$168M And She Didn't Hit One Jump Shot. What's The Rationale For Multi-Million Dollar Divorce Settlements?

When Michael Jordan finally split from wife Juanita Vanoy in 2006 -- the couple had filed for divorce once before in 2002 but reconciled soon after -- it cost him $168 million,

the largest celebrity divorce settlement in history, according to Forbes.

Casper said...
Clarification.... It's the system that enables a scorned woman the opportunity to dig deep into the breadwinner's pockets. The system doesn't promote marriage with such laws. Secondly, I wonder what the law is when a couple is 10million in debt and getting a divorce. Does the woman have to contribute half to pay the creditors? by court order that is? When children are involved then trust should be setup for them as I have seen many ex wives pushing 6 figure whips and Gucci bags off the monthly payments intended for the kids.

Hawa said...
Here's how I see it:

I believe the original intent of divorce settlements focused on protecting women financially. Long ago, a woman could (and often did) put her blood and sweat into a home but could be destitute if the man (provider) left..

And in general, I see that as a way to assign monetary value to "sweat equity" and intrinsic value. Face it. If a woman gives up her career to raise the family, tend to the home, or to help her husband build a business/brand, compensation is in order.

But women now have excellent opportunities to build successful careers. And divorce proceedings seem to underplay the woman's earning potential and overplay the monetary value of revenge.

Instead of divorce settlements that ensure a woman can start over after receiving fair value for her part in the marriage (e.g. building a business, etc), it seems the final price tag is meant to relay, "You don't know who you're messing with, honey."

"Regulate Me"

RJEsq said...
My point is this, and its real basic, so no need for any dissertation on the Federal Reserve this afternoon....There is (obviously) no regulation, quota or tax break in place that has the net effect of me paying less $100 to fill up my damn gas tank.

All information suggests that there is no diminished supply and that demand is unchanged (although all-too-high). Based thereon, than I'm prepared to lay the blame at the feet of corporate participants who have consistently earned three and four hundred percent in profits annually at the expense of the consumer. I'm also prepared to point fingers at speculators and oil futures traders who also apparently have in hand in this bull crap.

Tell you what, let's table my advanced oil industry primer until sometime next month. In the meantime, I propose, that OPEC, Bush, Obama, you, your mechanic, your cleaning lady, and all the rest of the world's geniuses, get together and come up with some restriction or regulation that gets prices down.

Call it a friendship pact if you are unnerved by the word regulation, just get back to me and the other billion people in this country who get pissed off every time we go get gas.

Not I may be taking a few liberties, but I probably speak for a good half billion of the lot when I say, I really dont want to debate how you do it, just get it done. Call us when gas returns to a reasonable price per barrel.

Intellectual Insurgent said...

This has everything to do with the Fed. How can we expect prices to remain the same or get lower when the value of our money continues to decrease?

Is oil really going up or is the dollar, which is entirely oil-backed, going down?

In any event, I suppose the answer doesn't matter because there is no reason to lower prices.

I think it's wonderful that prices are going up. Spoiled, arrogant, wasteful Americans are getting a good lesson out of this.

Public transport is becoming more popular.

Living 10,000 miles from work will no longer be an option.

Hummers are already on the endangered species list.

And we'll probably never see the fine art of "cruising", that was so popular back in the day.

Less likely to throw away food when it costs so much.

A reduction in the use of plastic (which is petroleum-based), which is the scourge of the earth anyways, will be next, spearheaded by grocery stores who buy mountains of plastic bags that end up littering the planet.

Let the cost of gas go to $10 per gallon and maybe all the fatties of America will start riding their bikes and rollerblading to work.

Speculators, Not OPEC, 'Causing Oil Price Spike'

Speculation-fuelled: Rising oil prices have the world economy in turmoil.

A former Iraqi oil minister says record high oil prices are more to do with speculators, including central banks, than supply and demand.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is pressuring G8 leaders to push for OPEC to increase oil supply.

Isam Chalabi was Iraq's oil minister before the first Gulf War and has more than 40 years experience in the industry.

He says Mr Rudd's strategy will not work.

