Friday, December 25, 2009

Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins Split


One of Hollywood's most enduring relationships has ended – Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins have broken up after more than two decades together, PEOPLE has learned exclusively.

"Actress Susan Sarandon and her partner of 23 years, actor Tim Robbins have announced that they separated over the summer," her rep Teal Cannaday tells PEOPLE in a statement. "No further comments will be made."

The couple met on the set of Bull Durham, and they have two sons together, Jack, 20, and Miles, 17.

Sarandon, 63, was previously married to Chris Sarandon, whom she met in college. The actress also dated director Franco Amurri in the mid '80s. The two had a daughter, Eva Amurri, in 1985. (Amurri is also an actress; she most recently appeared in Showtime's Californication).

Sarandon and Robbins, 51, were admired for their long relationship in the face of the pressures of show business, their much-discussed age difference – he's 12 years younger – and that they never married.

"I won’t marry because I am too afraid of taking him for granted or him taking me for granted – maybe it will be a good excuse for a party when I am 80," Sarandon has said in the past.

Both famous liberal activists, they have never been too political at home with their children. "I’ve never tried to force [politics] on them,” the actress tellsPsychologies magazine in its January issue, but adds that the election of President Barack Obama “got them excited.”

The family all attended the inauguration in January, though Sarandon insists "our dinner table conversations are rarely political."

ENJOY THE DAY :)



AIG Emails: Spitzer, Blodget Debate Whether AIG's Internal Documents Should Be Published Online For Public Review (VIDEO)


In a New York Times op-ed over the weekend, former New York attorney general and governor Eliot Spitzer and two law professors, Frank Partnoy and William Black, urged the government to publish AIG's internal emails and accounting documents online. Disclosing the documents, they argued, would facilitate an "open source," participatory probe into the insurance corporation's collapse and subsequent rescue.

This morning, Spitzer continued to press that the documents should be released for public scrutiny on Dylan Ratigan's "Morning Meeting", where he debated the point with Henry Blodget, editor of The Business Insider.

While Spitzer and Blodget agreed that the public -- we own an 80 percent stake in AIG -- has a right to understand what happened when the company was bailed out and why, Blodget insisted that emails were just "one piece of the puzzle" and that additional evidence such as meetings and voicemails should be considered.

Spitzer agreed the emails were only part of the investigation, but insisted that they are "a critical piece that will permit us to put this story together" and will address crucial questions surrounding the AIG bailout:

"What was the relationship between AIG and Goldman, AIG and the Fed, AIG and Treasury, what was known bottom to top. These are critical questions that the taxpayer deserves to know...We deserve to know because our financial future depends upon it."

At issue, according to Spitzer and Blodget, is the extent to which Goldman Sachs was exposed to AIG's risk -- and whether the government's decision to pay 100 cents on the dollar for AIG's contracts with banks was done to forestall Goldman's collapse.

Here's Blodget:

"The allegation is that AIG was trying to solve the problem on its own, going to Goldman, saying, 'Take sixty cents.' Suddenly Geithner charges in, says, 'Don't worry, we'll make you completely whole.' That is a huge problem, and to Eliot's point, we have to know what happened there, why that mistake was made, because I think it's universally viewed as a mistake."

And if Goldman's survival did hinge on AIG's rescue, Spitzer said, "it puts them in a whole different position, at so many different levels, in terms of salaries, what they do, regulatory status -- and it reframes the entire debate and sheds light on how they've conducted their business."

Watch Spitzer and Blodget discuss the merits of airing AIG's internal documents for public review below:

Securitization Is Back! Investor-Owned Mortgages Have High Re-Default Rates, Says Report


The securitization of mortgage loans has been blamed for helping cause the financial crisis -- and now it seems to be complicating recovery efforts.

About half of all modified investor-owned mortgages, undertaken to help troubled borrowers and investors looking to cut losses, re-default within six months, according to a new quarterly report by federal bank regulators. These are loans that are sliced and diced and sold to investors in the form of securities.

That compares with a 25 percent re-default rate for modified loans held in-house at banks, according to data as of Sept. 30.

The high re-default rates for investor-owned mortgages underscore the difficulties faced by the Obama administration in trying to stem the growing foreclosure crisis. Through the end of November, 3.6 million homes have entered foreclosure this year, according to a spokeswoman for RealtyTrac.

The administration's nine-month-old $75 billion program, Making Home Affordable, aims to help three to four million distressed homeowners avoid foreclosure by modifying their mortgages to a more affordable monthly payment. Of the nearly 760,000 modifications that have been enrolled in three-month trial plans, less than 32,000 have transitioned into permanent relief for homeowners. Nearly 87 percent of the modifications under the administration's program are for investor-owned mortgages.

