Category Archives: Uncategorized

There are reports out that General Motors is working on an updated two-stroke engine, news that tickled my fancy when I read it.

My challenge now is to tickle your fancy, and make the story interesting. This is something my eight-year granddaughter failed at intentionally during a visit earlier today when she offered to tell me a story: “Once upon a time. The end.”

This was her joke on me. But, as much as the two-stroke return might seem to be a joke, too, the story seems to have some legitimacy.

I will ignore the reality that the story I read had a blatant factual error in the first paragraph, that gaffe being the claim that a two-stroke “is a type of engine not seen in cars (outside of the old Soviet Union) since before JFK was elected president.”

Not exactly. Swedish auto maker Saab (located beyond the former Soviet Union) sold cars with two-stroke engines as late as 1967. History buffs here might recall John F. Kennedy was elected in 1960 and assassinated in 1963, both before 1967.

Regardless, it is interesting to read of a two-stroke revival, which according to the story would provide cheap internal combustion ability to recharge electric vehicles’ batteries on the move.

Two-strokes these days mostly are the province of off-road motorcycles and chainsaws, favored for their simplicity of design and their high ratio of power to cubic-inch displacement.

Two-stroke engines have no valves to allow fuel into the cylinder or exhaust gasses to leave. That is accomplished by holes (ports) in the cylinder walls.

This means a two-stroke engine produces power every other stroke of the piston, while a four-stroke engine has intake, compression, combustion and exhaust strokes, with only the combustion stroke producing power.

The difference is notable. In my wild and crazy youth, I owned a 1970 Kawasaki 500 with a two-stroke, three-cylinder side-by-side-by-side engine.

Out of the box, these were low 13-second machines in the quarter mile. But the previous owner, unbenown to me, had ported this bike for drag racing and it easily was a 12-second bike.

The torque at high rpm was incredible. It took off like a rocket at 6000 rpm and beyond. I recall the days as a freshman at UPJ when between classes I’d ride with friends who had motorcycles, including a 750 cc Honda. I’d leave them in the dust on Schoolhouse Road in seconds.

But there was a compromise. My Kawasaki, perhaps owing to the porting, fouled spark plugs at an incredible rate. I actually carried extra plugs and got to be quite good at popping the gas tank up and changing that middle cylinder’s plug.

I traded in the Kawasaki when I bought a new 1974 Yamaha 500, a much more sedate four-stroke example. Sure, it was a lot slower, but it also was a lot more reliable.

Part of the two-stroke experience is oil is mixed with the gasoline, which makes it almost impossible for them to meet emissions standards. My Kawasaki had a separate oil tank and injection pump for that purpose.

But, early two-stroke Saabs required the driver to add oil at each gasoline fill-up. This provided some amusement for a distant relative of mine during the gas thefts that accompanied gasoline shortages in the 1970s.

While many took to slapping on locking gas caps in an era before that was common, this guy welcomed would-be gasoline thieves, who would be getting more than they bargained for by siphoning out his gasoline-oil mixture.

Ah, memories.

We will close this story now with an observation. I find it amusing in an ironic way that the two-stroke engine, relegated to the automotive sidelines due to its dirty exhaust, might prove to be saviors of electric cars, at least for GM.

Many years back, when I did some freelance work for the local Woke Gazette at the behest of then editor and now publisher and chief cook and bottle washer for several publications in the chain, there was an abundance of what I call vanity columnists appearing in the paper.

Still are, apparently.

Being the consummate professional, I insisted on being paid. Many who contributed columns to the Woke Gazette then, and perhaps still do so, act out of the need to be recognized, albeit by a rapidly declining circulation.

They work for free just to get the ego boost of seeing their mugs in the paper, in a positive light.

I recall one such person, Sister Moonbeam I nicknamed her, who was always lamenting the plight of the illegal aliens. In a telling incident of timing, the editor-now-publisher, a guy who leans hard left, questioned some numbers in a column I had submitted.

Perhaps it was because he did not agree with the column’s premise. Regardless, I gave him several sources of my numbers and got an “oh” or something similar.