"The question of prices today is not related to supply and demand fundamentals - everybody knows that," he told AM.

"Everybody has said so and hence it is not a matter of increasing supplies because whoever is in need of oil has been able to get it, so there is no need of problem of getting the oil."

Brian Wilson, former British energy minister under Tony Blair, agrees.

"What takes it from $US100 to $US130 is that there is a huge speculative element and the actual connection between the paper trading price of oil and anything that is happening in the physical world is now extremely remote," he told the BBC.

Mr Chalabi says only regulation of oil trading will stop the price spike.

"The world consumes 85 million barrels a day, you have trading going on over a billion - some people estimate up to two billion - barrels a day, so if something really happens to put a hold on that, I believe that the price spike will not continue and maybe it will start to decrease," he said.

Raphael Nadal - The Denmark Vesey "My Favorite White Boy Award"

" This is the greatest
match I've ever seen."

JOHN McENROE,
three-time Wimbledon champion, on what was also the longest men's singles final ever, at 4 hr. 48 min., between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer

Is It Me? Or Is Madonna Even Starting To Look Like A Witch?

Madonna's private kabbalah guru and the man who has been trying to save her marriage is also Alex Rodriguez's tutor in the mystical Jewish teachings, sources revealed.

Eitan Yardeni, 44, is a leading figure at the Kabbalah Centre - the controversial outfit that counts Madge as its most prominent member and A-Rod as its newest disciple.

"When Madonna has an emotional meltdown on her tour, he's on the next plane," a Kabbalah Centre insider told the Daily News. "He's been trying to keep Madonna and Guy [Ritchie] together, going back and forth between them."

At the same time, Yardeni is training the Yankee slugger in the particulars of kabbalah.

Madonna became an avowed member and ambassador after stumbling upon a course by Yardeni in 1996. Ritchie joined the spiritual tent when he married her in 2000.

"The trouble is, Guy has been backing away from kabbalah," the insider said. "You used to see him at the service every Friday, at the main table ... but not so much lately."

Rick Ross, a cult expert and critic of kabbalah, said the term "soul mate" - which the Daily News reported A-Rod used to describe Madonna - is central to the faith.

Finding one is promised to new members, but the concept is also used in breaking up unwanted relationships.

"If Guy Ritchie was expressing doubts about the Kabbalah Centre or even indicating he doesn't want to come - thatwould be the basis of seeing him as not in the light, not the right soul mate for Madonna," Ross said.

He compared Madge's status in kabbalah with that of Tom Cruise in Scientology and likened getting Rodriguez onboard to recruiting soccer star David Beckham to Scientology, which Cruise reportedly tried to do last year.

"HELLBOY" - When Hollywood Makes The Devil The Hero

Henry said ...
Since the so-called "Enlightenment" in the 1700's, Western culture has been based on a Lucifer-like rejection of God.

The Enlightenment actually refers to Lucifer, the "light giver." Lucifer symbolizes the light of the human intellect, the defiant assertion that man can go it alone.

Luciferians have an uncanny knack for making evil appear good, and good appear evil. For them, Lucifer represents the principle of good. He is the equal of the Christian God whom they describe as evil. The two exist together like light and darkness.

Christianity holds that man's salvation lies in doing God's will, not his own. For Christians, Lucifer represents man's rejection of God's Plan with predictably tragic results. Despite the lip service we still pay to God, modern western culture is fundamentally anti-Christian. It is Luciferian.

Our culture is premised on a tragic metaphysical revolt and a futile attempt to substitute sensual and material for spiritual fulfillment.

We cannot feel good without being good but Luciferians have deceived us into thinking we can. They have us implicated in our own demise.

Global War Against Terror? Or Secular Atheist War Against Islam?

In a recent essay, philosophy professor Joseph Lawrence observed that in Iraq,

"America is at war not with international terrorism, not with Iraqi insurgents, not with Islamic fundamentalism - but with Islam itself, a world religion rendered problematic by its failure to honor the distinction between church and state, a failure that makes reconciliation with the secular order of modernity impossible...

Where Else On The Internet Do Brothers Get Down Like This?

