There are two particular areas that come to mind wherein we take our usual Constitutional safeguards and put them on the hold for the sake of judicial expediency: rape and drunk driving.

I’m going to sidestep the whole rape issue for the moment because it’s such a contentious debate that it will sidetrack the main topic for discussion here. I’ll just say that I don’t bring it up because I am outraged. It’s a sticky subject and I think I fall more on the expediency side of the debate than the other.

Drunk driving is a bit more topical as we approach the New Year, so I want to address that one.

Normally, the accused has the right to refuse to self-incriminate, but in some (many? most? all?) if you refuse to take a drug test, the cop can (on the spot) arrange the holy fires of hell to rain down upon you. In Delosa they can take your drivers license and impound your car for 30 days or until trial on the spot. Even if you are exonerated, you still have to pay the impound fees. In some jurisdictions from what I understand they can technically sell your car before you’re convicted or exonerated, though I’ve never heard of this actually happening (I have heard of it happening in drug cases, though). Also, the fact that you refused to submit to a breathalizer test can be used in court, when no other case of refusing to self-incriminate is that the case (that I’m aware of).

As with rape, this is a response to a very real problem and it would be much more difficult to prove drunk driving cases without it. Drunk driving kills countless people every year and we depend on the breathalizer test to sort it all out.

What’s interesting about this, though, is that in many jurisdictions, including Delosa, you can be convicted even if you pass a breathalizer test. They hammer this point home when you take defensive driving. Passing the breathalizer test is not a fireproof defense against drunk driving. The ostensible reason for this is that if someone takes medication that makes the effects of alcohol more potent, someone with a .04 Blood Alcohol Content (BCA) is more drunk than the average driver at .08. There is also the more inconvenient rationale that some people really are incapacitated at .06 and need to be taken off the road.

Why do I refer to that as “inconvenient”? Because if some people are more affected at .06 than others at .08, then we have to admit that other people are not as impaired at .11 as the average person is at .08. If we’re judging the drunkenness based on impairment, then some .11 should theoretically not be convicted. The ability to effectively drive drunk should be a defense. If we’re judging it based purely on BAC levels, then nobody at .06 should be. Maybe the latter should be convicted of driving recklessly or something like that, but not of the same crime that is usually based on the BAC number.

I have the same discomfort with this that I do with paternity tests… an affirmative result is enough to get you, but a negative result is not necessarily enough to set you free. Paternity tests only involve money, though. Drunk driving tests can involve a lot more.

For the most part, though, drunk driving convictions when someone passes the breathalizer are very difficult to get and are rarely pursued. Juries have the BAC threshold ingrained into them and they will trust a breathalizer over a cop’s word about what constitutes drunken behavior. Even so, the time and money that goes into defending oneself is problematic. And unlike with traffic tickets, you’re going to go through every effort you can to defend yourself because you can’t make it go away with a $100 fine.

Of course, you can’t make it go with a $100 because the stakes are not only higher for the accused, they’re higher for society as a whole. Drunk driving has killed thousands upon thousands and arguably the authorities need every tool they can get in order to fight it. Despite having these tools, any 2am drive on a public street near a bar will indicate that they are failing miserably. Despite all of the threats that they can levy, people do it anyway.

In Santomas, Estacado, where I currently live, the SPD is having every officer from the Cheif of Police on down manning a car on New Years Eve to track down drunk drivers. I’m sure they’ll catch many, but for every one that they catch, dozens will go uncatched. The Santomas Taxi Association will also be offering free rides home to those that can’t afford it, but for every one of them they get, dozens more will drive themselves so that they don’t have to leave their car in the parking lot or will believe themselves not to be incapacitated. Tow companies will offer free tows, but there aren’t enough tow trucks.

No matter how you look at it, there are going to be a lot of people that are going to need to get home somehow. Some won’t be able to afford going home in any way except their car (even a free taxi ride will require an unfree one back to the bar to pick the car up). Without a solid public transportation infrastructure, the most efficient way for them to do it is to play roulette with their lives and the lives of other drivers. Most are willing to gamble that they can get home safely and without incident. The overwhelming majority are right.

