(Rejected posting. I thought this one would make it!)

I've heard of random acts of kindness, but this is ridiculous.

David Isenberg has a great, great blog, one of my favorites. Today he referred to two, count them two, quotes by President Bush that really make me go "hmm". I have trouble believing them, but if so ... he's in a lot of hot water. On Leno, if noplace else :).

1. "Stop throwing the Constitution in my face, it's just a goddamned piece of paper!"
2. "I don't give a goddamn. I'm the President and t

Another great link from David Isenberg about the questions surrounding Bush's win in 2004. (Or did one of my "friends" already post this? Sorry, if so.)

I found a link in isen.blog about Costco's article in the NYT. It mentioned BuyBlue, a site that lists companies whose executives donate to the good guys (and the bad guys). Very interesting stuff.

In 2002, my wife and I refinanced two auto loans with PeopleFirst, which became CapitalOne. We arranged for them to auto-deduct payments from checking.

Some time ago, they screwed up, failed to take their money, and then yelled at us for not paying them. They apologized eventually.

My daughter turns twelve this week. She's never been eager to learn to ride a bike, and she went through several bikes, each with training wheels, while never biking often enough to really learn. This week we bought a full-size bike, which turns out not to be available with training wheels unless we custom order something as expensive as the bike. Turns out we didn't need to. While researching this, my wife found Pedal Magic, a site with a downloadable video

Rejected from the main index:

Eric Brewer, a professor of computer science at Berkeley and founder of Inktomi, gave a keynote speech at WWW2005, in which he highlighted his project on Technology and Infrastructure for Emerging Regions. Brewer described a number of ongoing projects in this area (at Berkeley and elsewhere) that have really made a difference, such a

I really thought this'd get in :(.

I decided to try out Lendingtree over the weekend, and it seems to be working out well. One question, though: when I told one lender that I was a bit torn between a fixed-rate 2nd mortgage and a line of credit, he suggested I do both: fixed-rate and fixed value plus an equity line on top. The next lender I spoke to was aghast when I suggested this... "a third mortgage?!"

Is this the beginning of the end? The NY Times reports (firstborn son required) that Salinas, the hometown of the famous John Steinbeck, and for whom one of its public libraries is named, is about to shut its libraries for lack of funding. Public libraries throughout the US are suffering big cutbacks, and strapped taxpayers are unwilling to do things like a proposed sale

Harry Reid, the incoming Democratic minority leader in the US Senate, has spoken out on the confirmation process. CNN reports that he calls Clarence Thomas "an embarrassment to the Supreme Court" and implied he would fight against any possible promotion of Thomas to chief justice. On the other hand, he cited Antonin Scalia's brilliance, and said while he disagreed with many of his opinions, he found it hard t