The administration's program largely does not address what many experts believe to be the root cause of foreclosures -- homeowners owing more on their mortgages than their homes are worth.

Being "underwater," or having negative equity, "is the most important predictor of default," argued Laurie S. Goodman, senior managing director at Amherst Securities, during a Congressional hearing earlier this month.

Speaking on behalf of her firm, she said: "We are concerned that if policies continue to kick the can down the road -- working with a modification problem that does not address negative equity -- delinquencies will continue to spiral with no end in sight."

Sinbad: Comedian Files for Bankruptcy After Going Broke


It turns out that Sinbad is broke. The comedian declared bankruptcy on December 11th of this year, a day after the IRS came after him for $8.15 million in bad debts. In the court filing, the actor claimed that he has only $50,000 in assets, but $10 - $50 million dollars in liabilities.

Sinbad, whose real name is Sinbad Adkins, was a big star during the 1980s and 1990s, starting his career on 'Star Search' and starring later in the film 'House Guest.' He is 53-years old.

The actor's tax troubles are not uncommon for folks in Hollywood, as many other black celebrities, including the great Redd Foxx, Wesley Snipes and Joe Louis have been among those who've found themselves having problems with the IRS. But tax trouble can also affect the rest of us if we are not careful. Here are some tips to avoid tax problems:

1) Always save money: Your future income may never be as high as you think. Many celebs started off balling and thought that the money would keep flowing. I am sure that Sinbad thought that his personal gravy train would continue long after the movie 'House Guest,' but the 'House Guest' money probably ran out a long time ago.

2) Be truthful: Don't lie about your income or deductions. It's just not worth it and the IRS comes hard for their money.

3) File your return on time and pay on time: Not filing your taxes is a serious offense. Make sure you send something in every year. If you owe a debt, either pay immediately or get a payment arrangement.

4) Respond to IRS claims immediately: The IRS is very powerful, so not responding to them can lead to criminal charges. You don't want them to be mad at you.

We should not judge the celebs who have tax problems, we should learn from them. Be smart, be careful and save your dough. You never know when the government will come knocking.

Let Saab keep following its own road - By Steven Wade

Editor's note: Steven Wade is the owner and publisher of http://www.saabsunited.com/, an independent Saab weblog that has been in operation since February 2005. He lives in Tasmania, Australia, with his wife, three children, one dog and three Saabs.




My name is Steven Wade and I'm a Saaboholic.

I own three of them, though that's not many by Saab collector standards. I write about Saabs daily on a Web site that I've been running for close to five years now. I've traveled to Sweden twice to look at them, as well as to the Detroit and Frankfurt auto shows. Did I mention that I live in Hobart, Australia, which is almost as far away from Sweden as you can get.

Tens of thousands of people visit my Web site, viewing almost 400,000 pages during November 2009. Many of them contributed articles and news tips. And all of them are in mourning today.

With a deadline to sell Saab by December 31, General Motors ended negotiations with a potential buyer Friday and said it will begin an orderly windup of Saab early in 2010 unless another buyer emerges. (Spyker, a Dutch carmaker, said Sunday that it made a new offer to buy Saab from GM.)

As I write this, the announcement of Saab's possible demise is still so fresh that I haven't had much time to let it sink in. As a hard-core Saab enthusiast, I feel like I'm in denial, in limbo. I just can't bring myself to believe that it could be over.

Saab isn't an ordinary car company.

The Saab automobile operation was started as an offshoot of an airplane company in the late 1940s. SAAB stands for Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolaget, or Swedish Aircraft Co. Having no experience designing cars, these aeronautical engineers decided to build a car their way: lightweight, rigid, aerodynamic and ergonomic. Being Swedish, they were very practical types, and it shows in their cars.

"Form follows function" has long been the mantra at Saab, along with safety and intelligent design. Saab's early cars had lightweight, high-revving two-stroke engines in a strong, neutral chassis that allowed the cars to be flung around the rally circuits of Europe with great success.

Being front-wheel-drive, a rarity in those early days, they were perfectly suited to winter driving conditions and won themselves a cult following in the Northeastern U.S. They looked just a little strange compared with your average car, and they were certainly configured differently, but it was these differences that made people appreciate them.

