Ever since Justin Lumberpond bared the boob of Janet Nipplegate nearly two decades back, Super Bowl halftime shows have become must-see TV for the prurient crowd.

I’ve witnessed six of these halftime spectaculars in-person – a tribute to Caribbean music at Super Bowl XIII in Miami and Diana Ross in Super Bowl XXX in Phoenix were most memorable. But usually I think they are a bit long and overdone.

This means that when I’m watching on television, halftime is a good time to pause the video and do some eating, drinking or socializing.

So it was yesterday. Halftime arrived and I departed. Reviews vary widely among those who did take the time to watch the show. I happened to see some of these while making my daily foray onto the son’s social media account to check car ads.

There were debates about the quality, whether all the singing was live or Memorex, and where the show ranked in the pantheon of Super Bowl halftimes – either very high or very low.

What caught my attention was how it seems the NFL went way outside the box to put on an entertainment spectacular with a curious cast of characters.

First of all, there was some guy named Enema M, apparently a salesman for a laxative company.

Then there was the aquatic cosmetics rep Mary K. Bilgewater.

Perhaps in a carryover from the Puppy Bowl, Snoopy Hound also was on the halftime roster.

Add in 50-percent Sense, Dr. Dreedle and Can’tKick VeryFar and it supposedly was an all-star cast of something or other.

I’ll take the word of the cognoscenti and aficionados on that one.

The fact that people still are talking about, and debating the show indicates sponsor Pepsi got the exposure it desired.

No such thing as bad publicity, right?

The game itself wasn’t much to write home about. While the announcers breathlessly reminded us over and over again it was yet another competitive game, they failed to mention this was because each team played very poorly for stretches.

In the end, the Cincinnati Bungles were who they’ve been, not up to the challenge in big games. They allowed a Los Angeles Rams offense with a gimpy quarterback and one offensive weapon to march the ball down the field in the waning moments to score the winning touchdown – admittedly with copious help from the officials.

Those officials didn’t distinguish themselves in the game, missing an obvious facemask call that would have disallowed Cincinnati’s touchdown early in the second half.

Also, if you see a replay of late action, note that not one, but two Rams offensive tackles took a step back – false starts in the vernacular – on a play that resulted in a key defensive holding call against Cincinnati that gave the Rams a first down.

If the officials call the false start(s), there is no defensive holding because the play is whistled dead.

Sitting in my living room, I was screaming in amazement that such an obviously infraction at such a critical moment, could be missed completely.

Our genius announcers were too busy praising the game’s competitive score to notice the missed penalty and apparently no one else on the broadcast crew bothered to tell them it was worth noting.

I had to doublecheck to make sure it was NBC, not CNN, airing the game.

To sum up, the game was poorly played, poorly officiated and poorly broadcast. But, hey, at least they had a memorable halftime show.

Joe Biden, faced with the supposedly credible threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine and a very real stream of serious domestic problems, got out of Dodge and headed to Camp David for the weekend.

But we can presume that Biden did like most of America and had a Super Bowl party there.

Imagine peeking in the window on the proceedings.

Biden: USA! USA! USA!

Biden Lackey: Sir, this isn’t the Olympics. Both teams are from the USA, but you should root for the Los Angles Rams because they are based in the socialist outpost of California, which blindly supports all left-wing politicians. The opponents are from Cincinnati, a town in the flyover state of Ohio that often votes for heathen Republicans.

Biden: So, which one is Vlad Putin?

Biden Lackey: Again, sir, this isn’t the Olympics and, unlike hockey which is rife with Russians, we have no Russians in the NFL.

Biden: Come on, man! This reminds me of when I was a boy growing up in Scran-Barre — or was that Wilkes-ton? – taking guys who said bad things to girls out behind the gym and kicking their butts. By the way, I’m Joe Biden, and I’m running for U.S. Senate.

Biden Lackey: Sir, actually you are the president, although most of the people who voted for you are regretting it, at least privately. Why don’t you sit down on the couch and I’ll get you some snacks.

Biden: Good deal. Get some for Hunter, too. He’s been feeding off my leftovers for years, so no need to stop now.

Biden Lackey: Well, sir, I think Hunter has repaired to his room looking for his laptop computer.

Biden: Good. Good. What about my wife, old What’s Her Name?

Biden Lackey: You mean DOCTOR JILL BIDEN!!!!!!!!

