We learned over the weekend that the Audi TT involved in last week’s triple-fatality accident at the Wilson Tunnel was previously owned by the son of someone we know. The former owner is also a friend of our former neighbor’s daughter. That’s way less than six degrees of separation.

Have you got all that? There will be a quiz shortly.

Anyway, according to this personal grapevine, the former owner gave up the car because it was too easy to go very, very fast. He had also been ticketed for speeding when he owned that car. And I’m told he attributes the crash to the effect of having a third person riding in the back seat. He offered the opinion, or so we’re told, that the driver was probably accustomed to high speed driving with one or two people in the front seats, and the addition of the weight of a third person behind would have had an impact on the car’s handling at high speed.

And we heard that the driver had previously had his auto insurance cancelled because of being ticketed for driving at excessive speed. Unknown if he was insured by another company at the time of the crash.

Or so we’re told via this set of second-or-third-hand sources.

I was checking out bloggers mentions of Hawaii this morning and found a few. Michael Arrington of TechCrunch.com describes his Hawaii vacation, including raves for the Hanalei Surfboard House. Then there’s a report of another visitor’s arrival from Australia, including a bus ride from the airport with a “super duper crazy”.

You might also want to check out “Inside the Meltdown” from the folks at Frontline.

And Investigative Reporters and Editors has links to some excellent recent stories. AP’s Sharon Theimer digs into the financial conflicts of GOP Senator Judd Gregg, who declined the nomination as commerce secretary. The Sacramento Bee reports that telemarketers are taking the lion’s share of phone donations to charities in California, a story that could be written anywhere in the country. And Business Week reports on banking lobbyists’ efforts to undermine aid to homeowners facing foreclosure.

There’s lots of good stuff out there.