I know this would be incredibly difficult to administer, but I think the fairest way to determine alimony would be payment based on where the lower-earning spouse would be earning had he or she not been married to the higher-earning spouse.

Say Joe and Jane get married when they are both 25. Joe is a hard-working, well-educated guy. Jane is a bit of a dingbat who has never held down a steady job. They are married for ten years and then divorce. In the meantime, Joe has earned a professional degree and now makes a lot of money, Jane has had two children and stayed home to raise them. After the divorce, Jane should not receive payments that would keep her "in the manner to which she is accustomed" - that would be quite a lot of money, and she didn't do anything to "earn" that money, other than marry the right guy - what if she had married a guy who worked a minimum wage job? Yes, she did care for his children, but they are also HER children, and in the meantime she was living a very nice lifestyle. I think the payment she should receive from Joe is an amount equal to the shortfall between what a woman of her similar level of intelligence, drive and educational acheivement would have acheived had she not gotten married. So, if she would have been making $40,000 per year, but now, because she is older, and lacks training, and has childcare obligations, she only makes $25,000 per year, Joe should make up that $15,000 shortfall (to the extent such payment does not bring his income below hers). This puts her where she should have been, minus her involvement with Joe.

Obviously, the calculation would work even if the genders were reversed. Kryptogal's husband of three years, who wasn't doing much before they married and didn't lose anything because of the marriage, would get no payments. A man who had had a successful career in finance before he left it to follow his diplomat wife around the globe would get quite a bit.

I feel this doesn't unjustly enrich either the richer spouse or the poorer spouse, but does compensate the poorer spouse for sacrifices made to the marriage. And, of course, it would be nearly impossible to administer, particularly for people who marry at a young age, because how can you say what someone would have been making? Perhaps the courts could use the tables used to calculate likely lifetime earnings in wrongful death suits (and I'm sure there's a good marriage=death joke to be made there).

If women are doing something fun and healthy purely for their own benefit (i.e. it's fun and promotes good health), and some guys find it sexy - I think that's awesome. It's much better than women convincing themselves that they're having fun doing something uncomfortable (like a pole dance in five inch heels) purely for the sexual gratification of men.

Philadelphia Steve, that's actually a good point. Why DON'T women's bras have hard cups (or semi-hard cups)?

I just spent I don't know how much ordering every single bra meant for larger-breasted women on the Title 9 website (which has a reputation as one of the best places to find women's sports bras), and I was seriously disappointed to find that not one of them was sufficiently bounce-reducing. I ended up returning all but one (which was not for exercise, but for everyday wear).

What I've found works is to wear a victoria's secret full coverage soft-cup bra (i.e., a bra with a non-stretchy moulded cup that covers each breast completely) AND your standard spandex/cotton sports bra. It works perfectly, because the soft-cup bra contains the jiggle, and the sports bra contains the pendulum swing. And, because it's not two sports bras, it's not too constricting. I have absolutely no idea why every single one of the fancy sports bras I've ever seen is either entirely made of stretchy fabric (lots of jiggle, and often too constricting) or entirely of non-stretchy fabric (incredibly uncomfortable, but still manages to have jiggle). I would like to not have to wear two bras, but it seems I don't have a choice.

As a legal matter, the cost of the kit may need to be billed to the victim in order for it to be a part of a restitution award. There would probably be no intention whatsoever on the part of the police to collect from the victim, and they'd inform the victim of that fact. But, just as with things like the victim's lost wages and medical costs, it could then be added to the list of costs which would be part of the restitution award (which the rapist pays to the victim).

I think Sarah Palin is despicable, and there are certainly MANY topics on which she can be called to task. This just might not be one of them.

with the other commenters. I read the article, and I think Nemko is offering some excellent advice. Also, he didn't say that a kid in the bottom half definitely shouldn't go to college, he said "let the buyer beware", and that parents should "consider" associate degree programs or other career-oriented options. A two year community college degree is an excellent way for a kid who didn't have his or her act together in high school to figure out what he or she wants to do - if, in the end, that kid turns out to not be college material, they haven't wasted nearly as much money (the flip side being that if the kid IS college material, excellent grades from a two-year college will put them into a better four-year university than their crappy high school grades).

We've come up with this idea that the thing that makes people successful is the degree - and that's just not true.