Biden: Yeah, old Doc. Can she give me my meds so I can go nappy?

Biden Lackey: Sir, she’s not that kind of doctor. But she could give a pretty good speech on educational leadership, which is tasking subordinates to try to carry out your ridiculous initiatives.

Biden: Sounds like she’d make a pretty good president.

Biden Lackey: Actually, sir, some think she’s already running the show.

Biden: Ridiculous, you think a guy as sharp as I am needs help ruining this country? Why just the other day, as I was telling my invisible six-foot rabbit friend Cameltoe, we were going to demand Russians get their missiles out of Cuba.

Biden Lackey: Ironically, sir, it’s Putin’s demands to have U.S. missiles taken off his front porch that have created these tensions.

Biden: Well, enough of the business chit chat. My, that’s an impressive stadium where they’re playing the Super Bowl. It reminds me of some of the stuff I saw in China when I made trips there to, ahhh, accept some, you know what I mean to say but can’t find the words other than to say bring me another ice cream cone, pronto.

Biden Lackey: Right away, sir. By the way, do you have a bet on the Super Bowl?

Biden: Hey, I’m no sucker. As the great baseball philosopher Yogi Bear, I mean Yogi Berra, once said, predictions are tough, especially when you’re talking about the future. I only go for sure things like elections. Remember when I bragged about having the “most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics”?

Here Biden winked. Or maybe it was just another nervous twitch. And he was off to bed before the game’s kickoff.

Growing up in a town with a franchise in a brawling minor hockey league was great preparation for today’s social environment in which anyone whose opinion does not comport with yours is an obvious liar, charlatan and purveyor of misinformation, disinformation and general falsehoods.

Back in the day, we were too crazed by tribal loyalty to our Jets to see the hypocrisy. It took the passage of time and the making of the seminal movie “ Slap Shot,” about the Charlestown Chiefs, who were modeled after our Jets, to ram home the point.

That point was inconsistency.

The point was that a player low on hockey talent, but long on the ability to punch opponents into submission, was an ENFORCER if he skated in your team’s uniform. He was a noble protector and enabler of talented types trying to play the game.

A player of that description playing for the opposition was, of course a GOON. He was trying to terrorize your talented players into cowering on the ice and not displaying their talent.

The truth is, both were goons, or enforcers, but you can’t pick and choose. You can’t have it both ways, depending on your personal interest in an issue, person or activity.

But such partisan bluster is everywhere these days.

You can’t be Joe Biden, blaming Donald Trump for all COVID deaths during the past campaign and using that to paint him as not deserving to be president, then have more people die of COVID on your brief watch and just keep on licking ice cream cones and hope no one will notice.

You can’t be Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and issue decrees that are widely unpopular, wrongheaded and divisive, then go into hiding only to emerge to double down on your demands which polls show are wildly unpopular with the people you rule.

You can’t be a Black Lives Matter supporter and enabler and ignore the rash of accusations of financial hanky-panky within the socialist organization masquerading as a social justice warrior group.

You can’t be alarmist climatologists, sounding the Armageddon warning at every opportunity, then admit your models need 2000 times the capacity of current computers to be anywhere near accurate in the doom and gloom predictions.

You can’t be an official from the World Health Organization, which has served as a COVID propaganda operation for China and generally has passed more misinformation on the virus than any supposed denier, but single out over-the-hill rocker Neil Young for lavish praise due to Young demanding censorship of those who don’t spout the party COVID line.

You can’t praise Black Lives Matter and Antifa for merely expressing the angst of the people in their often violent protests that took over areas of weakly ruled cities, yet brand Canadian truckers as terrorists for peaceful protests of Trudeau that didn’t claim autonomy over parts of cities or otherwise flout the law in violent fashion.

You can’t be CNN and claim the high moral ground, preaching to us in the great unwashed, when you are the most busted name in news with a steady stream of scandals becoming public.

You can’t be Joe Biden, presiding over the highest inflation rate in 40 years and claim all is well and, by the way, real wages are climbing. The wages are falling, not climbing and all is not well, despite what Biden’s sycophants in the LameStream media might try to tell you.

You can’t call for the head of podcaster Joe Rogan for the alleged high crime of spreading misinformation until you’ve shut down the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC and any other media outlet that spent years pushing the fake narrative of Russian collusion with Trump and interference to explain Hillary Clinton’s embarrassing loss to Trump two elections back.

