An interview and two political plagiarism links

For those of you (if any) waiting for my comments on the Lower Saxony state elections, you’ll have to wait a bit longer, because I currently don’t feel able to comment, largely because the results baffle me.

Meanwhile, I was interviewed by writer Michelle Muckley on her blog. Come on over and say hello.

Meanwhile, there have been some new developments on the political plagiarism front, i.e. the rampant epidemic of prominent German politicians found to have plagiarized their doctoral thesises. First of all, the University of Düsseldorf has launched an official investigation into the alleged plagiarism in the doctoral thesis of Annette Schavan, currently Germany’s secretary of education and science. The Annette Schavan case is not as blatant or clear-cut as the zu Guttenberg case, but it’s definitely troubling. The evidence may be viewed here. And by the way, am I the only one who finds the subject of Ms. Schavan’s dissertation rather creepy?

Talking of plagiarists, arch-plagiarist and former German secretary of economics and defence, Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg, whose exploits have been discussed in these pages before (just click on the “plagiarism” tag), was supposed to give a talk at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. However, various students and faculty at Dartmouth decided that they do not want an unrepentant plagiarist to give any talks at their college and launched a protest, until Guttenberg cancelled. Well done, Dartmouth.

Also check out the comments from various Germans at the Dartmouth website. The Americans tried to turn it into a free speech issues, which it’s not (the most controversial thing Guttenberg ever said was calling the events in Afghanistan “war”), while Germans pointed out that this guy is a convicted plagiarist who cut and pasted his dissertation.