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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?"
was an electrical engineer (PhD).
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
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.
https://engineering.purdue.edu/Engr/AboutUs/News/Announcements/egyptian-prime-minister-earned-two-engineering-degrees-at-purdue
Go Boilers!
Compared to their predecessors, they are saints.
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"
Engineers of Jihad
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.
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.