Granddaughter number three had her dinosaur-themed birthday party today at Johnstown’s Heritage Discovery Center, a catalyst for a stream of consciousness from yours truly.

‘Nessa is three years old, a delightful time of innocence when small gifts and gestures presented to her are greeted with the enthusiasm an adult might reserve for winning the lottery. Too bad she has to grow up and lose that innocence.

It was my first visit to the Heritage Center and the presentation there was impressive in its telling of the history of our town. But if we get the proposed influx of thousands of Afghan immigrants, there will need to be some upgrade to the displays.

In keeping with the tone of modern day America, the facility, for all its quality, also was lightly attended – our party seeming to make up the bulk of the attendance that afternoon. Why learn about history when there are ridiculous special effects movies to be viewed, garbage music to be listened to, or time to be wasted on various social media platforms?

The third floor children’s area showed that kids can have fun without electronic devices. A pretend coal mine that culminated in a slide, a well-stocked kitchen/store play area, and some water displays including one in which participants try to build a dam to staunch water flow and save small houses from being washed away, all were enjoyed by kids of varying ages.

In a general note, in this age of flagging customer service, all the people who worked at the center were courteous and the young woman who handled the party went above and beyond the call.

There was a mask requirement for the museum portion – not the party area – but many visitors from beyond our group were seen mask-less walking past displays. Although I think evidence has proved masks are just a triumph of style over health substance, I wear one if the facility dictates it. It’s their salt mine.

Along that line, I was sharing with some other adults that I’d finally had a personal acquaintance die with COVID, but I can’t be sure it was because of COVID. I’ve been told the official cause of death was pneumonia.

The conversation turned to my 85-year-old mother having survived COVID twice and inquiries as to her vaccine status. That would be fully vaccinated, not that it worked regarding the second infection.

Surprise was expressed because I have not been jabbed and don’t intend to be, that I thought it was a good idea for my mother to be vaccinated. She gets a flu shot due to age and health concerns, too. And I do not.

That’s where I come down on vaccines – individual choice.

But the day included a sad note when, after we’d returned home, my wife noted a newspaper obit for yet another of my friends from high school.

I’ll spare you a hackneyed circle of life observation regarding that aspect of the day.

Yes, we live in troubled, confusing times.

More often than not we seem to be adrift on a sea of confusion. Thank goodness that in such a time of stress and duress we still have traditional values, institutions and good old-fashioned societal anchors to help us weather the storm.

We still have Black Lives Matter out there fighting the good fight for whatever the group professes to be fighting for.

What? You say the California Justice Department is threatening BLM with action over its lack of transparency regarding at least $60 million in undisclosed donations? You say BLM also has failed to produce annual reports as a charitable trust must do?

Well, I’m sure this is just more oppression from The Man, albeit The Man in the most liberal state in these United States.

Moving on, at least we have prestigious medical institutions such as Johns Hopkins and our diligent media helping us through the never-ending COVID crisis.

Wait a minute. What? A Johns Hopkins professor is calling out his employer and the media for failing to publicize a Johns Hopkins study that found that lockdowns did virtually nothing to reduce COVID mortality, but did cause great economic and social harm.

No doubt this is merely an oversight that will be corrected now that the good professor has brought it to the attention of the media and Johns Hopkins. Tick. Tick. Tick.

Well at least the Biden regime is in step with popular opinion of the nation on the big issues such as COVID mandates and war – wanting more of each.

Ah, you say a Monmouth poll indicates 70 percent of Americans believe it’s time simply to live with COVID and get on with our lives? OK, must have been taken in a Republican stronghold. Oh, according to the poll 47 percent of Democrats feel that way, 71 percent of Independents and 89 percent of Republicans?

Well, there can be little doubt that Biden and his cronies know what the American population wants in terms of national defense, that being going to war with Russia over Ukraine, or China over Taiwan.

Come on, man. You tell me polls show overwhelmingly that the populace wants diplomacy, not war with Russia and China? These polls sound as phony as the Biden vote totals in the last election.

So, let’s forget BLM, COVID and an out-of-touch president, at least we can count on Cancel Culture to set us straight.

Kudos to the has-been rockers who are uniting as a sort of an ad hoc We WERE The World group to attempt to get Joe Rogan and his wildly successful podcast kicked off Spotify.

This is Cancel Culture at its finest — silence the voices of any who do not buy whatever pap the liberals are spewing. Don’t question, just obey.

