32 thoughts on “And Probably Proud Of It”

    2. But if Obama keeps watching Sesame Street he might catch on to the counting thing. There’s sort of a rhythm to it.

        3. I’m not sure Carter would be the best at math, as he joined the submarine force in 1943. He did go through the early reactor training, though, so he knows calculus. GHW Bush might actually be better at math, graduating Yale in only 2 1/2 years, but like many 20th century presidents he majored in economics. Hoover was certainly exceptional at math, being one of the country’s top engineers.

          The real question is which President was the greatest athlete since WW-II, and I’m sure Rand knows off the top of his head. 🙂

          Two college football national championships, the MVP of a national championship game, and the only President to tackle a Heiseman Trophy winner. No one else is even close.

          3. …and quite the golfer, I understand: “I would like to deny all allegations by Bob Hope that during my last game of golf, I hit an eagle, a birdie, an elk and a moose.”

          4. George,
            he entered the Academy in ’43, he graduated in ’46 on the War Time Accelerated Program for Fleet Officers. In the early ’52 he went to work for Hymie Rickover where he helped design nuclear sub systems and he worked on the Enlisted Training Programs for nuclear Sub Service.

            He didn’t just go to nuke school, he helped set it up.

            When his father died and he resigned his Commission before he ever served on a Nuclear Submarine.

            Jimmy Cater has the rare distinction of being the only Naval Officer President to leave the Navy and never give a second thought to fleet preparedness or military officer turned POTUS who never gave a thought to military preparedness in general for that matter!

            When I was a squid he was despised, virtually and completely, by every sailor I ever worked with. And after the hostages were taken it only, got, worse.

            As to his math skills, I always found it odd that a guy who could run a thriving company couldn’t figure out that money doesn’t grow on trees, nor does constantly changing policies as POTUS garner much confidence among the citizenry.

            And last but not least, I think he is the most, as yet most, classless EX-President. The grand majority of Presidents refuse to comment on those who come after them. Carter freely, openly and often without ever being asked, gives his opinions. Clueless then. Classless now.

            I’m betting The One will be right up front just llike Carter, giving us his ideas until he achieves room temperature. I just hope he gets his chance to speak as an EX-President on or shortly after Jan 20, 2013.

    4. Herbert Hoover. He was a great man. Look up what he had to say on U.S. policy towards Occupied Germany in the 1946-47 time frame and how he prevented a disaster affecting our vanquished foe and a disaster of everything we ever stood for.

      His leadership and influence did not end with his one-term presidency in the 1928-32 time frame. He could do math, that 1000 calories per day would perpetrate the same scale of genocide that the Germans were guilting of doing.

  3. Some people claimed Obama was the smartest president ever but I see no sign of it. Sam Cooke sang the Obama theme song decades ago.

    Don’t know much about history
    Don’t know much biology
    Don’t know much about a science book
    Don’t know much about the french I took

    But I do know that I love you
    And I know that if you love me too
    What a wonderful world this would be

    Don’t know much about geography
    Don’t know much trigonometry
    Don’t know much about algebra
    Don’t know what a slide rule is for

    But I do know that one and one is two
    And if this one could be with you
    What a wonderful world this would be

    Now I don’t claim to be an “A” student
    But I’m trying to be
    So maybe by being an “A” student baby
    I can win your love for me

    Don’t know much about history
    Don’t know much biology
    Don’t know much about a science book
    Don’t know much about the french I took

    But I do know that I love you
    And I know that if you love me too
    What a wonderful world this would be

    La ta ta ta ta ta ta
    (History)
    Ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh
    (Biology)
    La ta ta ta ta ta ta
    (Science book)
    Ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh
    (French I took)

    But I do know that I love you
    And I know that if you love me too
    What a wonderful world this would be

  4. A weird note related to this admission….

    I was at a campaign rally by Mike Dukakkis at the Marshall Space Flight Center in 1988 when the Governor made a similar statement. He said that he went into law because he could not pass the math classes. I was sitting right next to a reporter from the Birmingham News and she was laughing and clapping at the “joke”. Almost no one else was and she started looking around and she asked me why no one else was laughing at the obvious warm up joke. I said to her that “the person that wants to be the president of the United States just told a group of scientists and engineers who did pass their math classes that he is stupid”. “Oh” she said.

    The crowd never warmed up and after I got in line and went up and shook his hand and said “Good luck, your’e gonna need it”. He gave me this look that said he knew he blew it with the NASA audience…

  5. When I found my extra-terrestrial colony, literacy and numeracy requirements will be established for all voters and politicians. If you can’t answer basic questions of economics and arithmetic, your vote is not informed. “Feelings” do not count.

  6. I forget in which book this appeared, but Robert Heinlein once suggested as a qualification to vote, a person should enter an isolation booth, and solve, in his (or her) head a simple quadratic equation – it would be limited to real, positive, integer roots. Heinlein thought this (or something like it) would establish adequate smarts for a meaningfully intellilgent voter.

    1. I used to be good at quadratic equations in school, but it’s been over 30 years since I tried to solve one. I’m not sure I remember how to do it today.

      On the other hand, if it had been a qualification for voting all this time, I could have stayed in practice.

      1. Even if you can’t remember the specific exact equation that makes it easy, there’s -always- the brute force method, which makes ‘persistence’ a virtue.

    2. Quadratic equations was probably in Time Enough for Love. Even if you don’t remember the formula now (my daughter has a ditty for it set to the “Pop Goes the Weasel” tune; I doubt she’ll forget) it shouldn’t take you too long to remember it given that everyone will be told it’s a requirement for getting your vote to count.

    1. It’s relatively easy to derive, but I suppose on tests you don’t have the luxury of doing that. For me, it was usually easier to remember how to derive the simpler equations than to remember the equations.

      1. My brain is telling me it had something to do with ‘completing the square’ but I have no recollection of what that means (yeah, I could look it up.) Anyway, I would take the time to do that and still turn in my work ahead of the 30+ other students in my class (I caught the tail end of the baby boomers.)

        It’s a shame that I’ve forgotten so much.

        1. Yeah. Completing the square is the trick.

          ax**2 + bx + c == 0 –> x**2 + (b/a)x + c/a == 0. You want to get this into the form (x + (b/(2a)))**2 == something (the something is
          (b**2 – 4ac) / (2a)**2).

    2. (-b +/- sqrt(b^2 – 4ac)) / 2a

      Completing the square is the customary method of deriving the quadratic equation. As I recall, it involves transforming the quadratic into the form

      a^2x^2 + 2abx + b^2 = <blah>x
      (ax+b)^2 = <blah>x

      The <blah> is whatever is needed to make the equation balance.

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