Favorites: Factory Fumbles, Fare Findings, and Football’s GOAT
September 16, 2025 — ICE’s Hyundai/LG raid stalls the plant until 2026, SB 79 clears the finish line, and TikTok’s “deal” leaves editorial control in Beijing.
There's so much alpha in wandering through nature trying to figure out how stuff works.
There's a lot of other news going on, so I had not heard about this Nepal thing. A VP from Discord quipped (cached) that "This is not what I meant when I told the team we had to design for all kinds of use cases". By the way, the PM's wife actually didn't die, although she's seriously injured.
Ok, I admit that I had to look it up, but a Roman “monitor” is like an advisor who keeps you up to date with something, and “discord” is civil strife. TBH, the Roman “discord monitor” is more like Twitter.
I was not expecting to see Steve Young as the GOAT, but I’ll take it! Here's the full article. It's also worth noting that Young is only best by this one particular measure, but not in Wins Above Replacement.
Longer Reads
• A thread showing where SB 79 will apply in Los Angeles. (src)(cached)
• FBI incompetence will make it plausible that Robinson is not convicted, Patel just has done so many foolish things (cached) that it may be difficult to get a conviction even with very strong evidence. (src)(cached)
Flotsam and Jetsam
– Excerpts are out from Harris’ new book. She says some negative stuff about Biden, but she still is extremely deferential/cautious (cached). Former Biden staff, on reading the excerpts, are furious. If they’d just said all this mean stuff during the election it would have helped. Her apparent closeness with the Biden admin was a significant impediment to her popularity (cached). (src)(cached)
– Trump confidant Laura Loomer has now deleted her post attacking Charlie Kirk. (src)(cached)
– In response to the argument that Liberals called Trump 'Hitler', Hanania retorts "Vance is the only national politician who called Trump Hitler". But the real highlight is the community note, which reads "RFK Jr also called Trump Hitler". (src)(cached)
– The ICE raid on the Hyundai / LG battery factory was such a bad mistake that the Trump admin now seems to believe it was a mistake. It seems to have occurred in part because they sent Homeland Security agents who normally do counter-terrorism to do worksite enforcement (cached). Plus, who's doing counter-terrorism right now? Not these agents! One person joked (cached) that China should be calling ICE on every promising construction project they can find. It now appears progress will be paused until at least 2026 (cached). (src)(cached)
– California passed SB 79 after like 6 years of trying to pass something along these lines. Texas YIMBYs are impressed with how CA YIMBYs just keep pushing no matter how long it takes. (src)(cached)
– If you do polling about free bus fare, when you specifically offer each of: fewer buses, fewer routes, or fewer city services, a majority of New Yorkers choose to keep bus fares. (src)(cached)
– NY Congressman Thomas Suozzi says he won't be endorsing Mamdani, despite the fact that Governor Hochul has. Suozzi was asked about this, and he admits that given Hochul easily beat him when he ran against her, he's in no position to give her advice. (src)(cached)
– Trump’s deal with China on Tik Tok appears to be a total capitulation to Beijing. They'll get to keep editorial control (cached), even though that's pretty explicitly illegal. (src)(cached)