Libya Elects Engineer To Acting Prime Minister Post 188
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?"
Engineer in top spot? (Score:2)
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Likely one of the nicest presidents (Carter), but also pretty much the most ineffective...and in his later years, has turned kinda batshit-crazy....
But nice guy tho...years back, I actually ran into him and his wife on Bourbon St....shook his hand, etc. I think that was back in the late 80s.
Anyway, good luck to the new Libyan guy. I doubt he can hold those promises...if he does, I forsee some crazed eyed guy yelling 'Allah Ackbar' (or whatever the fuck they yell) and tries to blow him
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(or whatever the fuck they yell)
D{u|i|e}rka D{u|i|e}rka!
Tukmenbashi was an electrical engineer. (Score:4, Informative)
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I propose a new rule modeled after Godwin's law: Turkmenbashi invocation. If something was instituted as a Turkmen policy between 2 November 1990 and 21 December 2006, it's automatically a bad or laughable idea.
(And now we wait for someone to complain about the generalization with a specific example of a good policy, thereby missing the joke.)
Peanut farmer, preacher, engineer (Score:4, Insightful)
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?" [wikipedia.org]
Jimmy Carter is a, let's say,"complex" [wikipedia.org] subject.
In the real axis he's a nuclear engineer. In the imaginary axis he's a Baptist preacher.
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"I donno, I usually get rid of the evidence well", would have been my response if I had been asked the same question (though I suspect it might have been rhetorical)
lets not forget these guys... (Score:3)
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 c
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Oh, and that Herbert Hoover guy. He was a mining engineer.
That's putting it mildly. He apparently wrote "The" college text book on the subject and taught classes in it at university. (Oh and he spoke Chinese to some level.)
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China's Jiang Zemin has a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering.
And now for a crass joke pertaining to Libya - remember that article that stated that engineers are more likely to become terrorists?
Re:Engineer in top spot? (Score:4, Informative)
Engineers of Jihad [ox.ac.uk]
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Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is too (Score:2)
Which "The Top Spot"? (Score:2)
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No he was not. http://atomicinsights.com/2006/01/picking-on-the-jimmy-carter-myth.html
Re:Which "The Top Spot"? (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:Which "The Top Spot"? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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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 n
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Then perhaps you would like to address the comment of him being "lowered in personally". Why would a manager or other non-technical person be personally lowered into a reactor building to work on it?
When a high priority change comes in, does your boss personally check out the source code and get to work on it?
Re:Which "The Top Spot"? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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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
Cheers For Engineers !!!1 +4, Informative (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
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And most of the previous and current Chinese leadership are engineers. Aren't they wonderful?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generations_of_Chinese_leadership#Third_generation [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generations_of_Chinese_leadership#Fourth_generation_.28current.29 [wikipedia.org]
Re:Cheers For Engineers !!!1 +4, Informative (Score:5, Insightful)
Compared to their predecessors, they are saints.
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"Aren't they wonderful?"
If you consider what was necessary to move China into modernity and keep it stable, YES, they ARE "wonderful".
Pol Pot would have been an engineer (Score:3)
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.
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One the funniest things about Reagan is that he's the only president to have headed a labour union.
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At best you're an engineering student who doesn't actually understand what an engineer does or at worst you really don't have a clue. Engineering is not about "learning rules and following them". Engineering is about understanding that the world is modeled in mathematics and that we use these models as tools to accomplish tasks. We design things, we test things, we build things. The only engineers I've ever met who just "learn rules and follow them" are bad engineers and they've certainly been the minor
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The basic way to fail.. (Score:2)
..is because those not normally in politics are surrounded by people who wish to maintain the "status quo" and are fearful of change. Regardless of how amazing an idea is, regardless of how well it would work, those that are in power are afraid to lose it and stymie what could be real progress from an out-of-the-box thinker.
Just my .02 microns worth.
Re:The basic way to fail.. (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Last premier of China (Score:5, Informative)
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>>was an electrical engineer (PhD).
The last time I checked, the majority of the senior rulers of China were engineers.
So to answer the question of the summary, yes. Engineers have run a country before.
This really does explain the development of China over the last 10 or 20 years.
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Concentration on sexy, l33t high tech projects while ignoring the growing rumbles of the people... Check.
Seriously, China's main problem (now and for the next couple of decades) is the now threatened prosperity of their growing middle class. (Threatened both with the faltering economies of the West, and as the West looks to alternate sources of labor as the cost of doing business in China increases.) Look to Russia for
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Yeah. The last time I was in China, the government came through with a bulldozer and knocked down all the illegal street vendors on the road, then stopped an arrow straight superhighway through it. This was in the middle of the BFE mind you, but they gave no notice to the guys running the stands.
Was the closest thing I'd ever seen to SimCity in real life.
