WSJ: NSA Computer Upgrade

[Ray Dillinger]

On Thu, 15 Mar 2001, David Honig wrote:

>The motivation for this is that the legals have decided
>that supporting the children is more important than
>fairness.  Its that simple; some legals will even admit it.

"Fairness" is such a slippery word.  Is it fair for a child 
to have no support available?  Remember, it's not because of 
anything the child did. 

I think the criterion here is that the adult is more capable 
of coping with the unfairness than the child, hence in a 
situation where you have to be unfair to one or the other, 
you favor the child's interests over the adult's.

>There are similarly motivated restrictions on how much you can deny your
>spouse when you die.

This one I don't hang with.  Your spouse is presumably an adult, 
and ought to be able to cope with not getting the estate.  

But that certainly doesn't stop it from being a serious shitheel 
type maneuver to leave your spouse in the lurch when you go, and 
since you're dead at that point you don't really have that much 
of a compelling interest in the estate any more...  

But anyway, this has little to do with crypto...

				Bear