Credit the Cancel Culture crowd for also finally putting a muzzle on the massively uninformed utterings of Whoopi Goldberg, a woman a former coworker of mine once described as being “as ugly as a bucket of butts.”

He wasn’t talking about cigarettes and, truth be told, he said something other than butts.

Regardless, Whoppi got a few weeks off her platform on The View to rethink her assertion that the Nazis exterminating Jews was not about race.

That’s Cancel Culture at its best, acting as equal opportunity, self-appointed censors.

And now you tell me the fawning leftists at MSNBC, who never heard a conservative voice they didn’t want to be silenced, are whining about Whoopi getting caught in the Cancel Culture trap because she’s one of them?

You say they bemoan punishment and judgment for those with opposing, possibly mistaken views — at least when it’s Whoopi who is opposing and possibly mistaken?

That would be hypocritical suddenly not to buy the Cancel Culture phenomenon’s legitimacy, wouldn’t it?

Now I’m really depressed.

Score another black mark for CNN, which continues to claim in its official slogan to be The Most Trusted Name In News, but more correct is The Most Busted Name In News.

This time the shame reached all the way to the top, with CEO Jeff Zucker resigning after a “consensual relationship” with a colleague was uncovered.

In a case of bitter irony, this was brought to light by investigators looking into another CNN scandal, this involving the also departed Chris Cuomo, who was short on journalistic ethics and long on managing scandals for his brother, the New York Governor.

More bitter irony: The woman supposedly involved with Zucker was a former Gov. Cuomo adviser.

Zucker comes across as the George Costanza character in the Seinfield sitcom who, after having a consensual sexual encounter in the office with a cleaning woman that was discovered later by the bosses, asks if that was wrong.

As Zucker eventually conceded, he should have disclosed his relationship with a colleague, but didn’t.

And so another hypocritical CNN actor is hoisted by his own petard. But some skeptics are wondering aloud whether this relatively minor failure produced a quick resignation in order to stop the digging process that might have uncovered other problems.

You are forgiven for wondering who’s next to fall at CNN, which is long on lecturing the conservatives about their perceived shortcomings, but can’t live up to generally accepted standards of behavior.

Another CNN bad actor is back on the job after a suspension for being caught pleasuring himself sexually during a video call. Yes, that too was consensual. It also was an exercise in idiocy at best, and perversion at the worst.

A CNN anchor was outed for tipping off the subject of a criminal investigation, telling him that the cops were on his trail. This CNN tipster remains on the air, without sanction.

There are other examples of CNN acting like anything but a gold standard for journalistic or ethical behavior.

We eagerly await Zucker and the other CNN reprobates, in keeping with their ongoing corporate mantra, to blame it all on the Russians.

In less than two days Pennsylvania’s most famous oversized rodent – Punxsutawney Phil, not Gov. Tom Wolf – emerges from his burrow to predict when winter will end.

Phil’s choice is binary, either six more weeks of winter, or spring is just around the corner.

Here are a few more difficult predictions to ponder while we wait for Phil’s pronouncement:

Spotify will get along quite nicely without the music of some relatively anonymous, past-their-prime rockers looking to become relevant again as social justice warriors.

Despite polls showing 76 percent of respondents thinking Joe Biden is ridiculous to limit his Supreme Court nominations to black women, Ridiculous Joe will do just that in his crusade of continuing to rule toward placating the 24 percent or so on the lunatic fringe left.

Blessed with much more sophisticated equipment and years of training, local weather forecasters will continue to come up short of Phil’s weather acumen.

Johnstown will keep finding big bucks to pay a rotating cast of city managers, but will not be able to ante up the funds to plow the streets and clear sidewalks.

The United States will continue to talk tough about Russia, and do nothing. Same with China which is, in the larger picture, the greater threat.

VaccinNazis will keep ignoring “the science” that shows vaccines are not close to being effective vs. COVID-19’s many strains.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will emerge from hiding once the exhaust fumes from protesting trucks no longer can be detected in Ottawa.

As suggested by one internet wit, a new disease will be cited to explain Trudeau’s runaway act – COWARD-22.

When he does return to the public, Trudeau will give a nod to his role model, Sleepy Joe Biden, whose campaign and time in office have been exercises of hiding in the bunker and hoping everyone doesn’t notice.

