I agree that the child support/custody situation is inherently unfair. I say that as a divorced mom who received child support for my son. We had an "unconventional" divorce and agreement, so that the state child support agency had a note in their system that they wouldn't try to enforce (it was never necessary, a friend who worked for the agency told me because she thought it was funny). However, in many cases it is absolutely unfair to the man. The system of deciding that a certain percentage of income has to be spent on children, then dividing that up proportionally is crazy. The custodial parent has the luxury of deciding if that percentage will be spent, but the non-custodial parent does not.

Child support, for all children, should be set at what the state has decided to pay for the support of foster children. The state already knows or has determined the cost of raising a child when it determines this payment. That cost can be fairly apportioned between the mother and father. Additional spending on the child by either party is discretionary, just as it would be in an intact family. The parent can spend money on the child in accordance with his or her values, after the basic support is met.

This is basically what happened between my ex and myself. We had an explicit hard cap on child support in the order. It was much less than would have been ordered by the state's formula. However, it was enough to cover a fair share of our child's needs. The money he didn't send me, but kept, meant that our son's time with his father was enriched. He took trips to Europe, South America, all over the place. He should be able to keep the money in excess of what is needed for actual support, in order to be able to do these things, or not, as is his choice.

It is not fair that the father's income is so reduced by giving the custodial parent so much money that he can not spend any MORE money parenting his child in a mutually satisfactory way.

Now that our son is beyond child support age and is in college, we each (his father, my son, and me) each pay a third of the cost of his college. This collaborative relationship and willingness to continue contributing to his son's welfare might not have taken place if he had had to pay punitive child support payment (that really turn out to be ex-spouse support payments). One grown adult should not have to support another and pretending that it is "for the children" does not really disguise it. We women should say, I can support myself, I can contribute fairly to the support of my child, I can go on and make a life for myself, not dependent on someone else.

When I was five, I was attacked by a German Shepherd. I was skipping home from kindergarten with my papers with smiley faces in my hand. The dog ran from its yard across the street to bite.

At the time I was terrified, screaming, and my mother so angry! (this was about a block from home) I weighed about 40 pounds at the time.

However-however. The dog probably weighed close to 90 lbs. If it had decided to kill me, I would have been dead before anyone could have done anything. What it did was bite me on the butt, tearing my dress and bruising me (but not breaking the skin).

The dog was usually kept in the back yard and neighborhood kids (not me or my siblings, my mom was scared of dogs and we couldn't go over there) would tease it, waving papers and things into the yard, then jumping back screaming. I think, now that I am an adult and have had dogs, that that dog came over to nip the "puppy" and teach it not to do that. But I think they put it to sleep over the incident.

That, I think, is the difference between a German Shepherd and a pit bull. The shepherd wanted to teach, and in truth was quite protective of children. If the dog had been a pit bull, I would have been dead.

Don't people put on a jacket and/or tie when a restaurant requires it? Geez. He can put on a cap for an hour. If it doesn't mean anything to him, great. He can follow social rules and not pee on the street, he can wear a cap where it's required.

What a stupid "principle" (if there is one) to stand on.

Your points about median vs. average as measures of central tendency are correct, at least when you have relatively few data points. However, when you have many data points (like 88 million) it is much harder for the outliers to pull up the average, and I'll bet the median and the mean are very close.

I did recently see a report, though, that women's desks have far more bacteria than men's, including possibly dangerous bacteria. There was no reason given why this would be so, but I think it's because we take our purses into the bathroom with us (and necessarily touch more than ourselves).

Mama always said, stupid is as stupid does. 'nuff said.

I don't really understand why you are so angry. He has had two wives. The first one, who is dead is his first wife. The second one, alive, is his second wife. I didn't read it as a slur. People sometimes have serial mates, for various reasons. Should it have read, his first wife, and after she died, his second wife? What difference would that have made?

And calling his first and second wives, his first and second wives, keeps someone from being a serious journalist?

Some people care about strange stuff, and rather vehemently, at that.