But, me being me and all that, and since he had brought up the topic, I asked if he ever questioned Sister Moonbeam’s assertions in her scribblings? In a concurrent effort from her, she had claimed illegals contribute some huge number in taxes and Social Security contributions and get no benefits. I can’t recall the exact amount, but it was monstrous, as in a lot of billions of dollars, maybe hundreds of billions.

Several questions sprang to mind, including how does one document such stuff when by definition the illegals are undocumented? Was it just a guess? Did the great keeper of the journalistic flame at the Woke Gazette ask where she got her numbers?

I’m sure he did not, because he liked her slant. Alas, Sister Moonbeam perhaps tired of working for free and no longer appears in Woke Gazette print, at least not as far as I can tell.

Perhaps she transitioned to a male and ginned up a new name.

One might speculate her writing style could identify her/him if she still was torturing a keyboard, but, alas, most of these vanity columnists write the same, which is to say not very well.

I thought of Sister Moonbeam today while surfing the internet and seeing many updates on just how much we are wasting on illegals and even those legal immigrants who get that certification from blue states and cities, regardless of any of what might be considered disqualifying attributes.

Begin with Minnesota, AKA New Somalia, or is it North Somalia?

According to the Center for Immigration Studies, as reported on Breitbart.com, about 80 percent of Somali households in Minnesota are on one form or other of the public dole. By way of comparison about 21 percent of native born Americans in that state are dependent on public welfare of some sort or another.

If there are children in the house, about 89 percent of Somali households are on some manner of welfare.

Remember how the Myopia 2025 people assured us that any Afghan refugees they slipped into town would be contributors. That sort of flies in the face of immigrant history in this century.

Yes, once upon a time immigrants would come to America legally and were expected to be able to prove self-sufficiency, or least have some sponsor willing to take on that responsibility.

Those immigrants also tended to be overwhelmingly a better fit culturally for this nation and were expected to assimilate, the so-called melting pot, rather than cluster in enclaves and seek to take control politically.

On another front, a story on zerohedge.com today reported more than 9,500 commercial truck drivers have had their licenses pulled because they cannot speak English. I’m sure all are not illegals, but many probably are.

Vetting processes are ridiculous. Our own great state of Pennsylvania, which seems to require a pint of blood, DNA samples, a first-born child, written pleas and massive documentation from lifelong residents seeking Real ID cards, is reported to hand them out like Halloween candy to immigrants, legal or not.

An audit found about 25 percent of the foreigners given CDLs by California should not have gotten them.

Sister Moonbeam would be so proud.

Before we leave, zerohedge.com had a story from CBS News today about how alleged fraudsters in Minnesota – yes, many Somalis – ripped off hundreds of millions of dollars in tax dollars intended to feed children and instead used it for luxury cars, trips, and money sent back to the homeland.

Again, where are you Sister Moonbeam when we need you to explain away all this?

I should have bought a lottery ticket last night. Clearly, it was my lucky day as I was able to take delivery of a set of towels from Walmart’s “curbside” delivery with minimal effort.

Recall I had written yesterday of my ordeal in trying to accomplish this previously. I’d followed guidelines and stopped by after 6 p.m., actually 6:37-ish and 7:07-ish and both times found the many pickup spots filled and got verbal confirmation from a worker that even if I could find a spot, I was looking at an hour wait, maybe more.

Also, as mentioned here previously, the granddaughters had their winter concert last night and I decided I’d try Walmart again after that, making my arrival time in Richland well past 6, but considerably before the advertised 10 p.m. cutoff time for such service.

The wife came along, with a stop along the way in her manic search for caramel chips for baking purposes. Can’t find them locally, it turns out.

When I reached Walmart, there were many open pickup parking spots, so I chose one (24 as I recall). The wife ran in to look for the chips – unsuccessfully – and I dialed the number on the sign.

The cheery, female-sounding person who answered (I was thrilled to get a person quickly considering my previous failures with Walmart’s Richland phone system) was eager to help. She took my name and said someone would be right out.

