain has a Masters in Computer Science from Purdue. Not in charge, but leading the Republican pack as of this writing.
According to this article from The Economist the most common background for politicians word wide is Law (surprise!) and then comes (in order) Business, Diplomacy, Military, Journalism, Economics, Medicine, Academia, and Engineering.
Almost 20% of the politicians had a Law background while about 7% had an Engineering background.
So it appears that it's quite common that engineers and scientists run foreign countries. It's only we Americans who find this noteworthy, because our country is almost always run by lawyers - and I don't just mean our presidents. Sixty of our 100 senators are former lawyers. I can't help but think that lawyers have a very different approach to leadership than do scientists and engineers, and the thought doesn't exactly fill me with confidence. I'm not saying that lawyers can't be good and wise leaders. But what I am saying is that when government becomes an institution of lawyers, they inevitably import the institutional culture of lawyerism into government. Maybe that's why their governing feels more like a shifting battle of prosecution v. defense (though the sides occasionally change) where most of the energy is devoted to matters of procedure, rhetoric, strategy and "winning" rather than just doing the right thing for the country. Lawyers are people who are used to working on behalf of paying clients, and they must defend those clients to the hilt, not caring about whether they are actually right or wrong. That's as it should be. Now, of course the lawyers who move into government will tell you that "the American people" are their new clients, but in effect, I think it's the paying interest groups who buy our governing lawyers. So government is a battle of interest groups, each armed with a paid group of politician-lawyer-advocates who are expected to not worry about who's actually right. Their job is to win, or at least to keep "the other side" from winning. My foreign friends often ask my why the US only has two viable political parties. Could it be that because in the courtroom there are only two sides, and our politicians couldn't wrap their heads around a system that works differently? I feel like when the history of the decline of our country is written, something like this will be a part of the analysis.
It's even been suggested that in some ways becoming President of the United States was a step down in Hoover's career. He had already written the standard textbook used for mine engineering, invented a new way to extract zinc from what was thought to be waste ore (basically creating Australia's zinc industry from a pile of junk), written the standard translation an important Latin work on metallurgy, and was involved in helping the US military during the Boxer Rebellion. His entry into politics was leading massive efforts to feed people affected by WW I throughout Europe and Russia, creating the Hoover Institution, and more-or-less created the modern US Department of Commerce out of what had been a fledgling organization.
And then he became president and screwed up royally, mostly because his economic advisers didn't how to combat recessions: Contrary to popular belief, he responded to the crash immediately, working feverishly to try to keep the US federal budget balanced via a combination of taxation and austerity measures, on the advice of his economic advisers who told him that this would restore confidence to the markets (sound familiar?).
I am officially gone from
Would Thomas Jefferson count? Not exactly an engineer, and more of an architect, he is credited with designing quite a few buildings in Colonial Virginia that still stand today, including the Virginia State Capitol, the Rotunda at the University of Virginia, and his own home, Monticello. Though I think by trade, he was more of a lawyer and a statesman,. . .
Electing an engineer to a public office means exactly jack-shit. After graduating with an engineering degree, I can say that I've known plenty of engineers who were assholes, idiots, or both.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
As colleges and university Political Science departments decide that perhaps they can attract more students if they renamed their major to "Political Engineering". Sadly, these same people that consider PolySci to be "science" are the same idiots that would consider it to be "engineering" in an attempt to artificially boost their salary above minimum wage and hope for a job that doesn't involve asking people if they want to super-size their order of fries,. . .
Not happening in Canada, fortunately.
The title of "engineer" cannot be carelessly slapped onto any job title unless one is registered as a "Professional Engineer" (P.Eng). This requires a four-year degree program at an accredited university in an engineering program (STEM-based; science, technology, engineering, mathematics), resulting in a Bachelor of Applied Science (B.A.Sc.) or a Bachelor of Engineering (B.Eng./B.E.). No artsy degrees count. This also requires four years of full-time work in industry, under the direct supervision of someone who already has his/her P.Eng. status, along with regular work reports, evidence of taking part in continuing professional development (CPD) hours (at least 30 per year if I recall correctly, which may be audited later on, requiring proof of registration at conferences, seminars, etc), and finally, an ethics exam. Why more countries don't have such strict rules in place seems quite silly.