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It seems to me that the Chinese are doing a much better job of picking leaders than we are. When you consider where they've come from, and how far they've progressed in just a few decades, they're doing much better than the US is, and having engineers rather than lawyers in their government is probably a large part of it.
A simple majority (Score:2)
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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.
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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.
Engineers =/= Nerds. Sure they might share some traits, but if you're an engineer and lack social skills, you won't get very far.
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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.
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When I read this I was wondering how many were on the ballot. if there were 10 on the ballot, this guy could easily have gotten triple the number of votes of his next contender.
That's why runoff elections are good in cases like that, take say the top two or three from the first vote and then shake that out with one more vote.
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Most run off style voting systems don't require a second poll if one candidate gets a majority of the vote in the initial run. If one person gets 51% of the vote and the other nine split the rest, the person with plurality (and majority) gets the seat. If one person gets 49% of the vote and the other nine split the rest, the person with plurality (but not majority) runs off against his/her top one or two challengers. It's possible they do it differently somewhere, but I've always seen it handled this way
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Agreed, the basic idea here is to be able to say that the elected official "has the support of over half the voting population". If you got 40% of the vote and the other 5 candidates got 5,5,10,10,30%, you do a runoff and that forces the ones that voted in the 5 and 10% camps to pick a side that has stronger support of the people.
It's still possible of course for that 30% candidate
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France is probably where you are most likely to see the winner of the first round lose the second round. It is conceivable that the National Front candidate could come first with around 20% of the the vote, and the other 80% of the vote is split between a very long list of other candidates. People either support and vote National Front, or absolutely hate them and will vote for any other candidate to keep them out, so in the second round, the other 80% will vote for the second place candidate no matter wh
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The vote was 26 of 51, in a field of 10 candidates. I would say that is pretty good. That doesn't mean that the other 25 who voted for someone else are against him, it means that 49% preferred someone else.
For example: Only 10% of Republicans would pick Ron Paul as their candidate against other Republicans, but over 90% would pick him over Obama. Vote tallies can be very misleading when you have 4 or 5 choices, no less 10.
For a country needing rebuilding, he might be help (Score:2)
I'm kind of split, on the one hand, I think this guy will be good for physical reconstruction of oil infrastructure, water, power, sewer, roads, etc.
However, having him as the very first PM might not work so well, because in addition to the physical aspect of reconstruction, an equally pressing issue in terms of having a clock which will run out quickly, is establishing a viable political system in the country - constitution, parliament, elections, etc.
I wish him the best of luck with that.
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A better question would be, does TNC actually control the country? I.e., say, all those militias that worked together against Gaddafi - do they all recognize this government as theirs? Or is it going to be like in Afghanistan, where president is elected, but warlords who rule the country in practice are not - and who, at best, "respect" the president (and even then conditionally). Or, worse yet, like Somali, where the official government ended up controlling only parts of the capital at some point?
Stupid generalization (Score:3)
There are several engineers some of them are good leaders and some of them are not.
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Indeed. Though I know Slashdot is (in general) fond of technocrats, there's no evidence they are any better or any worse as politicians than anyone else.
Iran is led by an engineer.... (Score:2, Informative)
Ahmadinejad (Iran) is a civil engineer and has a PhD.... Doesn't keep him from spouting nonsense.
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G. W. Bush (Jr) is not an engineer, and nothing keeps him from spouting nonsense either.
US Presidents (Score:2)
IIRC, the last two US Presidents that started from an engineering background were Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter. Depending who you ask, they were either awful leaders or they were screwed by fate.
Both were defeated after one term by orators, who became legendary leaders in the US mythology.
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You could say the same about Bush and Obama. Clinton is excluded because he was also screwed by his PA.
Re:US Presidents (Score:4, Interesting)
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First US president, George Washington, was a military engineer which is why Engineers Week is held same week as Washington's birthday (though now President's Day). Though engineering held a different stature as it does now.
Speaking of engineering, I talked with someone from Romania and he said during before collapse of communism in east Europe, engineering was preferred major for college students. His father had a technical kind of job, like everyone who was employed by the goverment. After fall of "Iron
I can think of one (Score:5, Informative)
https://engineering.purdue.edu/Engr/AboutUs/News/Announcements/egyptian-prime-minister-earned-two-engineering-degrees-at-purdue [purdue.edu]
Go Boilers!
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Essam Sharaf, the interim Prime Minister, has been a big disappointment.
Initially, a lot of hope was on him to make things better.
But as time passed, it turns out that he is too soft, and the military rulers do not allow him to have the authority to do things that are pro-revolution.
Speculation is that a second wave of the revolution will happen, aimed at the military junta (SCAF = Supreme Council of the Armed Forces).
Arafat, Hu Jintao, Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter (Score:2)
They're all engineers.