Lil Wayne Is The Best Poet Alive - Shoot Me Down Remix - Ft. Barack Obama

A DV Joint

It's official. The torch has been passed. It's a dangerous meme yet to receive mainstream sanction, never-the-less it is the observable truth. A little black drug dealer from the ghettos of New Orleans is the world's greatest poet.

Not Keats. Not Shakespeare. Not TS Elliot. Not James Joyce. Not James Baldwin. Not Mayou Angelou. Weezy F. Baby is not only the world's greatest rapper, but the world's greatest poet.

The Doc said...
Wow, THAT is hot. I'm really loving this slow evolution Wayne is making from snot-nosed kid turned d-boy teen turned adult rap star turned John Lennon (almost) channeling rap impresario. Lol One of my friends at work said he didn't like Wayne anymore because he be quote "rappin' about dat crazy shit", and that he wouldn't be a match for T.I. because he raps about that quote "gangsta ish".

Heh... But seriously, this is some delectably spacey trip hop, with lyrics that cut like blades.

For Sale. Around The Corner From The Crib

$2.2 M

Beach


Could you do that modern thing?






RoyalLD said...
For that kind of paper I prefer a crib with a dock out back. I like to have a way to move-on after the pipes on land run dry.

"Global System of White Supremacy"?

God Don't Make No Mistakes

Wow. Number 1 Video In The World. 14 Million Viewers. Why?

The quick story: In 2003 Harding quit his job and and wandered around Asia. During this trip, a travel buddy suggested Matt do his signature bad dance. This video made its way onto the Internet, where many people watched it.

In fact, so many people watched it that Stride gum offered to send him on another trip around the world to do his jig. So in 2006 Harding took his moves to 39 different countries on seven continents.

Not satisfied with getting Stride to pay for one trip around the globe, Harding went back to the gum company to ask them to fund another trip, and this time, he invited people at the places he visits to dance on camera with him.

The Doc said...
Ok, DV, I am officially obsessed with this damn thing now. I HOPE you're happy. >:^P.

Here's the lyrics that poem, "Stream of Life" from the credits, that the song is from. (Oddly appropriate lyrics, too.)

Stream of Life, from the Gitanjali. (Wikipedia it.)

The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day

runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.

It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth

in numberless blades of grass

and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.

It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth

and of death, in ebb and in flow.

I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life.

And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.

.

Little Fat Punk Ass K-Gamer

Jesse Helms - Race & Group Identity Politics

Why Not? PC Mind Control

Soteria said...
CLASSIC!

I would LOVE to see that on a billboard...especially given that I am here in Atlanta...

Denmark Vesey - Man Of The Year Award - Robert Mugabe

Before Mugabe 4,000 white farmers owned 26 million acres of land -- one-third of the nation -- while 8,000,000 African peasants held another third.

"I really thought we were all dead," said Ben Freeth, one of a group of white farmers severely beaten in a rural area southwest of Harare. Freeth, a British national, and his family were the owners of a 3,000 acre farm on some of the richest most fertile land in all of Africa.

What Corporate Media doesn't want you to know about Mugabe:
"Countries such as the U.S. and Britain have taken it upon themselves to decide for us in the developing world, even to interfere in our domestic affairs and to bring about what they call regime change. "

Robert Mugabe

The white man is not indigenous to Africa. Africa is for Africans. Zimbabwe is for Zimbabweans.

Robert Mugabe

"In most recent times, as the West started being hostile to us, we deliberately declared a Look East policy. "

Robert Mugabe

"Our party must continue to strike fear in the heart of the white man, our real enemy! It may be necessary to use methods other than constitutional ones. So, Blair keep your England, and let me keep my Zimbabwe. "

Robert Mugabe

"Some people are contriving ways and means of making us collapse."

Robert Mugabe

Was it not enough punishment and suffering in history that we were uprooted and made helpless slaves not only in new colonial outposts but also domestically. Robert Mugabe

We have said we will never collapse, never ever. We may have our droughts, our poverty, but as a people we shall never collapse, never ever.

Robert Mugabe