President Obama's Stimulus Plan and Your Taxes

Bonkers would like to make some sense of our financial difficulty and provide you with as much information as we can about it. This next segment is from our colleagues at SmartMoney analyzing President Obama's stimulus plan, and most importantly, what it means to you and your family.

Every day, SmartMoney will break down and focus on an aspect of the stimulus plan.

Today's lesson from SmartMoney include tips about home-buyer credits, the AMT, education credits and unemployment payments.

We hope that this information, as well as all our other information, will be of benefit to you.

What Insurance Do You Need?

I remember playing the board game 'Life' when I was little, and I would never purchase the insurance. Sure enough, I paid for that choice when my little plastic car landed on a 'tragedy' space, like a house fire, and I had to cough up my play money. Now that I am older, I don't want to learn that lesson the hard way, so I make sure that I am sufficiently covered in case of an accident. After all, you can't put a price tag on peace of of mind.

Most state's find insurance coverage so important that they mandate coverage, especially in the case of auto insurance. My home state recently enacted a law that also requires residents to hold their own health insurance. The importance of these two insurances pushed them to the top of our most searched lists.

Shopping for insurance can be difficult because there are so many things to consider. How much do you want to pay? How much protection will your coverage provide? Are you eligible for a discount insurance?

These are the types of questions that run through everyone's head when shopping for insurance. Luckily, you can compare insurance and get online insurance quotes to make your shopping easier.

What insurance do you think is most beneficial? For more information on insurance and to get free insurance quotes, go to AOL Money & Finance and search insurance on AOL Search.

Top Searched Insurance on AOL Search:
1. Health insurance
2. Auto insurance
3. Life insurance
4. Dental insurance
5. Travel insurance
6. Pet insurance
7. Homeowners insurance
8. Farmers insurance
9. Unemployment insurance
10. Business insurance

Donate to Those in Need

It is amazing how a small act of kindness can make such a large difference in someone else's life. We get so caught up in our busy schedules that we fail to look after those less fortunate than we are. Times are tough right now and there are many ways you can make a difference. Whether you donate time, money or unwanted goods, a small effort can have a big impact.

Websites like AOL Classifieds, Craigslist and Freecycle make it easy to get rid of unwanted things around the house, and sometimes make a little extra cash. However, your donations are well needed elsewhere. Before you begin your spring cleaning this year, consider donating to those in need. Check out our top searched lists of the different ways you can donate.

How do you help those in need? Search for more ways to donate and community service opportunities here on AOL Search.

Top Searched Ways to Donate on AOL Search:
1. Donate your car
2. Donate clothes
3. Donate organs
4. Donate furniture
5. Donate hair
6. Donate blood
7. Donate books
8. Donate eyeglasses
9. Donate timeshare
10. Donate cell phones

"Milk" the movie

Revolutionary Road
By Hilton Als
a film directed by Gus Van Sant

"On the surface, Milk isn't a terribly complicated film. Whatever complexity it has is revealed subtly, intermittently. As a description of the final eight years of Harvey Bernard Milk's life, it's fairly accurate. The screenwriter, Dustin Lance Black—Mormon-raised and a former writer and producer on the Mormon-themed, critically lauded television series Big Love—pretty much follows the standard biopic formula: subject grapples with self, finds self, becomes a public self, weathers controversy, triumphs personally and/or professionally, and then dies. Black's attempts to dress up this schema in the gay trappings afforded by his subject do nothing to meaningfully pervert the form—or Milk's emotional tidiness.

"We watch, with varying degrees of interest, as Sean Penn, in the title role, rises from opera-loving, affable San Francisco merchant to be one of the first openly gay politicians elected to public office in the US. Though the film's emotional trajectory may bear no outward resemblance to, say, Steven Spielberg's Schindler morphing from playboy to savior, the moral message is essentially the same: the road to redemption is paved by good works..."

