Worth Knowing, Probably Not Quite Threadworthy 12/11

[SVPete]

LESS FOR MOORE

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2025/12/less-for-moore.php

Democrat Maryland Governor Wes Moore is an ambitious guy. The Washington Free Beacon now does its thing giving Moore the kind of treatment the New York Times loves to give to Republicans. As always, however, the Free Beacon’s story is fairly (and, in this case, intensely) reported. Moore has been engaged in a classic case of self-help enhancing his résumé. Andrew Kerr reports “Wes Moore Won a Key White House Post Claiming He Was ‘Touted as a Foremost Expert’ on Radical Islam and Was Studying for an Oxford PhD—But His Thesis Is ‘Missing’ and There’s No Evidence He Was Ever a Doctoral Student” (“As he positions himself as a contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, the governor with the golden résumé is likely to face mounting scrutiny for repeated exaggerations and falsehoods regarding his athletic, academic, and military achievements”).

This is almost funny:

The mystery surrounding the title of and content of Moore’s thesis could be resolved with a cursory review of the document. But that, too, poses a problem for Moore. His office could not produce a copy of the document since we began requesting it in early November.

And good luck finding it at Oxford’s legendary Bodleian Library, which archives all MLitt theses from the university’s graduate students. A senior librarian told the Free Beacon she couldn’t find “any trace” of Moore’s paper, because he never submitted it.

“I can see on his record that he has not submitted his thesis to the Bodleian, so they wouldn’t have a record of it,” Oxford deputy communications chief Julia Paolitto told the Free Beacon. “MLitt students are required to submit their thesis to the Bodleian in order to confer their degree at a ceremony, however as Mr. Moore has never had a ceremony this is not a requirement he would have needed to fulfil.”

An academic fraud running for the D Presidential nomination? Academic fraud might be a plus on a Dem's political resume'.

[SVPete]

EXCLUSIVE: Democrats Are Behind Your Crippling Electricity Bills, Report Confirms

https://dailycaller.com/2025/12/10/exclusive-democrats-crippling-electricity-bills-affordability-utilities/

State policies are a monumental factor in electricity costs, and Democrat-led states have driven prices upward through pushing aggressive mandates and choking reliable power supply, according to a new report by the Institute for Energy Research (IER).

The new report, first provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation, found that blue states generally have higher electricity costs than red states. Titled “Blue States, High Rates. Electricity Prices: Elections Have Consequences,” IER’s report notes that all but one of the top 10 most expensive states for energy — measured by cost per kilowatt hour — are governed by Democrats.

In contrast, 80% of the states with the most affordable electricity costs per kilowatt hour are “reliably red,” according to IER. Twenty of the 25 states with the lowest electricity prices are red states, while only four are blue, and one is purple, the report states.

Always on Energy Research partnered with IER on the report.

“This is a blue state problem,” IER President Tom Pyle told the DCNF, arguing that prescribing any blame to President Donald Trump for soaring electricity costs is misplaced. “[America needs to] put an emphasis on providing dispatchable electricity generation, namely by keeping coal plants open, even building new coal plants, nuclear and particularly natural gas. I think the administration is doing everything they can in spite of what the blue states have been doing over the years. Other words, Trump’s trying to save them from themselves.”

Attacking and constricting/strangling electric utilities has been Lib and Prog orthodoxy in CA for over 5 decades, possibly for 6. CA went from building ahead of demand to having to "import" electricity in a matter of 2 or 3 decades, i.e. already "importing" electricity in the 80s or 90s.

[SVPete]

Well this should inspire DUmmie poutrage:

CNBC Panel Says Biden Owns The Affordability Crisis: ‘Full Stop’

https://www.dailywire.com/news/cnbc-panel-says-biden-owns-the-affordability-crisis-full-stop?author=Virginia+Kruta&category=undefined&elementPosition=4&row=3&rowHeadline=Latest+News&rowType=Vertical+Carousel&title=CNBC+Panel+Says+Biden+Owns+The+Affordability+Crisis%3A+‘Full+Stop’

Host Joe Kernen and guest, former SEC Chair Jay Clayton, declared on Wednesday that President Joe Biden should have full and complete ownership of the affordability crisis that is currently facing many Americans.