It's not that uncommon at all. Also, the majority of the members of the executive committee of the communist party of China (the center of power in China) are eng. too.
Engineering tends to attracts the best and the brightest in dictatorship as it's seen as safer profession where there is less risk of angering the regime. And well, law of example is less important when you have mostly political trials..
Herbert Hoover... (Score:2)
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Except that Hoover was very reluctant to pump money into the economy or try in anyway to save the banks. That's a pretty huge difference. There's also a pretty big difference between the depression that resulted from Hoover's actions (or inactions) and today's recession.
Re:Herbert Hoover... (Score:5, Interesting)
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?).
Not a bad idea actually (Score:3)
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some countries most males major in "engineering" (Score:2)
Doesn't really matter (Score:2)
When you don't have absolute power and need to get things done, you have to build a coalition. But building such a coalition requires compromise, often moral compromise. Thus if you're not a politician when you enter government, you will become one soon enough, if not by desire then by necessity.
Don't get me wrong, dictatorships and oligarchies are far worse, but having someone with technical ability in politics won't make any difference -- what makes a difference is some with a clear sense of values and th
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Ability (Score:2)
I trust an engineer's ability to do politics about as much as I trust a politician's ability to do engineering.
Desertification of politics .... (Score:2)
In the Middle East, dictatorships made sure that no one can emerge as a competitor to the incumbent tyrant, and that has gutted two generations worth of politicians. Either they become servile to the tyrant, or they are eliminated (physically, politically, socially, or otherwise ...)
Also, remember that this is a transitional government still. He has not been elected by a public ballot. That will take around 8 months to happen.
Outside of the USA, there are lots of engineers, doctors, university professors,
NYC Mayor Bloomberg (Score:3, Interesting)
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
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Herman Cain? (Score:4, Interesting)
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As a geek I've never been so conflicted.
Most common professions for politicians (Score:5, Informative)
Almost 20% of the politicians had a Law background while about 7% had an Engineering background.
A potential one for the US (Score:2)
Herman Cain is not president yet, but he has a master’s degree in computer science
http://www.hermancain.com/about
Meanwhile, our country is run by lawyers (Score:3)
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Lawyers are also trained to know, understand and work with the law. Giving that an important role of politicians is to create and modify laws, it's no wonder there's a lot of lawyers among them. The opposite would be surprising.
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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?
damn, perhaps that is why only two parties (plaintiff and defendant), good observation. Actually very insightful analysis. (hey, rest of you mod this guy up).
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Yup, its not like an engineer could do _worse_ then a lawyer. Bureaucracy has only one goal: to keep the status quo so that it survives. At least an engineer is more willing to look at the practicality rather the rhetoric and "cute" sound bites that don't actually address the root of the problem.
We need to remove _all_ financial motives from [introducing] Laws.
Every donation should be pooled, and at the end of every month, it should be split evenly to ALL the parties, to give ALL voices a chance to have t
I see a horrible new trend on the horizon! (Score:2)
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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,
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Network Engineer - anyone that has configured BGP.
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Note that I did NOT shy away from the term when (back in the dot-boom days) Amazon hired me as a "Senior Network Engineer" for six figures.
Note also that I'm a high school drop-out.
Electing an engineer means jack-shit (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Where have you been, sinophile? China is late to the party - many, many other countries have had people with engineering/scientific backgrounds running the country or in significant positions within government. It is great that China is too, but they're hardly the first dontyaknow?
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> And everyone knows plenty of lawyers who are evil and corrupt. Does that mean all lawyers should be disqualified from politics? Of course not.
You know that old joke:
Q: What do you call 5000 dead lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?
A: A good start!
If you need a lawyer to understand the law, then the law is TOO complicated. e.g. The Tax Code. Want to eliminate all the loop-holes? Make it a simple: Anytime an item (valued over $1) is sold, then the government is to be paid 10% of the original cost.
Islamic banking & education expert (Score:2)
El-Keib is an expert in education and 'Islamic Banking'. He's the perfect person to introduce the kind of debt terrors the west are facing now in order to control and mine Libya.
germany (facepalm at slashdot) (Score:3)
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Portugal had them (Score:2)
Portugal had a number of engineers in it's top spot. António Guterres [wikipedia.org], former Portuguese prime-minister and current United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees [wikipedia.org], is also an electrical engineer. Another one is José Sócrates [wikipedia.org], former Portuguese prime-minister and President of the European Council [wikipedia.org], which is supposed to be a civil engineer but allegedly his degree was attained through shady backroom clerical works from corrupt business associates.
Yasser Arafat (Score:2)
Margaret Thatcher (Score:2)
Yes there has (Score:2)
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, current president of Iran is an engineer. Margaret Thatcher, former prime minister of the UK is a scientist. I'm sure there are plenty of other examples.
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