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This is classic Cecil Adams snark. Having read a bunch of his pieces, I am totally certain he meant “finally, some people who weren’t idiots.”

As someone who has read none of his pieces (that I remember?), that was my read as well.

What’s the opposite of the “room-temperature” insult? Maybe “Death Valley temperature” would be at least one standard deviation above average.

Death Valley would be a hilariously poor metaphor, since it's known for both very high and very low temperatures.

Yeah well no one talks about Death Valley as in “woah the diurnal variation” though.

That's always been my association, but maybe I'm just weird like that!

Thanks for you input.

Yeah, I think he was going for "Finally some people who weren't completely clueless" (i.e. willing to claim that hepatitis, pancreatitis, and bone rot could be caused by nausea/hysteria).