This call was made at 8:32 p.m. I settled in to listen to an investment podcast on my cell phone while I waited, but shortly I was aware of motion behind me and to my left.

It was a woman with the towels. The ordeal of the towels had ended.

Walmart communications put the exchange time at 8:37 and I will accept that because I was so stunned that the whole thing had taken mere minutes, I didn’t bother to note the time myself.

What have I learned from this?

First, make sure when ordering that Walmart doesn’t default you to “curbside” pickup.

If you don’t notice such beforehand, cancel the order and re-enter it to get home delivery.

If you want to brave the “curbside” operation, go much later than the recommended 6 p.m. to avoid dinner rush. I’m presuming my 8:30 time would work in most cases. Walmart also advises avoiding noon, but I’m not sure by how much. Would 1 p.m., work, or 2, or 3, or 4? I’m not interested enough to find out.

To borrow from Shakespeare, we will conclude all’s well that ends well. But I’m going to lean on the anonymous advice, learn from every experience, if only not to repeat it.

Walmart once prided itself on customer service. Blue-vested workers constantly approached and offered to help. These days, not so much.

I’ve been told operations like that still exist, at Ebensburg, Somerset, and other outposts. At the Richland monument to retail, not so much.

In the past I’ve had the unpleasant repeat experience of seeing empty shelves where cat litter should be. This was explained away as people buy a lot of it and I’d need to get there right after they unloaded the truck to get some of the precious stuff.

My first response was, since they seemed to be selling all they got, perhaps they should order more.

Second, I needed to know when the truck arrived, so I could plan my life around acquiring cat litter. Alas, that information was not available to the public. The cat died before Walmart got the cat litter supply chain sorted.

On another front, my wife and I try to patronize checkouts manned by humans, in an attempt to protect their jobs. One particularly surly checkout female was told point-blank by my wife she was trying to keep her employed. Responded the ungrateful tart, I wish they would fire me.

When that’s the attitude you bring to work, and project onto the customers, well, you should be fired.

The worker bees at Walmart now seemed to be concentrated on filling orders for pickup or delivery. The people who actually opt to shop in-person are treated as just so many roadblocks as they scurry about.

I’ve taken to ordering Walmart goods online and getting them delivered to my home, not by the local blue vests or independent contractors, but by traditional services such as FedEx, UPS, the postal service.

Monday, I ordered many things and, inexplicably, one of them was tabbed for store “curbside” pickup, a misnomer since there are zero curbs. In my case, also no parking space, or pickup, so far.

I tried to call the Richland Walmart, multiple times, and have yet to have the call answered. You painfully go through the phone tree, are transferred ostensibly to someone, and the phone rings a long time before a recorded message tells you tough luck, try again sometime. I got this same response for all options I tried, including just trying to get a store operator.

Remember what I said about customer service? Apparently non-existent.

The item in question, a pack of towels, was in-stock at the store, an increasingly rare phenomenon these days. But, I’ve ordered in-stock items in the past and it didn’t default to store pickup.

Regardless, instead of exploring the vagaries of an apparent change in the ordering process, I just submitted the order.

I was told the “curbside” order would be ready at some odd time, like 2:43 p.m. It was ready early, I found out in a later email, which meant exactly nothing.

Allow me to explain. I called a cousin to get the details about this pickup process. He told me to pack a lunch, one waits a LONG time for the goods to be wheeled out to the cars, which are parked in the rows of designated spaces.

Helpful hints in the email suggested better times to arrive to speed the process. I decided after 6 p.m. was best for me, and presumably them.

I arrived after 6, maybe 6:15, to find all the allotted spots filled with idling vehicles and some other vehicles circling like vultures waiting for an opening.

I drove to Tractor Supply to kill half an hour and returned to find no change. This prompted me to pull into a spot in an adjacent row so that I might talk to one of the workers delivering crates to a van.

I asked if going in myself would speed the process. He emphasized it would not. I then asked what sort of wait I was facing if I somehow was lucky enough to find a spot to pull into. I began with 45 minutes, an hour?

Responded the worker, at least that and probably longer.