All of the tools in the world that we give police can’t refute that logic, so I guess all we can hope is to scare the bejeezus out of enough people that as many lifes as possible are saved.

grow up to be nerds

SFG wrote this in the comment section at Half Sigma. I thought it hilarious and worthy of being shared:

Mama, don’t let your babies grow up to be geeks or nerds,
Don’t let ’em pick software and build their own OS
Make ’em be jockies and preppies, oh yes…
Mama, don’t let your babies grow up to be geeks or nerds,
They’ll never leave home and they’re always alone,
And never find someone to love…

I hope y’all had the merriest of Christmases or the happiest of whatever holiday it is that you celebrate. I almost put “if any”, but if you don’t have a holiday to celebrate, you need to find one. Just do the Winter Solstace if you’re the unreligious sort.

My folks got back from a cruise the day that we arrived in Delosa, so it was a less festive Christmas than we usually celebrate: no tree, no stockings, no decorations of any sort. That’s in Colosse, anyway. Right now I’m in Bavariana, the eastern part of the state, with Clancy’s family. Clancy, unfortunately, leaves tomorrow for a job interview in Cascadia. Unfortunate that she has an interview now, of course, as we’re happy she has the interview.

My big gift to Clancy this Christmas was a CD/MP3 player for her car. More on that tomorrow. The additional gifts were mostly books. I impressed everyone when it came out that I’d gotten the books several months ago. The fools think that I planned ahead, but in fact I’d bought them to justify free shipping on Amazon.com. That secret will last only until Clancy reads this.

I also got her a booklight. She’s been using a headband flashlight in bed, which is good for both reading and exploring caves, but is a little too light. It wasn’t quite as selfish as a Homer Bowling Ball, but is close enough. Unfortunately, my folks also got her a booklight. Oops.

Where I really went bust with my gift-giving was with Dad. I got him a book compilation of his favorite comic strip, but it was Publish-On-Demand, so it won’t arrive until sometime next week. A before-Christmas rush would have cost an extra $100 on a $10 gift, which we all agreed was a no-go. I also got him a Southern Tech Wolf Pack Riddell mini football helmet to match the University of Delosa one he got a couple years back, but that also didn’t arrive on time. Dad being Dad, he didn’t seem to mind a great deal.

The best gift that we got was the transfer of a bunch of old 8mm folks of me as a baby and a tot to DVD. Clancy adores childhood pictures of me. Aa couple years back she got a photobook, which was a home run. This was closer to a grand slam. Dad’s gotten really good at the gifts since he retired.

No drunkards at the Christmas Eve service this year and again the pews were half-full. After over two decades of church attendance, I discovered that the service goes by a lot faster if you sing the hymnals, read along with the readings, and participate in the prayers. It feels sort of like it did when I discovered in my last year as an altar boy that being an altar boy is actually kind of cool because it makes the service go by quicker.

Christmas lunch and dinner has given me acid reflux like you wouldn’t believe. I know I’m still young in the greater scheme of things, but I miss my young digestive system. Christmas Eve chili was as good as it ever was. We actually discussed the Christmas Turkey vs. Christmas Ham battle and wondered why we’ve never eaten goose before. After Christmas lunch at my folks place we darted across the state to have Christmas dinner at the Himmelreich house with Clancy’s family.. a move that my stomach still regrets because of (rather than despite of) the good food.

Perhaps the greatest Christmas gift I personally got this year was one that I gave myself: Last week I finished my 2006 NaNoWriMo project. By “finished” I don’t mean that no work is left to be done on it, which is what the word actually means, but that it’s at least presentable so I can show it to people. Clancy will actually get to see what I’ve been working on and I won’t have this big cloud hanging over my head, allowing me to enjoy my free time without knowing that there is something else that I ought to be doing.

One of the unofficial rules of football (and maybe other sports as well) is that it is classless to run up the score. Once you’re winning to the point that it’s all but impossible to lose, you are supposed to take a step back and start running out the clock. You keep the ball on the ground (which makes the clock run faster because it’s not stopping as frequently), start substituting players (to keep them healthy), and if all else fails start kneeling down.

My alma mater’s football team, the Southern Tech Wolf Pack, has a reputation of “classlessness” because of our historic tendency not to stay aggressive right down to the wire. Back in the team’s heyday, they would rack up upwards of 80+ points a game sometimes. Some members of the conference still have a chip on their shoulder about that and when the team starts falling behind these days, not a single one of them calls off the dogs under any circumstances.

I can’t say that I blame them.

