First, the New Stuff:

• We finally did my Yellow Submarine cube sculpture
• Chapter 48 of the Empty City (in which Bill experiments with the Time Shifter)
• I added a couple of Q&As to the Aquarius FAQ page

Today is the day! The 3 page story on us is in this morning's Washington Times. If you can't get to a DC-area newstand, look for it here next week.

Looney Labs has its own domain! We'll be moving the business-related parts of wunderland.com over to looneylabs.com in the coming weeks, thanks in large part to the fantastic help we've been getting from Michelle, who answered Kristin's plea for help of a couple of weeks ago.

And so violence begets violence begets violence. Being a couple of peace-loving hippies, this naturally has us bummed out. And the thing we find really troublesome is that we focus on retaliation and seem to be ignoring the root cause of it all. Sure, violence should be punished, but grievances should also be recognized. Are we in America even listening to the terrorist's complaints? What is it about America that has enraged these people so much as to drive them to commit crazed actions like blowing up our embassies? We must really be pissing them off in order to make them do that. So what is it that we're doing, and can we stop?

Kristin's been asking everyone this question, and the clearest answer we've gotten is that the embassy bombings were meant as a protest of the fact that we have troops stationed too close to some sacred religious grounds in Saudi Arabia. And while I hate to send a message that blowing up a building full of people is a good method of getting your way, I do have to wonder if we shouldn't make an effort to address their grievances. If our troops are desecrating holy grounds, shouldn't we move them? Why do we have troops over there, anyway?

Living within the vicinity of the US capital does give us pause when thinking about the prospects of terrorists with biological weapons, but in addition to smashing their ability to make such weapons, shouldn't we also be striving to reduce their desire to use those weapons on us?

Fresh thoughts in my brain this week:

• What's the difference, really, between a Butterfinger and a Fifth Avenue?
• Great enactment of one of my daydreams in the "Suits are Picking up the Bill" video by the Squirrel Nut Zippers: Going into a restaurant, skipping dinner, and just ordering round after round from the dessert menu. (And with milk in the champagne flute!)

Peace,