FOR FULL ARTICLE: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22411

A Reading List That Shaped Barack Obama

Some of President-elect Barack Obama’s favored reading matter:

The Bible
“Parting the Waters,” Taylor Branch
“Self-Reliance,” Ralph Waldo Emerson
Gandhi’s autobiography
“Team of Rivals,” Doris Kearns Goodwin
“The Golden Notebook,” Doris Lessing
Lincoln’s collected writings
“Moby-Dick,” Herman Melville
“Song of Solomon,” Toni Morrison
Works of Reinhold Niebuhr
“Gilead,” Marilynne Robinson
Shakespeare’s tragedies

FDIC Says 171 Banks on Watch List

WASHINGTON - The number of problem U.S. banks and thrifts jumped in the third quarter to 171, from 117 at the end of the prior quarter, marking the highest level since the end of 1995 and adding to expectations that more banks will fail, regulators said on Tuesday.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp said the industry-funded reserve to back deposits was $34.6 bln as of September 30, a 23.5 percent decrease from the previous quarter.

The FDIC also reported that bank industry income fell 94 percent from the previous year to $1.7 billion in the third quarter.

Whitney Houston Shoots Down Rumors of a Bobby Brown Reunion

Whitney Houston has issued a statement denying the rumors of a reunion with Bobby Brown.

Acting on behalf of Houston, the singer's publicist Nancy Seltzer calls speculation that the exes are getting back together "a complete fabrication."

Seltzer pinpoints the rumors to a report in Wednesday's Chicago Sun-Times that said Houston and Brown had been spotted out and about in Georgia looking romantic.

Houston and Brown divorced in April 2007 after 14 years of marriage. During their tumultuous union, Brown was arrested on drug and alcohol charges, and Houston twice entered drug rehabilitation programs. Houston has custody of their teenage daughter, Bobbi Kristina.

Goldman Sachs Closer to Becoming Bank

NEW YORK - Goldman Sachs Group Inc. on Friday won a charter from New York State's banking department, a key step in the Wall Street bank's effort to change its investment banking model and gather deposits.

The new bank will be called Goldman Sachs Bank USA, and include Goldman Sachs Capital Markets LP, Goldman Sachs Credit Partners LP and Goldman Sachs Mortgage Co, the banking department said. Goldman will merge its Utah-based industrial loan company into its New York-chartered trust company. Goldman Sachs Bank will be based in New York City.

A Goldman spokeswoman declined to comment.

The approval came two months after the Federal Reserve designated Goldman and rival Morgan Stanley as bank holding companies. That change gives them access to more low-cost funding and the $700 billion federal bank bailout, but requires greater regulatory scrutiny and reduced risk.

In seeking a state charter, Goldman diverged from Morgan Stanley and other lenders that have sought national charters, which would make it easier to expand into many states. JPMorgan Chase & Co Citigroup Inc and Bank of America Corp also have national charters.

Goldman's pursuit of a state charter suggests the company will continue to focus on investment banking, trading and wealthier clients, and not soon build a nationwide retail banking business. Morgan Stanley, in contrast, has said it will pursue "opportunistic" bank acquisitions.

A state charter nevertheless permits Goldman to open branches in states with "reciprocal" agreements, an arrangement now spanning roughly 25 states. New York-chartered banks may also operate branches in neighboring Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, while remaining subject to New York laws.

Other lenders with New York charters include Bank of New York Mellon Corp and M&T Bank Corp.

Goldman's decision to seek a state banking charter "reflects confidence in New York as a financial center and in its banking department as an effective regulator," State Banking Superintendent Richard Neiman said in a statement.

Goldman and Morgan Stanley changed their banking model following the collapses of Bear Stearns Cos and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc and Merrill Lynch & Co's agreement to be acquired by Bank of America.

Many investors worried about the sustainability of the Wall Street banking model, especially if customers or trading partners were to flee to lenders with more stable funding.

Goldman in September won a $5 billion infusion from Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc., four days after Goldman obtained bank holding company status.

Shares of Goldman closed Friday up $2.49 at $78.99. They have fallen 63 percent this year.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel; editing by Carol Bishopric)
Copyright 2008, Reuters

Raul Castro attends first beatification in Cuba

By ANDREA RODRIGUEZ- Thousands of Roman Catholic faithful and even President Raul Castro gathered Saturday for the beatification of a monk known as the "father of the poor" - the first ceremony of its kind on Cuban soil.