To be honest, though, I don’t think that running up the score should have the stigma that it does. There are some aspects of it that make sense from a tactical standpoint. You keep the ball on the ground to run out the clock faster. The put in your reserves to keep your starters healthy and give the future starters (at the college level) some playing time. When it gets to the point that you’re taking a knee or intentionally running out of bounds at the one yard-line, that’s actually more disrespectful than continuing to score.

I get annoyed when the teams go to their backup quarterback and then use him only to kneel the ball or keep running up the center just to punt. These are guys that don’t often get to play and it bugs me that the one chance they get out on the field, they aren’t given the opportunity to actually do anything.

I think that the best way to handle a blow-out is to take out your starters to give the other kids a chance to play, but then play as aggressively as you always do. There’s really nothing more boring than a game where only one team is playing, regardless of the score.

Huckabee is running an add wherein some people say that there is a floating cross behind him.

Even before I heard Huckabee’s official explanation, it looked pretty plainly like a shelf of some sort to me. I will say this about Huckabee: it the bookshelf were intentionally placed behind him and lit to subliminally reinforce his religiosity, he is a much more shrewd and creative man than I’d given him credit for being*. Given that when it comes to the role his religious convictions play in his politics he is about as subtle as a sledgehammer**, I find that very unlikely.

It reminds me a little bit of a movie that Clancy and I saw in Deseret called Latter Days, wherein a closeted Mormon missionary falls in love with a West Hollywood gay highlifer. Mormons don’t do crosses, so I was surprised to see subtle, Huckabee-bookshelf-like crosses sprinkled throughout the film. I thought to myself that the movie must have been placed in the hands of someone that was fairly ignorant of Mormon ways. In the commentary I find out that no, the writer/director, Jay Cox, was in fact raised Mormon. He actually comments on the Huckabee crosses as completely unintended. He’d in fact gone to the trouble of having actual crosses removed from the church scenes that the set manager had mistakenly put there.

The cross is such a basic design, I guess, that it’s hard to entirely remove. Nonetheless, Cox said he’d gotten many compliments by non-Mormons on the subtle inclusion of crosses throughout the film as a testament to his directing skill.

* – I suppose it could have been done by one of his handlers, but as near as I can tell up until the last few days it’s been a more self-directed campaign.

** – Not to knock on the guy too hard. I don’t have any particular disdain for the man. He’s a mix of good and bad, just like the rest of’em.

Between Megan, Bob, Spungen, and myself, I’m the only one that really appreciates this little Craigslist write-up. Peter seems to like it as well. I find it to be friggin’ hilarious.

Whether or not the author is being self-depricating I do not know. If he honestly doesn’t recognize the pattern, that actually makes it funnier to me because there are two objects of humor. First there is the girl for being what she is (more on that in a bit) and then there’s the slapstick humor of a guy that keeps getting smacked by the handle-pole stepping on the same rake.

Megan has two complaints:

1. This does not describe every girl. It describes an archetype. The dude is dating the wrong chicks.
2. The dude is smug about his apparently (undescribed) superiority over her.

Both of these criticisms are quite valid. I’m a bit thin-skinned about jokes about “every guy” (or even “every guy” of a particular subtype such as nerds) and I can understand her consternation. He should have said “every girl you’ve ever dated”. That might detract of the humor if there is supposed to be a self-depricating aspect of it, but it would probably compensate that by increasing the audience. It needlessly puts women on the defensive because they’re not sure whether that’s part of the joke or not. I’m not sure either, as mentioned, but it’s easier to be thick-skinned when you’re not getting cut.

Spungen joins Megan in asking what basis the guy feels superior. That’s a fair question. Maybe the guy isn’t superior at all. He may well be part of a loathesome or irritating archetype himself. The thing about archetypes, though, is that all of them believe that their type is superior. It’s like religion, if you don’t believe yours is best, why follow it at all?

So why do I think it’s so funny? In part because it’s a variation on something very familiar to me. I’ve never dated or been in the apartment of a girl that the author seems to be inundated with. That type really has no use for a guy like me and that’s pretty reciprocal (depending on what she looks like and how long I’ve been single). He’s talking about the archetypal Post-Sorority Quirk Chick (PSQC). These girls may or may not have been a part of a formal sorority, but they’ve at least bought into aspects of the lifestyle and, in the absense of having any notably attractive features, have attempted to sprinkle in some quirky aspects. If you can’t be better, be different.