I did the right thing and left. Supposedly one has four days to collect “curbside” orders.

Ironically, some of the items I ordered for traditional delivery will be on my front porch before I am able to retrieve my “curbside” item.

The emails, for what they are worth, indicate this service is available until 10 p.m. I guess I will go up again tonight, very late in their window, and hope all the other people have been serviced by them.

If not, I really don’t have a life, so I can take up residency in the parking lot in the off chance someone might be willing and able to bring a pack of towels to my car.

Pray for me.

There is a lot of ground to cover today. The solution is News And Views, a combined sports and real world edition. We will start with sports.

NEWS: The Kansas City Swifts lost again Sunday, falling to 6-7 late in the season and supposedly having only a 14.2 percent chance of making the NFL playoffs for the 11^th consecutive season.

VIEWS: They are flying the flags at half-mast around NFL headquarters at the prospect of no months-long postseason hero worship of the Swifts and the obligatory TV shots of the reason the franchise changed its nickname, that eternal adolescent songstress cheering for her guy on the Swifts roster. Can the NFL intervene and save the Swifts? Stay tuned.

NEWS: Notre Dame didn’t make the national championship playoff field, so the Fighting Irish are taking their football and staying home regarding a bowl appearance.

VIEWS: Much like the K.C. Swifts, Notre Dame seems to get the nod anytime the decision is close, and often when it isn’t close at all. Hell, in my youth, Michigan State and Notre Dame, both unbeaten, played to a 10-10 tie late in the 1966 season and, wait for it, Notre Dame ended up as the national champion according to the major polls because . . . Notre Dame. There were no playoffs back then. Fast-forward to 2025 and Notre Dame won’t lower itself to be in a conference for football, but aligns its other teams with the ACC. Now, Notre Dame is irked because the ACC went public noting that full-time ACC member Miami deserved the playoff nod over Notre Dame because Miami beat Notre Dame in a head-to-head match, had more wins vs. Top 25 opposition, and has a similar strength of schedule. The head-to-head always spoke loudest to me. It’s the preferred tiebreaker across sports when there is a two-way tie for something. The fact that Notre Dame is so petulant about not getting the favored status to which it is accustomed, speaks volumes.

NEWS: The Steelers rose from the dead and beat the Baltimore Ravens to take the lead of the AFC North, admittedly at a modest 7-6.

VIEWS: I only watched a bit of the game, but I read the Steelers got the benefit of the doubt on several close plays. I ask, where was this assistance when the Steelers and I needed it against Buffalo?

NEWS: A Minnesota state senator is claiming he has proof Congress member Ilhan Omar married her brother to keep him in the United States, among other alleged misdoings by Omar.

VIEWS: You mean to tell me you’re alleging a Somali in Minnesota committed fraud? Unbelievable.

NEWS: A Somali in Maine is being accused of Medicaid fraud, with the misbegotten funds being sent to the homeland for military use.

VIEWS: I often wondered what attracted Somali immigrants from their home country, a virtual desert, to northern climes such as Minnesota and Maine, with brutal cold and snow. Could lax left-wing leadership and freedom to pillage be the reason?

NEWS: President Trump has posted that Ukraine’s Zelenskyy has yet to read the latest peace proposal.

VIEWS: Perhaps the tiny guy is too busy looking at travel brochures for Minnesota and Maine.

NEWS: The Muslin Brotherhood, which Trump would like designated as a terrorist group, has proclaimed publicly its expectation to have 50 members of U.S. Congress within six years and use that to control this once-great nation.

VIEWS: George W. Bush can stick his “Islam, the religion of peace” tripe where the sun doesn’t shine.

NEWS: Clueless Joe Biden, whose handlers inexplicably keep sticking in front of microphones at public events, was at it again last week, proclaiming this nation is “Amerigotit.”

VIEWS: Can you really expect better from the guy who couldn’t find his way off stages, referred to Kamala Harris as “vice-president Trump,” told a South Carolina audience during his presidential campaign he was running for senator, and called Zelenskyy Putin at a NATO summit?