The effete snobs at CNN, the Most Busted Name In News, will continue to see as “less enlightened” the growing number of people who don’t agree with their propaganda. Most recently, some CNN guests on Mr. Potato Head’s show applied the term to listeners of Joe Rogan’s podcast, whose numbers dwarf CNN’s ratings, even with all the forced viewership at airports included.

Despite polls showing Bumbling Biden’s approval ratings at 10 percent, and general Democratic approval at 15 percent, Democrats will hold the House and Senate and gain governorships in November, all of which will be explained by videos of suitcases full of votes emerging from under tables and being scanned after poll observers have left for the night.

Just like the movie “Groundhog Day.”

Canadians have a new variation of the Where’s Waldo? game. It’s Where’s Justin Trudeau?

Trudeau, not Waldo, is the Canadian Prime Minister running from public backlash over his tin-pot dictator response to COVID. First Trudeau said he’d be disappearing over some exposure to COVID, even though he’s vaccinated.

It was just a coincidence that his self-imposed move into quarantine hiding came as a massive truck convoy of protestors moved on Ottawa. Now that the convoy has arrived, reports indicate Trudeau and his family are hiding out in a secret location due to safety concerns – not from a virus, but from the public.

Yet media in Canada (Ottawa Citizen) reported no violence, no injuries, after the first day of the protest.

This attempted demonization of opposition is a familiar tactic among the elites. Remember Obama snidely labeling opponents as those clinging to guns and religion, both of which still are guaranteed rights in our Constitution.

Then there was Hillary Clinton’s “deplorables” characterization of Trump supporters. Takes a deplorable to know one.

Trudeau, when he still dared to show his face in public, called the truck convoy a “fringe minority” with “unacceptable views.”

Once the convoy reached a length of 46 miles or so, with a reported 50,000 participants, Trudeau went radio silent.

It’s not the just the truckers in the convoy, it’s the thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, or millions of Canadians who agree that Trudeau’s heavy-handed vaccine mandates are not acceptable.

The internet is full of images of supporters lined up along highways and on overpasses, saluting the convoy as it passed.

There’s a message in this for demagogues like Trudeau and his counterparts here and around the world – you don’t have the public support you imagined.

Bumbling Joe Biden’s rapidly declining approval ratings indicate his slide is very real, in part due to his ridiculously ineffective COVID policy.

Protests in European countries and Australia indicate the public is fed up with isolation and fear over COVID.

In Canada, they dipped into the Clinton/Biden playbook of blaming Russia. The convoy supposedly was a Russian operation using convenient idiots among the Canadian population.

It was a racist, right-wing, domestic terrorist (where have we heard that broad accusation before?) plan to sack the government.

Amusingly, one image that I saw posted had two turban-wearing, bearded men (Sikhs?) with signs proclaiming Trudeau as the fascist.

No doubt they were white supremacists or Russians in costume. Or not.

In the end, whether it’s COVID, or some other stalking horse argument, the goal of the elites is control of your lives.

Be prepared, now that COVID has lost its effectiveness as fear porn used to demand concessions in individual rights, to have another crusade pop to the forefront. Various media reports indicate the elites are going back to climate change.

Because most enlightened people have come to realize COVID is not a death sentence for all, the hunt is on for another issue that can be used to terrify the masses into submission.

It is sadly fitting that one poster child for climate change hysteria is a young woman with mental issues, being used cynically by the elites to advance their agenda.

Remember when it used to be “global warming” with the massaged statistics allegedly proving it? Then, when the statistical chicanery was outed, it became “climate change.”

This way, no matter what happens – unseasonable cold, unseasonable warmth, drought, floods, storms – it all could be used to support the argument.

This ignores the fact that climate is, by definition, fluid and constantly changing, that our reliable measures are not really that old when compared with the age of the planet, and that alarmists have flip-flopped on dire warnings within my lifetime.

When I was in high school, the predictions were for a new ice age in the 1970s. Never happened.

To repeat, the elites are equal opportunity when it comes to creating and using issues in order to gain submission from the masses.

Don’t fall for their tricks.

And say hi to Trudeau should he emerge from his burrow any time soon, a la Punxsutawney Phil.

Presented for your approval, some quick hits in the way of news and followup.

We never came close to the overly hyped prediction of minus-25 degrees Wednesday night into Thursday in these parts, so I’m thinking the local noon weather babe was all apologetic today about her big forecast miss. Or not.