In the 1970s, Saab unveiled their Combi-Coupe body design, which has become the single most identifiable Saab shape. This versatile hatchback gave Saabs a sleek, sporting profile, and the folding rear seats opened up a cavernous luggage area. Many past Saab owners will have stories about the large items they've carried in their cars -- sofas, motorbikes, ride-on lawn mowers, 47 pumpkins. I've got photos of them all.

Later that same decade, Saab pioneered turbocharging for the everyday car. Whilst a few manufacturers had experimented with turbos before this, Saab was one of the first to get the formula right and make it available in what was essentially a Swedish family car -- the Saab 99 Turbo.

Turbocharged engines became a common feature of the Saab lineup and remain so today. The Saab 900 Turbo was sold from 1979 to 1993 and is still considered by enthusiasts to be the Saabiest Saab ever made. It combined a luxurious, well-appointed interior with cutting-edge turbo technology and the Combi Coupe's trademark load capacity. It really was a car that you could take to Home Depot in the morning -- without a trailer -- and then give a good thrashing to on the racetrack in the afternoon.

The 1980s also saw the birth of the Saab Convertible, an icon conceived when Saab USA's legendary chief, the late Robert J Sinclair, was forced by his bosses in Sweden to take a quantity of unpopular two-door Saab 900s to sell in the U.S. Bob agreed to take the vehicles so long as he could name his desired specification, which included power windows and other modern amenities of the time, and no roof!

Bob commissioned a prototype from the American Sunroof Co. (for a mere $30,000), and this vehicle was an immediate showstopper. When the vehicle was finally released for sale in 1986, dealers didn't have books big enough to contain the orders they received.

Such stories are common in history books about Saab. The little company that could. Saab enthusiasts refer to this as the Spirit of Saab.

The 1990s saw the beginning of the GM era for Saab. General Motors owned a 50 percent share of Saab through this decade, buying the remaining 50 percent share in 2000. With 20/20 hindsight, it's easy to see that a volume manufacturer called General Motors was always going to struggle with a low-volume, niche brand from Sweden. And so it came to be.
Saab had some fantastic vehicles in this period, but GM never saw the value of what they had in Saab. They never really invested in the company to build on what was a cult following with enormous goodwill.

When GM announced in early 2009 that it planned to sell Saab, the enthusiast community was abuzz. Finally, it seemed Saab might get a chance to spread its wings once again.

GM was reported to have 27 interested buyers for the company early in the year and despite detailed negotiations with several of them, the right deal has failed to materialize.

If there is no last-minute miracle in the next few days, Sweden will lose a large portion of its industrial base, many enthusiasts around the world will lose their favorite marque and the generic car company overlords with their everyday transportation appliances will have won another battle in the war of automotive mediocrity.

New deals for Saab now sit on GM's table and as you read this, the time for their acceptance or denial is nigh. This particular Saaboholic holds on to some hope that GM might extend a lifeline to Saab and place the company in the care of another, just as a lifeline was extended to GM earlier this year.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Steven Wade.