The act brings Friar Jose Olallo Valdes, a member of the Hospitaller Order of St. John of God, one step closer to sainthood.

Olallo was born in 1820 and abandoned at a Havana orphanage. He came to the central city of Camaguey to take his religious vows at 15 and stayed the rest of his life, earning his nickname by caring for the needy and chronically ill. He died in 1889 at age 69.

Beatification declares a departed person's ability to intercede on the part of the faithful who pray to him and is the last step to possible sainthood. Olallo is credited with a miracle in 1999, when a 3-year-old girl with an abdominal tumor made an unlikely recovery after her family prayed to him for help.

Authorities erected a large, open-air cathedral in Camaguey's Plaza de la Caridad and Cuba's 77-year-old president made a previously unannounced appearance, wearing a gray suit and taking a seat in the front row.

"In the face of a materialist culture that we see imposing itself everywhere and that pushes aside the weak and the poor, we learn from Olallo the virtues of the wisdom of God and how to love thy neighbor universally," said Jose Saraiva, prefect emeritus of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, the Vatican's saint-making office, who traveled to Cuba from Rome for the ceremony.

To commemorate the occasion, officials released a collection of doves and rang church bells. There was also a 2-kilometer (1-mile) pilgrimage.

The Cuban Roman Catholic Church started the process of beatifying Olallo in 1989, the 100th anniversary of his death. His is the first beatification in Cuba, but he is not the first Cuban to be beatified.

Cuban-born, Augustinian deacon Jose Lopez Piteira was beatified in Rome last year. He did most of his work in Spain, where he was shot in 1936 during the civil war.

Pope Benedict XVI released a statement saying he hoped Olvallo's beatification will "give renewed apostolic vitality" to religious Cubans.

"We give thanks to the pope who, in Rome, watches us from a window in his heart," Camaguey Archbishop Juan Garcia said Saturday.

The beatification and Raul Castro's attendance could help further improve the once icy relationship between the church and Cuba's communist government. The ceremony was widely announced in state-controlled news media, unusual in a country where official news outlets often ignore religious matters.

The single-party, communist government never outlawed religion, but expelled priests and closed religious schools when Fidel Castro took power in January 1959.

Tensions eased in the early 1990s when the government removed references to atheism in the constitution and let believers of all faiths join the Communist Party. They warmed more when Pope John Paul II visited in 1998.

Raul Castro's first diplomatic meeting as head of state was with Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the pope's secretary of state whose previously scheduled visit to the island coincided with Fidel's transferal of power.

© 2008 Miami Herald Media Company. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.miamiherald.com

'Joe the Plumber' Lashes Out at Media

AP
NEW YORK (Oct. 19) - "Joe the Plumber" is lashing out at the media for analyzing his personal life since he suddenly became a focal point of the presidential race last week.

Joe Wurzelbacher, a plumber from Holland, Ohio, told Mike Huckabee on his Fox News talk show Saturday that he is upset by the attention and has been unable to work with reporters crowded on his front lawn.

FOR FULL ARTICLE: http://news.aol.com/elections/article/joe-the-plumber-lashes-out-at-media/216936

YOUTUBE:

Embarrassing Celebrity Commercial from Yesteryear

"Celebrity mug shots, sex tapes, embarrassing ads from the lean years -- they all turn up eventually. Many of today's stars cut their teeth shilling for Madison Avenue, and they surely never expected to see their efforts resurface outside of the occasional "Before They Were Famous" TV special. But thanks to the wonders of the Internet, their tampon ads and "tubular" hairstyles are preserved forever.

"Pop a Zima, and take a look at our gallery of some of the more embarrassing celebrity ads from yesteryear. They'll make you glad you aren't famous..."

