In Japan, we have seen mighty tectonic shifts, with tragic effects. In Germany, teutonic plates have been swirling around uncontrollably, and the country has undergone a nuclear U-turn at the hand of Angela Merkel, the normally iconically-cool Chancellor.

But now for something completely different: German energy puns.

Boy I tell ya, when it comes to shutting down nuclear power plants these Germans really know what’s watt.

I just heard all the German nuclear physicists have gone fission.

I guy I talked to says that now that they’ve shut down all these nuclear plants they’re gonna re-fuse to start them back up again.

Green? Why Germans are so green these days that they’ve resorted to planting light bulbs. They want to see if power plants will grow.

You know why wind power is so popular in this country? It has a lot of fans.

You know what they are going to call a power failure here pretty soon, don’t you? A current event.

I ran into this silly old German Green the other day. Man, talk about a fossil fool.

During the past week, the Germans have not set a good example, casting away logic and apparently deciding future energy policy on the basis of an emotional spasm rather than a clearly-thought out strategy.