I must admit, it drives me nuts when people attempt to attach the title of engineer to make their job look more respectable. A few common examples:
-Social engineer: fraudster, identity thief, con artist
-Sanitation engineer: typically a euphemism for a garbage man, in most contexts
-Political engineer: political science major who was had to take high-school level remedial math as a mandatory science elective
If he hadn't failed his exams.
But then it's his failing that made him perfect for the communist movement promoting ignorance as the ideal. The Killing Fields may never have happened had ol' Saloth been more dedicated to his studies.
Yasser Arafat was a civil engineer.
Oh, and that Herbert Hoover guy. He was a mining engineer.
Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo y Bustelo, 1st Marquis of the Ría of Ribadeo was a Spanish Prime Minister. He had studied civil engineering.
H. D. Deve Gowda also studied civil engineering and was Prime Minister of India.
José Sócrates, actually worked as a civil engineer and was Prime Minister of Portugal.
And let's not forget Pierre Tirard was a civil engineer that became Prime Minister of France in the 19th century.
I am sure there were a few others. Also, let's not forget those Roman Emperors who dabbled in civil engineering and architecture.
is this a serious question? Angela Merkel (Chancellor of Germany) After being awarded a doctorate (Dr. rer. nat.) for her thesis on quantum chemistry,[10] she worked as a researcher and published several papers.
To expand, as another former Navy nuke, yes Carter was a nuclear-trained officer on a submarine, but he was not
*the* ship's engineer. Nuc officers serve as CRA (Chem/Radcon Assistant), MPA (Main Propulsion Assistant), EA (Electrical Assistant) and/or RCA (Reactor Control Assistant) before becoming "The Engineer", who is a LCDR and is outranked only by the CO and maybe XO. Carter, IIRC, left as a LT, so he probably served as 2 or 3 of the aforementioned assistant positions to the Engineer. As you said Navy nucs are sharp, knowledgeable, responsible people carefully chosen and trained to ensure safe operation of the reactor and propulsion plant. But I can tell you, I had a couple of ensigns for Div O who were pretty clueless from a practical standpoint, and I'm not sure they were much better as LTjg's or even LTs. Many of them (most?) have engineering related degrees, but I remember one who had a degree in forestry (?), although he was pretty cool.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
Of course, he's an engineer, so he probably lacks in the social skills department, and that might be much worse for trying to maintain that minimal majority.
As a university faculty, he most likely does have social skills. And as someone how ran a department in a university he most certainly has political skills.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Actually I would say he was an exceptionally bright man with a strong moral compass and a profound commitment to human rights. His one failing was hubris. He went from Governor of Alabama to President on the claim that he'd clean the snakes and vipers out of D.C. like some modern day St. Patrick, and promptly got his ass handed to him by the Washington establishment from both parties... Whoops!
His energy policies were spot on. His commitment to alternative energy was spot on. His work on civil rights, from work to improve living conditions in the inner city to his attempts to rectify injustices imposed on native Americans was spot on. His work in garnering peace in the middle east was unprecedented. The work he did both in laying the foundations of SALT II, and establishing trade with China, ensured peace and made the later accomplishments by Ronald Reagen possible. His environmental programs were extraordinary, while at the same time working hard to ensure that nations infrastructure was being well maintained. His biggest failures the oil shortage (and ensuing double digit inflation) and the Iran Hostage Crisis were the things that brought down his presidency, and when he needed the Congress to help him address the mess that ensued, he was left high and dry with far too few friends there to make a meaningful difference.
So at that level you are absolutely correct. His presidency was not a failure, the rough time were not of his own making and his failures to a significant degree were of his own making. All said, he is beyond a shadow of a doubt, the best elder statesman this country has today, and has consistently put his money and ass where his mouth is, by generously giving his time and wealth to dozens of vital programs to empower the poor, feed the hungry and develop a better world for all. None of our other ex-presidents has demonstrated the kind of personal integrity or dignity demonstrated by Jimmy Carter.