FOR FULL ARTICLE: http://www.asylum.com/2008/10/15/embarrassing-celebrity-commercials-from-yesteryear/?icid=200100397x1211752543x1200707531

How Oprah Viewers Are Saving

Viewers Are Rallying

" 'It feels like a big wake up call," Oprah Winfrey said on a recent show, which focused on how Americans are getting creative in cutting back on spending.

"Winfrey and Dylan Ratigan, a business journalist from CNBC, explained the source of the financial crisis. "We borrowed too much money, more money than we could afford to pay back," Ratigan said.

"To help turn the trend, Oprah viewers shared frugal finance tips..."

FOR FULL ARTICLE: http://www.walletpop.com/economizer/how-oprah-viewers-are-cutting-back?icid=200100397x1211681223x1200724242

DE LA HOYA vs PACQUIAO: SWIMMING WITH THE SHARKS...

by Gary Todd

"A lot has been said about this fight; thus far. The weight issue, the reach, the height, the gloves. The age old argument of 'a good big man will always beat a good little man.' I'm from the old school, it's what you have inside. If you have heart and the will to win, then you have a chance.

"The first question you have to ask is, why is De la Hoya fighting Pacquiao. Easy. He thinks it's the best option of him winning, and beating the best pound for pound fighter in the world right now. De la Hoya has made a career out of fighting fighters he thought he could beat. Paez, Rafael Ruelas, Chavez, Whitaker, Coley, Castillejo, Vargas, Campas, Sturm, Mayorga and Forbes. As I said, he knows the business of boxing, and everything he does is calculated. He thinks he can beat Pacquiao..."

FOR FULL ARTICLE: http://www.braggingrightscorner.com/toddpachoya101408.html

FOR FURTHER RESEARCH: http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/boxing/news/story?id=3555960
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/aug/08/sports/sp-boxing8
http://www.eastsideboxing.com/news.php?p=16903&more=1
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/45853-why-oscar-de-la-hoya-vs-manny-pacquiao-would-be-bad-for-boxing
http://www.inquirer.net/specialfeatures/ThePacquiaoFiles/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxing

Man eats 45 Pizzas

AP NEW YORK (Oct. 13) - Chowdown champ Joey Chestnut has done it again — this time proving he's a pizza powerhouse.

He downed 45 slices in 10 minutes Sunday to win the first Famous Famiglia World Pizza Eating Championship in New York's Times Square.

The 24-year-old from San Jose, Calif., says he fasted for more than a day to prepare. He folded and squeezed the slices to make them easier to swallow.

The 24-year-old rocketed to competitive-eating celebrity when he won Coney Island's July Fourth hot-dog eating contest in 2007. He took the title again this summer by gulping down 59 dogs in 10 minutes.
He won a contest in Tennessee last month by wolfing down 93 Krystal hamburgers in 8 minutes.

http://news.aol.com/article/man-eats-45-pizza-slices-in-10-minutes/208761

James Baldwin & Barack Obama

By Colm Tóibín

"It seemed important, as both men set about making their marks on the world, for them to establish before anything else that their stories began when their fathers died and that they set out alone without a father's shadow or a father's permission. James Baldwin's Notes of a Native Son, published in 1951, begins: "On the 29th of July, in 1943, my father died." Baldwin was almost nineteen at the time. Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father, published in 1995, begins also with the death of his father: "A few months after my twenty-first birthday, a stranger called to give me the news."

"Both men quickly then established their own actual distance from their fathers, which made their grief sharper and more lonely, but also made clear to the reader that they had a right to speak with authority, to offer this version of themselves partly because they themselves, through force of will and a steely sense of character, had invented the voice they were now using, had not been trained by any other man to be the figure they had become.[1] "I had not known my father very well," Baldwin wrote.

"We got on badly, partly because we shared, in our different fashions, the vice of stubborn pride. When he was dead I realized that I had hardly ever spoken to him. When he had been dead a long time I began to wish I had.
Of his father, Barack Obama wrote:

"At the time of his death, my father remained a myth to me, both more and less than a man. He had left Hawaii back in 1963, when I was only two years old, so that as a child I knew him only through the stories that my mother and grandparents told..."

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21930