Here we go -- Beta Breakers

Starting to think about starting my Beta Breakers portfolio for 2008 -- a few stocks that will perform well without excruciating ups and downs for the full portfolio that often tempt investors (including me) into buying and selling at the wrong times.
The main way to produce a less volatile portfolio is to buy stocks with low betas (correlations to the S&P 500) -- preferably a diverse portfolio that will do well under different economic conditions. For example, if we're going into a recession, a consumer staple company like P&G should be expected to perform well, but if the economy is accelerating, P&G would just sit there while a growth stock like Apple would probably outperform the indexes. So if you own both, you should do OK no matter what the economic conditions.
Right now, stocks I'm considering include a financial -- Bank of America perhaps, which has been beaten up but doesn't seem to have the mortgage meltdown risk of Washington Mutual. And its beta is only 0.4.
Oh yeah, for those of you not from the Bay Area, Bay to Breakers is a well-known footrace you can run in costume, or even naked. And if this portfolio doesn't work out, I'm going to feel the latter.