Dear oh dear, the media and the blogosphere - not to mention the Facebook-o-sphere - are having a field day with the plagiarism scandal and subsequent resignation of Germany's was-defense-minister-until-yesterday Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg.
For those who don't live in Germany (and thus really don't have any reason to care about this), Guttenberg was discovered to have plagiarized significant portions of his doctoral thesis. (Either that, or he used ghostwriters who plagiarized without his knowledge, and no one can quite decide which is worse.) The debate was on as to whether this breach of academic protocol, while serious, amounted for grounds to end a political career. (As one columnist pointed out, this is a country where an employee can be fired for stealing a pastry or a few bottle return slips, but a high-level politician can cheat on his PhD thesis. Double standard, hello?)
The scandal has been all over the media. Spiegel ran one headline when it was announced Guttenberg was going to resign, and another when he actually did. Inevitably, there have been puns of every sort, from calling him "Googleberg" to declaring it "time to say gutt-bye." One Berlin newspaper announced his resignation with the screaming headline "Mutti ohne Gutti" (Mommy without Guttenberg), the mommy being Angela Merkel, who's now short one very popular and charismatic member of her otherwise fairly staid cabinet.
Admittedly, there's probably a healthy dose of schadenfreude in all the gleeful punning - especially among those of us who are not German and don't understand why we should adore the guy just because he comes from an aristocratic family. (Full name, according to Wikipedia: Karl Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg.)
And speaking of current events: It's a serious situation, but I have to say, this made me laugh: Is Gaddafi gone yet? (isgaddafigoneyet.com)
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