Melbourne's Crown Casino is huge. Something like three levels of apparatus devoted to 'responsible gaming' (smile). Most of the gamers were Chinese. Many young people of university age. So, if your kid who's studying abroad in Melbourne keeps lamenting about a lack of pocket-money, you probably don't need a whole bag of thinking tools to figure out what's happening.

I've never been much for gambling. Not much temptation in this area (more than made up in others, I suspect...sigh). It's unlikely to be because I don't like money or getting more of it. I'm risk-averse (that's 'chicken-shit' for non-economists). I don't handle the likelihood and consequences of failure very well, not at least if chance is a major factor and I do have a choice to not begin. The impact of the 'bad-case scenario' overwhelms its positive counter-part. 

I walked out with a Harry Connick, Jr. and a Gershwin CD. Went back, turned on the TV and spent the next 15 minutes staring at BBC and SkyNews. It was tense. The cameras showed some people coming out of ambulances wrapped in blood-stained sheets. Some had soot on their faces and talking (surpisingly calmly) about the ordeal in the trains. People were smashing windows, praying to God, crying, believing it was the end.

Really don't know what the terrorists are trying to 'get at'. Vengeance, venting, what? How does killing scores of people benefit them OR their cause? Is it meant to be spiritual? Talk about a perverted counter-feit.