But while I’m not familiar with that particular archetype, what I am familiar with and have commented on repeatedly is a different archetype with the same motivations: the Goth-Bisexual-Pagan Threefer. The bane of my dating existence were those tried to be “different” by being alternative in what became to me an utterly predictable way.

What these two types have in common is a cookie-cutter approach to identity. The inane trying to be interesting. I think that’s where the superiority comes from. It’s not so much the lack of a dungeon motif as the lack of anything original or unique around her. It’s indicative of her cookie-cutter life. On the surface there is nothing original or special about her, but she is fascinated with herself because she has followed the blueprint for how to be unique and special.

The candles, the quirkily-named cat, the decorative birdcage, and the furniture with no discernable purpose. These are all desperate attempts of the PSQC to be novel and interesting… but she got it all at that ground zero of mass-produced, yuppie stuff, Ikea.

As a brief aside, the funniest thing at Walmart is the “alternative” clothing they have their. I once saw a hoodie with little plastic studs, a chevron on the shoulder, and an imprint on front of a screaming guy with a mohawk. There are also t-shirts of worn-looking old-style logos of Pepsi, Sunkist, and the type of of authentic thing that you might have gotten at a vintage shop… except of course that it’s brand new. Nothing “alternative” can really ever be bought at Walmart. It’s self-contradicting. It’s impossible. But people keep buying it apparently cause Walmart keeps stocking it. What an exasperating culture we’re a part of.

Back to PSQC. Her drive to be special and unique and interesting is further indicated by her rambling on despite his apparent lack of interest. It’s so interesting that she can’t seem to fathom that he’s not interesting. She’s like the girl that keeps telling you about some inane and non-sensical dream asking every couple minutes “Isn’t that totally weird?!” Anyone with any social sense at all knows that there is nothing, nothing, nothing interesting about non-sensical dreams.

Now let’s move on to my arch-enemy, the Goth-Bisexual-Pagan Threefer (GBPT). She likely either didn’t have enough friends or have the demeanor to be a PSQC, so she chose a different blueprint. Goth’s are totally deep. Bisexuals are sexxy. Pagans are totally on a higher spiritual plane than those know-nothings that tormented her in junior high or whenever. They all have in common that they are persecuted and misunderstood. Don’t you understand how persecuted and misunderstood she is?! SHE HAS SUFFERED FOR HER PAIN!!!! And she’s stronger for it. And more interesting.

There is an outstanding song by Bare Naked Ladies called “Aluminum” that absolutely nails this sort of person. It’s more geared towards the GBPT than the PSQC, but there is an element of truth to underlying problem with them both. If I could introduce you all to the song I would, but I’ll part with the closing lyrics thereof:

You’re so lightweight, how can you survive?
Recycling moments from others’ lives
You’re not as precious as you contrive

Aluminum to me
Aluminium to some
You can shine like silver all you want
But you’re just Aluminum

Yeah, you’re just Aluminum

My Webmaster and I were discussing some of the differences between working in the private sector and the public sector. He works for Southern Tech University while I’ve worked mostly in the private sector. My father, on the other hand, worked in accounting for the Department of Defense, so I’m well aware of the differences in incentives between working for the government and working for a profit-making entity. He’s written a post on his experiences and I’m going to write a post on mine.

Before starting my current job at Soyokaze America, I did work with a temp agency whose only client was the State of Estacado. I only took one job there that lasted a couple of weeks, but in that time I happened to be privy to a whole lot of government waste.

The job involved moving the Child Protective Services (CPS) from one building to another building. The entire move was actually an example of said waste. According to Estacado State Law, the government cannot lease a building for more than two years uninterrupted. While they could invest in buying some property, instead what they do for a number of agencies is have them relocate every two years. This is a very expensive and time-consuming process that really doesn’t serve anyone.

I’m not sure there is enough money in the world that could adequately pay those that are taking the calls for the CPS. They listen to one horror story after another. Unlike social workers, they don’t even get the satisfaction of building a relationship with those calling for help. Instead they file a report and pass it on and likely never hear from them again. As it stands, these folks start at about $25k/yr. It’s good pay for a phone job, but it’s the stuff nightmares are made of.