The world lost a loving, entertaining character today. I speak of Smokey, the feral cat who adopted us a year or two back and resided part-time on our front porch, gladly accepting food and attention, not necessarily in that order.

I was awakened today with bad news from my wife. Smokey apparently had been hit by a car, which she discovered while walking the dog we recently inherited and seeing a man bent over Smokey in a nearby driveway.

At first she thought Smokey, an unusually friendly sort for a feral feline, was getting some “loving” from a random stranger. But, no, the man had come upon him and determined Smokey’s hindquarters were paralyzed, likely after being run down by a vehicle.

My wife and the guy were taking Smokey to the vet, where the verdict was there was no coming back from his injuries and so the difficult call was made to euthanize him.

I had come downstairs before they left to say a possible goodbye to Smokey. Later, my wife told me a poignant tale of Smokey, upon hearing her voice this morning after being injured, turning his head and trying to crawl her way.

We both cried it out.

Tears are welling up as I write this.

Smokey represented a lot that is good, and bad, about this world.

He was a feline Blanche DuBois from the play “A Streetcar Named Desire,” always depending on the kindness of strangers.

I first became aware of Smokey years back while on a walk and seeing Smokey, as I would learn he had been nicknamed, shadowing a neighbor Ed from up the street, who was walking his dog.

Smokey stayed 30 or so feet behind, but Ed told me Smokey was a constant companion on their walks. Ed had named him Smokey, due to his gray fur. Who knows if he ever had another name, before being kicked to the curb by persons unknown.

When Ed moved from the neighborhood, Smokey started hanging around our house. The granddaughters loved him. My wife began feeding him.

Last winter, my wife bought Smokey an insulated house, which he used for a time, until a neighbor put out an electric heating pad for him. Vintage Smokey.

Smokey was an opportunist and in him that was an endearing quality. Mostly, Smokey was always eager for some attention if you happened to sit on the porch steps.

Yet, even with his need for affection, there was always a skittish manner to him. He hated to feel cornered or startled, and would dash off wildly, even if one of us familiar people approached too quickly.

Smokey also had habit of coming from wherever he was to say goodbye to those grandddaughters when they left after a visit.

I lived in fear that Smokey’s demise would come under the wheels of car during one his blind dashes, and perhaps it did.

It makes me angry that there are so many Smokey types, animals deemed unwanted and put out into the world alone by their insensitive owners.

It also angers me that these irresponsible types count on others such as my wife to pick up the ball for them.

As I told my wife, in the typical verbiage used to comfort her – and me – at times such as these, she had made his life better in recent years and for that he is/was as grateful as a feral cat could be.

We will miss Smokey. You would, too, if you’d ever encountered him.

There is historical precedent for the shocking preferences of the political left in this country and around the world.

As stunning as it might be currently to right-thinking (pun intended) individuals to see many on the left siding with illegal immigrants, narco-terrorists, violent law-breakers and other dregs of society, it is not something new under the sun.

While rational types do not condone welfare, mortgage or voting fraud, those on the left embrace the concepts.

I’m reminded of a quote from a William F. Buckley Jr. book I read in my youth, in which a 1960s rioter, carting a TV he had looted from a store, proclaimed “How else are we going to get color TV into the hands of the masses?”

How, indeed!

Similarly, in view of the across-the-board failure of socialism wherever practiced, how can so many leftists champion that losing socio-economic principle? And yet they do.

Feel free to indulge in an obligatory headshake at this point.

Again, this open-arms approach to obviously wrong moral, ethical and legal matters is merely a repeat of history.

For example, progressive types around the world openly embraced Hitler and Mussolini while both were still alive and in power. In a case of art imitating life, the move “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” features a title character who openly admires Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini.

In reality, there were many like her. A story on discoverthenetworks.org cites notables of the 1930s such as H.G. Wells (he of the War of the Worlds book), NAACP co-founder W.E.B. DuBois, playwright George Bernard Shaw, humorist Will Rogers (who never met a man he didn’t like, and he did meet Mussolini) and other reporters, commentators and shapers of public opinion who just adored two of the more infamous people in the history of mankind.

