Case of the Disappearing 727

The Japan Times has an interesting editorial regarding the Boeing 727 that took off from the Luanda Airport in Angola and vanished.

"The history of the missing Boeing is a tangled affair, with a cast of characters that includes marijuana smugglers and convicted frauds. Who took the plane and where it was taken are unclear, but the last owner reportedly replaced the seats with fuel tanks before it disappeared -- an ominous-looking move in the aftermath of 9/11. While this could be run of the mill criminal behavior in the Byzantine world of aircraft sales, it might be something worse. "

Only in Japan

Knife sets turn up across Hokkaido

"Hokkaido police are baffled. Since early April, more than 1,000 brand-new Chinese-made knives have been found abandoned all over Hokkaido, and no owners have come forward to claim them."

They are finding these knife sets in parks, under staircases, near train stations. In Japan, in my experience, when people see something someone left behind or lost they will usually ignore it (because it doesn't belong to them) and an official will pick it up eventually and put it in a lost and found. I've seen people ignore money (maybe the equivalent of $10.00) on the floor in a train station. They would walk around it or push it aside with their foot. I pointed it out to a man I thought had dropped it but no, it wasn't his. If it isn't yours you don't pick it up and walk off with it. I like that about Japan.

That's why there is such a controversy over these knives. I don't get the part about them getting into the wrong hands and used as weapons though. Everyone has knives at home anyway and you can buy them as easily as anything else, so why worry about that?

"In Sapporo, the response from police varies from police station to police station. While officials at the Sapporo Kita station say they are looking for the owners of the knives, the Shiraishi station said it will step up patrols."

If only we had these problems in America.