German Education Minister quits over plagiarism

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I laughed so hard when I first heard the news! It seems like the corruption is not a southern european countries exclusive.

But I have to agree that there are significant differences. Here in Portugal there's a minister (parliamentary issues, I think) who faked a college degree and it wasn't even a doctorate. Consequences? None! Politicians in this country have no shame whatsoever.

Even the last prime minister, Sócrates, had a degree which was completed in a private university at a sunday. And the people still vote in the same parties as before. I don't get it. Maybe I should make this quote my mantra: "Remember, half the people is below average."

PS: Private universities, contrary to some countries, are the worst universities in Portugal, and one of their purposes is to give politicians and people with a large dose of money degrees.

The corruption in Portugal is overwhelming. Sure, there are other countries as bad or worse than our's, but I prefer to put the standards high. You can't compare the corruption in Portugal with the corruption in the UK. There was a study that was made about Portugal that said that if we had no corruption, we would be living with the same quality standards as Finland. When you see the difference between Portugal and Finland, it's realy scary.

Anyway, regarding your question, because of the above reasons people in Portugal should have changed their vote. But they don't.

To give you an example, in the most educated part of our country the people vote for a guy (for mayor) who is clearly corrupt and has already been condemned by justice to jail due to corruption. What's the people's reasoning? "Oh he steals, but he gets things done."

Now imagine how much the others steal to not even geting things done.