Should we be surprised that contemporary leftists cream their jeans over the Maryland Dad, socialists/communists holding elective office and the millions of illegal aliens who crowd our schools, welfare system and courts, while likely also voting left in the process?

The world recovered from the Mussolini and Hitler worship — sort of — but it required World War II.

Hopefully there is an easier solution this time, but I’m not optimistic.

Images of Aaron Rodgers, bloodied from a particularly tough quarterback sack by the Buffalo Bills Sunday, brought back memories of former New York Giants quarterback Y.A. Tittle and one of the most iconic photos in modern day sports.

The situations shared many details, including both occurring in Pittsburgh and both leading to defensive scores, but mainly they were metaphors for Hall of Fame careers suddenly running on empty.

In 1963, when the Steelers were the lovable losers of the NFL, the team surprisingly contended for a playoff spot, only to have it vaporize in a late-season loss to Tittle’s Giants.

A year later, there was a September rematch at Pitt Stadium and the Steelers were looking for revenge. The Giants got out to a 14-0 lead, but Tittle was brutalized on a hit by Steelers defensive end John Baker, a blow that cracked Tittle’s sternum, pulled rib cage muscles, knocked loose his helmet and produced a flow of blood on his bald head.

The ball fluttered in the air due to the contact, was picked off by tackle Chuck Hinton, and Hinton waltzed 8 yards to the end zone for a touchdown that sparked a Steelers comeback win.

Tittle, dazed, kneeling in the end zone with blood running down his forehead, was snapped by a photographer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. In an incredible editorial decision, the paper ran four other pictures the next day and not this one.

Only later, when Sports Illustrated got permission to run the picture, was it recognized, winning an award for best sports picture of the year.

The photo went on to hang in the Pro Football Hall of Fame and was used in a campaign ad when the aforementioned Baker ran for sheriff of Wake County, N.C., and won with a slogan “If you don’t obey the law, this is what Big John will do to you.”

Tittle looked ancient in the photo. He was a month short of his 38^th birthday and the 1964 season would be his last.

Now, let’s move on to Rodgers, who turned 42 years of age Tuesday.

From the start, I wondered in this space about the wisdom of the Steelers signing an ancient quarterback, albeit one with a Hall of Fame resume. Suffice it to say Rodgers isn’t going to the Hall based on recent seasons.

It can be argued that Rodgers lacks a solid supporting cast, but that doesn’t change the reality that he meanders around the pocket like Joe Biden trying to find a stage exit.

Quick to unload the ball or blame others, apparently unclear in his decision process, and lacking the elusiveness that once was his calling card, Rodgers is a sliver of his former self.

Already playing with a broken left wrist, Rodgers was wandering aimlessly in the pocket vs. Buffalo when Bills lineman Joey Bosa planted him from behind and in the process shook loose the football, leading to a go-ahead TD return, putting the Bills on top to stay.

Rodgers left the game with blood streaming from a cut on his nose, but returned later, to no effect.

For his birthday Tuesday the Steelers gave Rodgers a new wide receiver, but that is unlikely to be enough to cure what ails him.

A more appropriate gift might have been a photo of Rodgers, bleeding and stumbling from the field Sunday.

I read a story online that Tittle had what he referred to as his “Blood Picture” in his trophy room, along with a Hall of Fame plaque and various SI covers on which he had appeared.

Tittle had a sense of history and Rodgers might want to recognize that a similar situation now is repeating in Pittsburgh.

About that Pitt-Miami college football prediction I made Friday, never mind.

If only I were a heavy drinker, I could plead drunkenness. Would you believe it was the bit of undigested beef, blot of mustard, crumb of cheese or fragment of underdone potato like what Scrooge blamed for his hallucinations?

Didn’t think so.

Regardless, suggesting Pitt would play Miami close and easily could win outright have proved to be the ravings of a lunatic.

Oh, for a time it seemed to be on course early Saturday afternoon. Pitt scored at the outset of the second quarter to go up 7-3 and the prediction seemed to be prescient.