So our job was to move the phone bank as well as the rest of the agency over to a similarly sized building a few blocks away. This involved moving a whole lot of computer equipment, which is where I came in. My job was to take the computers down, box them up, and then set them up at the new place. Easy enough. It was also to box up the stuff from the warehouse, which is where I really got the education experience.

They had hundreds and hundreds of copies of Microsoft Streets & Maps 2006, all unopened. Sometimes in the private as well as the public sector this sort of thing happens and I would have been understanding of, except that they also had hundreds and hundreds of copies of Microsoft Streets & Maps 2005, all unopened. They had half that many from 2004. Why would they keep buying software that they’re obviously not using? The answer, of course, was that it was in the budget and if they said they didn’t need it, they wouldn’t get it. It seemed to me that if they were worried about expending their budget that money would be better spent on the call-takers, but that fell into a different category and besides the money was clearly marked for that specific software package.

The other oddity involved inventory. I would be hard to fault the state for having so many extra sets of speakers. They come with the computers but rules and regulations prevent the employees from having them on their computers. Fair enough. The only problem with this is that if they get rid of the speakers within two years, the retail cost of the speakers is deducted from their budget even though they really couldn’t buy the computers without them. The idea behind this was to “cut down on waste”, which is a laudible goal but one they are only sporadically concerned with and only, it seems, in the least applicable circumstances.

They they waste warehouse space maintaining speaker inventory that they don’t need. Each box had a date on it. Anything before that date was to be disposed of and anything after that date had to be shipped to the new location, where it would wait for a while and then be disposed of.

You might ask yourself (I know I would be), “What does he mean by ‘disposed of’?”

There is a Goodwill not six blocks from the complex that they were moving out of that they could give it to. They could sell the stuff on eBay. They could raffle them to their employees for a job well done and put the money raised towards an office party or something. Actually, no, they can’t do any of that. Instead they post excess inventory for 90 days and then give it away to anyone that calls dibs. Most of the speakers ended up going to a company that turned around and made a profit selling them boxed and in mint condition. State money was spent helping them load up.

A lot of the other (non-boxed, non-mint) stuff was thrown out. There were monitors galore that were literally left at the curbside. They actually put a sign on it that said “Do not take” so that someone would assume that they were good and would steal them. I myself got away with five sets of 3-part speakers and three laptop satchels.

Good for me, not so good for the State of Estacado and its taxpayers.

When I was a kid, I had somewhat questionable taste in music. I listen back and a lot of what I used to like is virtually unlistenable to me now. Some of it I can listen to, but only because there are certain memories attached. Most of it I wouldn’t care for if I heard it for the first time today.

At some point I derived a list of my then-eight favorite songs. When I created the list, I did not know who sang all of them. I knew one was by Paul Simon and another by Bonnie Raitt. I eventually found out all of them except two, arguably two of my three favorites. Interestingly enough, I did not know that they were sung by the same man: Dan Fogelberg.

Most of you are probably aware that Fogelberg died today of prostate cancer.

The two songs were two of his three best known works: Leader of the Band and Same Auld Lang Syne. Leader of the Band is a tribute to his father’s life on the road and the difficulty of coming to grips with aging and retirement. Same Auld Lang Syne is the ultimate bittersweet regret song. I don’t know that a better one has been made.

One of the first two CDs I’ve ever owned was Dan Fogelberg’s Greatest Hits. Not having anything else to listen to, I listened to it over and over again. My best friend Clint and I even came up with dances/routines (it was the sort of thing we did and indicative of why popularity at school was never ours).

Billy Brand was one home run away from beating the record, though he’d come into a bit of a slump. It was not expected that he would break the record in Colosse facing off against our hometown Colosse Hurricanes, though it was of course always possible. I didn’t go to the game for the possibility.

My friend and former roommate Hubert had Canes season tickets, but he had a prior engagement that he couldn’t get out of that night. He’d asked several of his baseball friends if they wanted to go, but none of them were free, either. He was dumbfounded that he wasn’t able to find anyone to go to what could be a historic event, but it was looking that way. Then he found out that local musician Rick Gardland was going to be doing a set after the show. When we lived together, I’d played quite a bit of Garland’s music (to his dismay) and he gave me a call.