2000s: Top Olympians


Men
1Michael Phelps
An easy choice for No. 1, the American swimmer debuted at the 2000 Sydney Games in the 200 fly as a 15-year-old, then amassed a record 14 gold medals over the next two Olympics, five more than anyone else in history. He won eight gold medals and set seven world records in Beijing in 2008.
2Usain Bolt
Granted, he competed only in the Beijing Games, but the records Bolt set in the 100 meters (9.69, showboating at the end) and 200 meters (19.30) redefined our impressions of speed and the boundaries of the modern sprinter. (He lowered both marks at the 2009 world championships.) Bolt also won a third gold in China, anchoring Jamaica's 4x100 relay team to a world-record 37.10 seconds.
3Kenenisa Bekele
Following in a tradition of great Ethiopian distance runners, Bekele won four Olympic medals during the decade, winning silver in the 5,000 and gold in the 10,000 in Athens and then sweeping both races in Beijing four years later. In 1985, his fiancée, Alem Techale, died of a heart attack while on a training run with him and Bekele dedicated the races in China to her.
4Andre Lange
Lange drove three German bobsleds to gold medals during the decade: the two-man sled in 2006 and the four-man sled in both Salt Lake and Turin. At the Olympics and world championships, Lange has been on the podium at least once during all 10 years of the decade.
5Ole Einar Bjørndalen
The greatest biathlete in history won four gold medals in Salt Lake City, in sprint, pursuit, individual and relay events. The Norwegian won two silvers and a bronze in Turin, extending his career total to nine Olympic medals, with more to come in February in Vancouver, where he will be 36.
6Steven Lopez
After winning gold as a lightweight in taekwondo at the Sydney Games, Lopez returned to win gold and bronze at the next two Olympics as a welterweight. The American is the most decorated athlete in the history of the sport, having won gold medals in each odd-numbered year of the decade at the world championships, the only person to win five world taekwondo titles.
7Alexei Nemov
The Russian won six medals at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, including two golds, to duplicate his haul four years earlier in Atlanta. In Sydney, he captured the all-around crown, certifying him as the most accomplished gymnast of his generation. He was also known for the sportsmanship he showed after receiving a low score for a sensational high-bar routine at the 2004 Athens Games. That controversy -- and not the celebrated Paul Hamm controversy -- led to an overhaul of the scoring system.
8Armin Zöggeler
In his third and fourth Olympics, in Salt Lake City and Turin, the police officer/luger from Merano, Italy, won gold medals in men's singles to go with the bronze and silver he won in the 1990s. From 1994 through 2006, Zoggeler won a medal at the world championships or Olympics every year.
9Ian Thorpe
The Thorpedo was the swimming star of the Sydney Olympics, where he collected three gold medals and two silvers in front of a home crowd when he was only 17. Four years later he returned to win gold in the 200- and 400-meter freestyle events at the Athens Games, extending his medal total to nine, including five golds for the decade.
10Apolo Ohno
Ohno not only won five medals -- two golds, a silver and two bronzes -- at the last two Olympics, but he also popularized the sport of short-track speedskating. He skated with daring passes and sported a goatee that started a fashion craze among fans at short-track events.
Women
1Guo Jingjing
After winning silver medals in both individual and synchronized 3-meter events in Sydney as a teenager, China's Guo swept the remaining four gold medals in springboard events for the rest of the decade. The woman known as The Princess of Diving stands as the finest diver of her generation.
2Kerri Walsh/Misty May-Treanor
Perhaps the most dominant athletes in any sport over the decade, the American volleyball pair won gold medals in Athens and Beijing without losing a set. Their second Olympic triumph extended their unbeaten streak to 108 matches. (The streak, which spanned more than a year and included 19 titles, would end at 112.)
3Natalie Coughlin
After winning five swimming medals in Athens, Coughlin captured six in Beijing, making her the first U.S. woman to win six medals at a single Olympics in any sport. She has won three gold medals, including two in the 100-meter backstroke, four silvers and four bronzes.
4Janica Kostelic
The only woman to win world-cup races in all five alpine disciplines also became the most decorated female alpine skier in Olympic history, capturing a total of four gold medals and two silvers at the 2002 and 2006 Games. Kostelic won the combined at both Olympics and also took the slalom and giant slalom events in Salt Lake City and silver medals for the Super-G in both years.
5Georgeta Damian
Coming off a string of world rowing titles in the last three years of the 1990s, Damian won five Olympic gold medals and one bronze during this decade. The Romanian claimed the coxless pair at all three Olympics, teaming with Doina Ignat in Sydney and Viorica Susanu in Athens and Beijing. She won her other medals in the eights.
6Valentina Vezzali
The dynamic star of the piste captured gold medals for individual foil in Sydney, Athens and Beijing, becoming the first foilist and only female to win individual gold at three consecutive Olympics. She also captured a gold medal in the team event in 2000 and bronze in 2008. There was no team foil competition in Athens.
7Cindy Klassen
The long-track speedskater became the eighth winter Olympian to collect five medals at a single Olympics when she won one gold (1,500 meters), two silvers and two bronze medals in Turin. The performance made her the most decorated Canadian Olympian in history. She also won a bronze medal in the 3,000 in Salt Lake City. In between Games, she overcame a serious injury when another skater's blade sliced through her arm in training, cutting 12 of her tendons.
8Sylke Otto
The German luger won gold medals in singles in both Salt Lake City and Turin. She began competing the following season during her pregnancy but decided to retire after a bad crash. She was feted before her home crowd in a lengthy retirement ceremony at the 2008 World Championships in Oberhof, Germany.
9Hayley Wickenheiser
A mainstay on Canada's Olympic hockey juggernaut, Wickenheiser tallied 15 goals and nine assists in 10 games in Salt Lake and Turin, where her team won gold medals at both Games. Wickenheiser was also named to Canada's Olympic softball team at the 2000 Games in Sydney.
10Venus Williams
In Sydney, the older Williams sister won gold medals in both singles and doubles, the latter with her sister Serena. Venus returned with Serena to win the doubles event again at the Beijing Games in 2008. Both sisters have said they want to participate in the 2012 London Games.