Then Miami scored and scored, and scored, on the way to a 38-7 demolition of the Panthers, before a crowd charitably announced at 49,845. Considering all those glaring yellow empty seats, Acrisure Stadium must hold 100,000-plus when full.

The people who stayed away from this Top 25 matchup knew better than I what to expect.

Pitt was, in the words of the announcers, “undisciplined.” When things went bad, it seemed as if the players were reading from the quotebook of coach Pat Narduzzi, but got confused. The “Narz” said he didn’t care if his team lost by 100 or more to Notre Dame, not to Miami.

Alas, the Panthers played as if they were willing to have a C-note laid on them.

Miami, inexplicably locked in a battle with Notre Dame — a team the Hurricanes beat this season — to get into the national championship playoffs, certainly would have liked a triple-digit final margin.

As it was, Miami beat Pitt by a larger amount than Notre Dame had two games back, not that it matters because, Notre Dame.

As a former high school football coach friend of mine used to say after one-sided losses, at least we (Pitt) saved the uniforms.

And now we contemplate whether the Steelers will underperform as badly as Pitt did. Recall, the second half of my Pittsburgh sports weekend parlay was the Steelers having good prospects against the visiting Bills Sunday.

The positive news is it would be tough for the Steelers to look more pathetic against Buffalo than Pitt did vs. Miami and, by extension, make my pick look as bad or worse.

Opportunity is knocking for Pitt and the Steelers. Will they answer the door?

Begin with Pitt. Now that coach Pat Narduzzi no longer is making ridiculous statements about being OK with losing games by 100 points, his Panther team is halfway toward his goal of losing to Notre Dame, but winning two remaining ACC games.

That might be enough to get Pitt to the ACC title game, or not.

Last week, Georgia Tech succumbed to Pitt in ridiculous, error-prone fashion. Even as I write this Friday evening, Tech is playing better, but still losing to Georgia in a massive rivalry game.

That leaves Pitt contemplating a noon kickoff Saturday at the stadium formerly known as Heinz Field. Visiting Miami is a 7-point favorite and the bettor in me thinks that’s high, for many reasons.

Begin with the game location. It’s going to be cold in Pittsburgh Saturday, perhaps a problem for a team from the sunny south. I’ve seen such teams struggle mightily with low temperatures, the polar opposite of the way asthmatic former Steelers running back Jerome Bettis used to dread games played in steamy, humid locales.

Also, Miami is a fragile, uneven team, prone to errors. Their high-buck quarterback isn’t exactly Mr. Clutch.

Pitt can’t expect Miami to put up minimal resistance, as Georgia Tech did, but this is a game the Panthers could win outright.

Just keep Narduzzi away from microphones and the opportunity to re-state how he’s just fine with losing by 100 points.

And now, consider the Steelers, your leaders of the AFC North by virtue of being the only division team with a winning record.

Talk about dumpster fires, that’s the AFC North.

The Steelers are, in theory, staring at a tough game Sunday vs. Buffalo even though the Bills are a disappointing 7-4, and find themselves in the unimaginable position of trailing New England in the AFC East.

Of course, the Bills are favored, by 3.5 points at last check. But the Bills have been anything but consistent this year.

For this game, at the playing site formerly known as Heinz Field, the spotty Bills offense will be missing both tackles.

And the soft, cheesy Buffalo defense could be just what the doctor ordered for a Steelers offense anticipating the return of ancient quarterback Aaron Rodgers, he of the injured wrist.

Weather won’t bother the Bills, being from snowy Buffalo and all that. But the banged up nature of the team’s offense, and the fact the defense, particularly against the run, reminds of the French vs. the Nazis in World War II, mean this Buffalo team is a pale imitation of what many considered a Super Bowl group.

I know, I know, the Steelers are inconsistent, with outings such as the loss to the Cincinnati Bengals while that team was playing without quarterback Joe Burrow. I also know the Steelers played the Bears tough in recent weeks, the very same Bears who knocked off Philadelphia’s Eagles Friday.

The Steelers should be able to keep it close and maybe win Sunday.

Same for Pitt Saturday.

Let’s see how it all turns out.