Evangeline and I had just broken up. Again. The truth is that I didn’t want to go anywhere or do anything. That, of course, made it all the more important that I did go out. The less I socialized in situations like that, the worse the situations tended to get. I invited Dad and we headed on out to Mello Yello Field that night. I figured, if nothing else, seeing history-in-action would give Eva and I something to talk wherein I could indicate that I was getting on with my life.

I wasn’t a very good companion for Dad. I was obviously distracted and I took regular cigarette breaks. Since he rigorously disapproved of my smoking, that only made things a bit more awkward whenever I’d make an excuse to get out. Unfortunately, the nearest smoking area was on a separate floor and it was a bit walk back and forth, so we both knew I wasn’t taking a trip to the nearest restroom. I timed by breaks in between innings and around Billy Brand’s trips to the plate. By the sixth inning, I’d only been working my way around Brand striking out and hitting two infield outs. Brand’s last out was in the sixth inning, so I decided that during the 7th Inning Stretch I’d make my way to the smoker’s circle.

Unfortunately, at some point before I got out there the cigarette lighter had fallen out of my pocket, so when I got out there I didn’t have a lighter. I asked around to see if I could borrow a light, but the weirdest thing happened: no one would bum a light. Smokers are generally generous with bumming cigarettes and failure to bump a light was a breach of the Smoker’s Code. After the first five rejections I was considering just heading back in, but I gave it one more shot. She lit me up and I smoked and pondered my ongoing problems with Eva.

Meanwhile, on the field, Brand’s team started batting again and they were on a roll. Double, single, single, single, first pitch hits all. The next thing I knew the crowd was erupting in applause. Billy Brand had just broken the home run record with a whopping three-run shot. Despite all of my attempts to time my trip, in a freak inning they’d made their way through the entire line-up in just a few minutes. I’d never seen anything like it (and since I didn’t see it, I still haven’t). History was in the making while I was standing there thinking about Evangeline.

When I got back to my seat, Dad asked if I’d seen it. I lied and told him that I had and that was why it took so long. He held up the lighter I’d dropped and said he’d figured it was because I’d had trouble lighting my cigarette banging together a couple of rocks.

The Garland show was a bust. After a couple of songs the PA system gave out. We waited for about twenty minutes while they tried to fix it, but we gave up and a while later they did, too.

When talking to sports fans, I mention that I was at the game where Brand broke the record. I tend to leave out the part where I missed it because I was out on the smoker’s ledge, feeling sorry for myself.

Last week, Bob wrote a post on what might be a problem as encryption code and decryption code get better. Even if encryption can keep up, there’s nothing to stop someone from getting encrypted data and holding on to it until decryption gets better. In other words, if I say something now that nobody can read because it’s encrypted to the level of X and decryption is no better than X-1, and what I write a year from now nobody can read because it’s encrypted to X+1 and decryption is at level X… there’s nothing to stop them holding on to data they can’t now decrypt under the idea that they will be able to decrypt it in the future. It’s probably that Bob explains this better than I do, so check it out if I’m confusing you.

I don’t have a whole lot to say on encryption and decryption, but it reminded me of some plotting I did for a yet-unwritten novel. The basic premise is that there is Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory. I needed them to exist in certain ways to advance the plot, but I also needed to form the internal logic dictating what each of these places is, who goes there, and what makes Heaven so perfect and Hell so bad.

One of the things that caught me about Heaven was the notion that no sin can take place there. Lying is a sin. Thus, nobody can lie in Heaven. Then the thought occurred to me that if there is no lying in Heaven, there are plenty of people that are in for a rude awakening. Wives who thought that their husbands had always been faithful will learn that he did cheat. People will learn that their parents and children lied to them. Every bad thing that has ever been done to them by people that they believed loved them will suddenly be known.

That could make heaven a very, very awkward place, when you think about it.

Christianic religion has it that our sins count against us and when we die there will be some accounting for it between us and God. How God does the accounting varies, but what I had never particularly been taught in church and what might have actually been a much better tool for religious discipline was the notion that there will also be some sort of accounting not just with God, but also with all of the people that we know that we’ve deceived and hurt.

The connection between Bob’s encryption/decryption talk and my Heaven may or may not exist as strongly to anyone else as it does in my mind. In both cases I see a temporary reprieve followed by an airing of all things private.

The last thought that occurs to me is that if “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”… a cheating husband may prefer Hell over Heaven, if she’s there waiting for him.