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Flying casinos

Airbus says "several customers" have asked it about converting its new, superjumbo A380 into flying casinos.

The Trib's take:

This is one of those ideas that looks great on paper, but even casual perusal reveals several drawbacks.

First, gamblers tend to be superstitious, and being locked in with passengers who believe everything is a matter of luck - including altitude - might not be the best flying experience.

Next, some casino games - such as roulette - don't lend themselves to turbulence. Slots could be bolted into an aircraft, but can you imagine being closed up for a 12-hour flight with the constant beeping and clinking?

Finally, land-bound casinos will support airborne casinos only until the first load of high-rollers departs the plane dead broke because the players lost all their money on the flight over.

• • •

Terrorist ironies

Hezbollah, its Iranian backers and al-Qaida in Iraq aired condolences during the funeral of Imad Mughniyeh, the Hezbollah terrorist mastermind killed by a car bomb in Damascus.

The Trib's take:

If they saw any irony in a terrorist being a victim of terrorism, they didn't mention it.

At the funeral in Beirut, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah blamed Israel for the death. Bizarrely, he accused Israel of cheating: "You have crossed the borders" and taken the fight outside "the natural battlefield." Apparently, terrorism has boundaries and rules. Nasrallah, in hiding since 2006, appeared by videotape.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was there in person to read a message from his president, Mahmound Ahmadinejad: "He's not the first martyr, nor will he be the last on this path. . . . There will be hundreds and millions more." That can't be good news to young Arab males hoping to have a future.

Not to be outdone, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq chimed in by Web, since its adherents can't appear in public. He is Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, who U.S. intelligence believes is a fictitious composite character whose messages are read by an actor. Showing that dogged willingness to fight to the last Palestinian, he called on Hamas to attack Israel. Moderate Palestinians? He wants them dead, too.

• • •

Satellite shot

President Bush, after ordering Navy missile cruisers to shoot down a failing U.S. spy satellite over the northern Pacific, explained to other countries that this was for legitimate safety reasons and not a test of our missiles against satellites.

The Trib's take:

The Chinese aren't likely to buy it because of U.S. criticism of China's test last year of a missile against one of that country's old weather satellites. One legitimate objection to the Chinese test was that it left thousands of pieces of space debris in orbit, where they endanger spacecraft.

But the truth is we're likely to get useful military and technical knowledge from shooting down an out-of-control satellite rather than intercepting mock warheads in scripted tests.

Still, left untouched, the satellite, compared in size to a school bus, could fall to Earth largely intact. If we hit it, at least we're a bit safer.