Kernen raised the issue early Wednesday morning on “Squawk Box,” arguing that the economy under President Donald Trump was still struggling under some of the baggage Biden’s economic policies had left behind.

“The affordability issue is from the 22% increase in prices and inflation under Biden, there’s just — full stop, right there. That’s the affordability issue — and you gotta be able to explain that,” Kernen said.

“That’s right,” Clayton agreed. “And look, I think that with the economic team — President Trump and the economic team led by Scott Bessent — you have people who very much understand this. And it was a — they were thrown, what I would say, the worst economy for the average American in my adult lifetime, in terms of like you said, the incredible increase in prices at the household.”

Dear DU onlookers,

If you have to label facts "Reich-Wing", the problem is with your ideas, not with the facts.

[SVPete]

Sask. woman considers assisted dying because she can't get needed surgery for rare disease

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/medical-assisted-dying-maid-parathyroid-disease-sask-legislature-cockrill-9.6993461

A Saskatchewan woman says she is considering medical assistance in dying (MAID) because she can’t get the surgery she desperately needs.

For the past eight years, Jolene Van Alstine has suffered from a rare form of parathyroid disease,  normocalcemic primary hyperparathryroidism (nPHPT).

It causes extreme bone pain, nausea and vomiting.

“Every day I get up and I'm sick to my stomach and I throw up and I throw up,” Van Alstine said.

She visited the provincial legislature on Tuesday to plead for help getting surgery to remove her remaining parathyroid gland.

Currently there is no Saskatchewan surgeon able to perform the operation. 

Van Alstine said she must be referred out of province, but she can’t obtain a referral without first being seen by an endocrinologist — and none of them are accepting new patients.

Government-run "healthcare", like some "managed care" orgs in the US do not handle extreme and rare diseases and conditions. In this case, the gooberment imposes a condition on her finding care she needs where it can be found (= gooberment constriction of care in her province), and gooberment constriction of physicians capable of satisfying that bureaucratic condition makes her unable to get a diagnosis to satisfy that bureaucratic condition.

[enslaved1]

Cyberattack Reportedly Paralyzes Russia’s Military Registration Database

Anonymous hackers have breached a key developer of Russia’s digital military draft system, the head of the draft-dodging nonprofit Idite Lesom said Thursday.

“For the next few months, the system (which holds 30 million records) will not be able to send people off to kill or die,” Grigory Sverdlin wrote on Facebook.

Sverdlin said his group received a large set of documents from the hackers, including the source code, technical documentation and internal communications from the developer, Russia’s software and digital solutions provider Micord.

Micord’s website said it was under “technical maintenance” when it was accessed on Thursday.

The exiled investigative news outlet IStories, which received the documents from Idite Lesom, said it confirmed the breach with Micord director Ramil Gabdrahmanov.

Interesting, if real.  Russia is denying anything happened, of course, but information coming out of Ukraine isn't always reliable either. 

[Zathras]

Fatal ejection incident on Russian airbase leaves two dead

By Dylan Malyasov- Dec 8, 2025

Two Russian military airmen were killed in an incident involving the unexpected activation of an ejection system while their aircraft was parked in a shelter, according to Russian defense blogger Ilya Tumanov, the founder of the “Fighterbomber” Telegram channel.

“Yesterday, in one of the bomber aviation regiments, the ejection system was triggered on a plane standing in a shelter,” Tumanov wrote. “The pilot and navigator sustained injuries incompatible with life.”

Tumanov did not specify the location of the incident or the aircraft type involved. However, he said a government commission is now working at the site to investigate.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/defence-blog.com/fatal-ejection-incident-on-russian-airbase-leaves-two-dead/%3famp

A two man crew on a fighter bomber means it was either a SU-24 or SU-34. Still it's one hell of a way to go.

[SVPete]

I'm no genius, but there would have to be 4 "suspects" in that Su-24/34 ejection incident: pilot; navigator (weapons officer?); ground crew person; electrical or mechanical malfunction.

That the plane was in a shelter suggests that it was in European Russia, i.e. in an area within range of Ukrainian drones.