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Boring Company fined nearly $500K after it dumped drilling fluids into manholes

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Re: Boring Company fined nearly $500K after it dumped drilling fluids into manholes

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ProPublica is extremely left-wing. That doesn't imply that their journalism is low-quality or inaccurate, but it does suggest that their choice of stories will be colored by that ideological/establishment-friendly bent. You won't see them investigating the political influence exerted by public sector unions for example. Their X feed gives a pretty clear picture of that: https://x.com/propublica

"Don't dump toxic waste into fucking manholes" is "left-wing" now? You're gonna have a real head spin moment when you find out who founded the EPA!

Its more basic then that. This is follow laws as they are written. It should not be a left/right issue. If you dont like a law, that's why its a democracy.

Re: Boring Company fined nearly $500K after it dumped drilling fluids into manholes

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the idea in general, but show us how that applies to this company. They're at ~800 violations https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/elon-musks-boring-compan...

They didn't hire an inspector, and they counted each day they didn't hire the inspector as 700 different violations, so I don't really trust their reporting on this.

[deleted]

Re: Boring Company fined nearly $500K after it dumped drilling fluids into manholes

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't hire an inspector, and they counted each day they didn't hire the inspector as 700 different violations, so I don't really trust their reporting on this.

Isn't that atleast one violation per day? 800 assumes they were perfect and committed zero violations other than not having an inspector, so it's inaccurate because it probably is undercounting significantly.

It's ~700 for inspections and ~100 for other things. Which I'm not sure why would anyone discount as not important. Especially since they may be avoiding more fines due to missing inspections.

Re: Boring Company fined nearly $500K after it dumped drilling fluids into manholes

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just speculating here, but it could be that he doesn't want to risk doxing himself. If he emailed them from his personal email address, which contains his real name, the journalist could out him.

It would be extremely counterproductive for a ProPublica writer to maliciously dox someone who pointed out a logical inconsistency in their writing, if the writer's intent is to bolster their own trustworthiness. Any journalist crazy enough to do this would be forever out of a job because no source would ever speak to them again.

There's a lot of paranoia out there so this is good to know.

Re: Boring Company fined nearly $500K after it dumped drilling fluids into manholes

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ProPublica is extremely left-wing. That doesn't imply that their journalism is low-quality or inaccurate, but it does suggest that their choice of stories will be colored by that ideological/establishment-friendly bent. You won't see them investigating the political influence exerted by public sector unions for example. Their X feed gives a pretty clear picture of that: https://x.com/propublica

"Don't dump toxic waste into fucking manholes" is "left-wing" now? You're gonna have a real head spin moment when you find out who founded the EPA!

Of course not. But there are a myriad of wrong-doings from all sectors of the economy. Choosing to focus exclusively on the wrongdoings of interests that are obstacles to the coalition of unions, bureaucracies, and allied media that economically benefit from ever-increasing public spending (from 20% of GDP in 1950 to 38% today) is a case of shaping public opinion by selection.

Re: Boring Company fined nearly $500K after it dumped drilling fluids into manholes

#66
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ProPublica is extremely left-wing. That doesn't imply that their journalism is low-quality or inaccurate, but it does suggest that their choice of stories will be colored by that ideological/establishment-friendly bent. You won't see them investigating the political influence exerted by public sector unions for example. Their X feed gives a pretty clear picture of that: https://x.com/propublica

Why does left or right even matter? This is ordinary stuff that should be covered? If you've read the article, you can see how - they were told to stop, and refused - lied about what they did to make the problem look smaller - reversed corrective action as soon as they thought the inspectors left This has nothing to do with bias. A right wing outlet should've covered this too. They might have used some different word…

The systematic bias arises from story selection, not from whether a specific investigation is accurate.

So I am absolutely not suggesting this story is not accurate or that Boring Company isn't at fault.

In the long run selective coverage creates an inaccurate picture of reality: constant stories about private greed, almost none about institutional self-dealing within the state.