My mother officially cleared COVID quarantine today and was visited by me and my brother. This makes twice that she has tested positive for COVID at her long-term care facility and twice she has lived to tell about it, with minimal to no symptoms along the way, despite being 85 years of age and not in the best of health. She was, and is, fully vaccinated, not that it helped with this second positive test. But keep on worshiping the needle and living in COVID fear, people.

Speaking of COVID hysteria, Illinois has yet to explain why about 40 percent of the COVID deaths the past month in that state were vaccinated victims. So much for the propaganda that while the vaccine may not prevent you from getting COVID, it keeps the symptoms mild.

There are reports that Chinese scientists from Wuhan (wait, this is sounding a bit familiar) have discovered yet another COVID strain, this more deadly and capable of moving from animals to humans. Of course, we must believe everything coming from Wuhan scientists.

In Canada, a convoy of more than 50,000 truckers is nearing the capital to protest the COVID policy of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. It’s been reported the convoy is more than 70 kilometers long, or about 44 miles! Trudeau, conveniently, has gone into self-imposed isolation at home after claiming to have had COVID exposure. Wonder how many trucks will fit on his street?

A bi-partisan group of members from the House of Representatives is proposing that they and fellow members of Congress be barred from trading stocks while in office. Den mother Nancy “Marie Antoinette” Pelosi is not expected to be sympathetic. This is not surprising considering the amazing investment performance by Pelosi and her husband that some cynics suggest could be due in part to knowing what’s coming down the legislative pipeline. Interesting side note: Officials of the Federal Reserve, which sets interest rates and money policy in this nation, also were free until last October to make hay in the stock market despite their information advantage due to their positions.

It was overcast with flurries Tuesday, producing the need for a winter pick-me-up.

Right on cue, the noon weather on the local station provided a few laughs and chuckles.

The theme of this episode of Stormwatch, Severe weather, Weather porn, We’re all going to die! Weather, Weather, Weather was frigid temperatures.

Understand that today’s flurries were expected to produce a fraction of an inch of fresh white stuff. Barring the foot or so we got last week, this has been a below-average winter in terms of snow.

But how can you put the fear into the populace with reports of one-quarter inch or so of snow? Of course you concentrate on cold temperatures.

It would help to make the weather porn more impactful, though, if the words and images could somehow match. I understand this is asking a lot in our “no one’s perfect” world. Still, I’m thinking the coordination between audio and video should be better than this example.

Understand that I do not watch this stuff on my own. But the wife had it on and I decided to monitor it for a bit.

“Brrr. Brrr. Brrr,” said the woman giving the weather, which I guess is meteorologist-speak for it’s going to be cold.

If what she said is correct, it’s going to be very cold. She flashed up a graphic that showed Johnstown staring at minus-25 overnight Wednesday into Thursday.

“This is actually how cold it’s going to get,” she emphasized, not the “feels-like” phenomenon of windchill.

The obligatory advice was given to protect oneself and bring in the pets.

But, wait a minute. A seven-day weather graphic that followed had minus-25 nowhere to be found. The projected high for Tuesday was 28 degrees. The overnight low into Wednesday morning was put at 3 degrees.

The high Wednesday was estimated to be 14 degrees and the overnight low between Wednesday and Thursday was listed not at minus-25, but instead minus-2.

Huh?

Where’d the minus-25 go?

Being a trained journalist, I don’t tend to believe blindly all I’m told. It seemed to me minus-25 just might be historic, although the weather purveyor didn’t think that prospect was worth mentioning.

Checking weather data on PSU.edu, the closest reporting station data I could find was Pittsburgh.

The all-time low for January, February or March in Pittsburgh was minus-22 on Jan. 19, 1994.

An archived story from the Johnstown newspaper, documenting the severe cold of January 2009, cited newspaper records to identify minus-18, achieved both in 1912 and 1994, as the coldest January temperature observed in Johnstown.

Minus-25 would, indeed, be historic!

These local TV weather types love to point out that they are forecasting for a large area geographically, so if somewhere within their claimed coverage area gets something weather-wise that they predicted, they count it as a win.

The problem is in this case nowhere on their huge map indicated a low anywhere near minus-25 for Wednesday into Thursday.

I eagerly await Wednesday night into Thursday to see what the actual low is. I’m betting it will be closer to minus-2 than minus-25.

And whoever does the weather on Thursday will indulge in an orgy of self-congratulation for warning us that it would be cold, conveniently forgetting the details.