Recently read a book that is exactly on the same topic as the book referenced in the article. It's called "The Lights in the Tunnel," and you can get it from the author's site for a price you can set yourself. I read it and thought it was insightful.

According to his ideas, things won't be free. However, people will get a salary without "working" per se. The author recommends maintaining a market economy. There will be some jobs left, but most people will receive a salary directly from the government. The government sets incentives, such as getting a good education, and behaving in an environmentally sound way. If you go after these incentives, your salary is increased. Education keeps crime rates low, and behaving in an environmentally responsible manner is good for everyone.

It's definitely a decent read, and I think things may well play out the way the author thinks.

You are way off the mark. If the earthquake hadn't happened, it's likely that he would have resigned already. Here's a relevant link. Basically, his approval rating's gone up after the earthquake, from 24% (2011-03-03) to 35.6% (2011-03-17). 24% is slightly lower than the approval rating at which it's believed that a cabinet is on the way out.

BTW, Japanese cabinets come and go. As you can see here, very few Prime Ministers stay in office for four years or longer.

Title: Sale of apple products ends across the board -- Apple Inc.'s intentions and Yodobashi Camera

Yodobashi Camera announced that it will stop selling Apple products on their internet site yodobashi.com and their telephone shopping service "moshi moshi Yodobashi". (TL note: moshi moshi is a Japanese word that is used when answering the phone.) Furthermore, sales in (physical, I presume) stores continue.

According to Yodobashi Camera, "it has come to the state of affairs that we have to stop selling all Apple products, including iPods, MacBooks, iMacs, and related accessories", and furthermore this is "a thing resulting from Apple Inc.'s intentions".

The service that you can pick up products ordered on yodobashi.com from one of their physical stores and their "check if product is available in store" feature are going to be continued for a long time.

Furthermore, Yodobashi will not comment on matters not publicized on the internets.

Besides Yodobashi Camera, Bikku Camera, Yamada appliances, and many other major volume sellers alike are stopping the sale of Apple products on the internets. Bikku Camera states that they can't comment on details either, but they display strong posture by saying "because you can also buy over the counter, it's not something that will have that much influence."

Besides major volume sellers, the Apple-specialized Rakuten stores "Akihabara Mac Collection," "kitcut," and others have stopped selling Apple products. (However, at the time of this writing (April 26), kitcut is still selling Apple products on their own site.) Apart from these stores, you can see many other Rakuten stores either state "not in stock" or that they have stopped selling Apple products. It is a matter of life and death for all internet shops that don't have a physical store.

And naturally, while internet stores across the board have stopped selling Apple products, Apple's own online store continues to sell products. Apart from the Apple Store, the foreign company Amazon.com still sells just like before.

Furthermore, Apple hasn't - as of April 26 - released any official statements regarding this matter, [didn't get this part of the last sentence - help is appreciated].

Yes, use flash cards, but not the dead tree type. Use anki. I use it to study Japanese, and I'm sure it's almost as good for Chinese.
http://ichi2.net/anki/

Even Bruce Schneier ignores these warnings:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/12/forging_ssl_cer.html

So, what kind of things do _you_ find funny then? To me at least April Fool's day is the best day of the whole year.
(Just posting to get an achievement award :D)

Responding to first post for extra visibility. As usual, no time for proof-reading :P

[Federal trojan]: Pirate Party's Home Searched
The search for an informant from the Bavarian Ministry of Justice

Bavarian police officers have searched the home of the spokesman of the German Pirate Party, Ralph Hunderlach. They were searching for an informant from the Bavarian Ministry of Justice, who gave the privacy activists and computer experts information about the probably illegally used trojan to listen into skype conversations.

The Bavarian federal state government is pressuring the Pirate Party with the search of its spokesman's home. "The Bavarian authorities have worked without any legal foundation on a trojan and are now trying to silence their critics", said Udo Vetter, a lawyer and law-blogger to the Frankfurter Rundschau.

On September 11 at 5:45 [probably AM] police men appeared in the spokesman's home and threatened to remove every piece of furniture if he didn't tell them where he got the information. Hunderlach is at the same time political business man [WTF] of the Regional Association Bavaria of the Pirate Party. "His home was searched to find out the identify of the informant", said Thorsten Wirth, chair of the Pirate Party Hessen [a state in Germany] to Golem.de. It wasn't possible to reveal the search of his home earlier to the public because Hunderlach was busy with his job.

The person who gave the documents to the Pirate Party however was assured of the securedness of every bit of information that could identify him from unwanted access (by the Party). Another Pirate-activist's server that was also confiscated was also secured using strong encryption.

The question is "if there maybe might be an excess of governmental activity here", said the former Minister of the Interior Gerhart Baum (FDP), who is now a civil liberties activist to the Frankfurter Rundschau.

In January 2008 the Pirate Party was given a letter from the Bavarian Ministry of Justice, which included possible evidence of the use of a trojan to listen in on skype conversations and technical details about the employed software. According to the Party, the trojan is suitable for eavesdropping of VoIP conversations and should be able to be installed by police by e-mail or by accessing the system locally. Furthermore, the software can be changed or even deleted without leaving traces and allows access to internal properties of the Skype client and SSL-encrypted websites. "Now that this search has taken place, there's no doubt left about the genuineness of the letter", according to the Pirate Party.

"Some of our people [policemen/politicians] seem to be quite intent on implementing a police state", said Jens Seipenbusch, deputy chairman of the Pirates.