Re: Boring Company fined nearly $500K after it dumped drilling fluids into manholes

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That doesn't imply that their journalism is low-quality or inaccurate Anecdote: in some early reporting, I noticed a citation to a paper that didn’t support the purported argument. (It said the opposite.) I emailed the author, one of the founding journalists at Pro Publica and an award winner. He basically thanked me for the feedback and then left the article unchanged. Pro Publica is reputable for a small publicat…

What exactly was thing the subject matter? Was it something he could have reasonably disagreed with?

> Was it something he could have reasonably disagreed with?

No. He cited a paper showing the opposite effect from what he claimed it to be.

Re: Boring Company fined nearly $500K after it dumped drilling fluids into manholes

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That doesn't imply that their journalism is low-quality or inaccurate Anecdote: in some early reporting, I noticed a citation to a paper that didn’t support the purported argument. (It said the opposite.) I emailed the author, one of the founding journalists at Pro Publica and an award winner. He basically thanked me for the feedback and then left the article unchanged. Pro Publica is reputable for a small publicat…

Be specific. Which article and which citation? Otherwise this is insinuation or even slander. Edit to add: what you've done here is defame every member of the ProPublica staff, past and present (because you don't name a particular writer or article). There is no way for anyone from ProPublica to refute this. If you want to critique ProPublica honestly, quote a particular statement they've published.

> Be specific. Which article and which citation? Otherwise this is insinuation or even slander

I’m literally calling out a liar. Not sure how you missed that.

But sure. This is the article [1]. Excerpt from my e-mail to the author:

“I came across your post through Dealbook today. In your article you mention that it is ‘argued that [Sarbanes-Oxley] would hurt initial public offerings, which it didn’t.’ You link through to a working paper on the SSRN at ‘didn't’. From the paper linked to:

‘Although the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the 2003 Global Settlement have reduced the attractiveness of being public for small companies, we argue that the more fundamental problem is the increased inability of small companies to become and remain profitable.’

The paper, in whole, posits that structural changes in the attractiveness of exit by acquisition versus IPO are the salient factor behind a secular decrease in IPO activity…Furthermore, the paper directly concedes (see quote above) that SOX negatively impacted IPO activity. This is not how you represented it in your article.”

Eisinger’s response: “Thanks, [JumpCrisscross], for your thoughts.”

> what you've done here is defame every member of the ProPublica staff, past and present (because you don't name a particular writer or article)

I’m calling Jesse Eisinger unreliable. Since he’s a founder in good standing at Pro Publica, I’m calling out the publication. Honest journalists don’t get free passes for negligent or crooked bosses.

Pro Publica is worth reading. It is not authoritative—it does not hold itself up to journalistic standards, a rot which starts at the top.

(I’ve used the above exchange to block Pro Publica from influencing lawmaking on Cheyenne, Albany, Sacramento and D.C. I would want anything they say independently corroborated before being acted on.)

[1] https://www.propublica.org/article/the-sox-win-how-financial...

Re: Boring Company fined nearly $500K after it dumped drilling fluids into manholes

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly was thing the subject matter? Was it something he could have reasonably disagreed with?

> Was it something he could have reasonably disagreed with? No. He cited a paper showing the opposite effect from what he claimed it to be.

[deleted]

Re: Boring Company fined nearly $500K after it dumped drilling fluids into manholes

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be specific. Which article and which citation? Otherwise this is insinuation or even slander. Edit to add: what you've done here is defame every member of the ProPublica staff, past and present (because you don't name a particular writer or article). There is no way for anyone from ProPublica to refute this. If you want to critique ProPublica honestly, quote a particular statement they've published.

> Be specific. Which article and which citation? Otherwise this is insinuation or even slander I’m literally calling out a liar. Not sure how you missed that. But sure. This is the article [1]. Excerpt from my e-mail to the author: “I came across your post through Dealbook today. In your article you mention that it is ‘argued that [Sarbanes-Oxley] would hurt initial public offerings, which it didn’t.’ You link throug…

Not sure where you extract is supposed to come from, the paper argue that

> Many have blamed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and the 2003 Global Settlement’s effects on analyst coverage for the decline in IPO activity. We find very little support for the conventional wisdom, and offer an alternative explanation

No wonder you got ignored ..

Edit: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1954788

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