"The lady doth protest too much, methinks"

Are you following the pot's latest exercise at calling the kettle black?

Ken Avidor started the whole thing at PRT Moondoggie on January 7, by lying about the activities of Mike Carrato, aka Transenth and author of WeinerWatch:

Yonah Freemark had a post about PRT on the Transport Politic blog last month. Freemark said the following about the veracity of the PRT promoters:

Over the years, most attempts at implementing PRT have failed due to a lack of interest from investors — and as a result of deceptive, dishonest campaigns by “pod people” who simply promise too much.

...Many of the pro-PRT comments came from "Mike C" (Michael Carrato), formerly "A Transportation Enthusiast" , author of the Weinerwatch blog and other nasty stuff on the blogosphere and on Wikipedia.
...
The fact that the PRT industry tolerates and encourages Carrato's activities should suggest that it is not an industry at all, but a deception... a distraction from the real-world transportation choices public officials and citizens face.

Of course Avidor is totally distorting Carrato's modus operandi. What Carrato does is offer accessible and research-based explanations to conceptual and technical questions about PRT. But only when a commenter is openly confrontational and factually wrong does Carrato respond in kind.

Therefore on January 8, Carrato responded to Avidor by having a little fun, writing about Ken and his longtime friend and co-blogger, the federal fugitive Mark Knapp:

So anyway, I was looking for an different angle on this hilarious development, and I started thinking about Ken Avidor , the self-styled investigative reporter who claims to have "exposed the PRT scam". Ken Avidor, who thinks "LIM" is a PRT company, when it is actually a type of electric motor. Ken Avidor, who looked at a 10 year old satellite photo of ULTra PRT's test track site and claimed it had been bullozed (hint: the photo was taken before the track was built).

Yes, we've all had fun watching Avidor's sometimes bumbling, always inaccurate, "investigations" through the years. But with the Knapp revelation, Avidor took bumbling to a new level. Think about it: the whole time Avidor was investigating all the so-called "crooks and liars" of the PRT world, his best friend and blog partner was allegedly using stolen credit cards, and Avidor never even noticed!

So when they went out to dinner and Knapp was always picking up the check, wouldn't you think Avidor would get suspicious? Where was this luddite Green getting all this spending money? And why was he signing his credit slips "Mr. Nussbaum"?

No, Avidor didn't notice, and I'm not surprised in the least. I mean, if he can't even understand the concept of a dated satellite photo, is he ever going to grasp a high tech crime like identity theft? Of course not. So when I read that Avidor claimed he had no idea about Knapp, I believed him 100%. I'll even testify on his behalf if he wants me to, that's how convinced I am of Avidor's complete lack of skill as an investigative reporter.

Source

"Mr. Nussbaum"! HA!

I know it's hard to believe (or maybe not) but Ken Avidor, the shameless propagandist who has been lying about PRT and impugning the motives of PRT supporters all these years, actually is offended by Carrato's obviously satirical post! As we have seen before, Ken Einstein can't let anything drop, so he blogged in response:

...This is an email from Michael Carrato of Buffalo, New York, responding to the previous post:

Ken,

I just wanted to thank you for your recent posts mentioning my name. Maybe it's vanity, but I'm really happy I revealed myself to you and I get a little thrill every time you mention me. Maybe I'll even get my 15 minutes out of this! :-)
...
Also, what's going on with the whole Mark Knapp thing? Surely you realize that your association with him all those years is pretty damning, right? And aren't you supposed to be some sort of investigative reporter? How could an investigative reporter spend so much time collaborating with Knapp and NOT be aware of his illegal activities? Either you aren't a very good reporter... or you were in on it! I'll assume the latter, since I already know that's true. :-)

[Avidor added the bold]

Ken Avidor also replied to Carrato by email, whining: "You have made serious, false and defamatory statements concerning me."

Have you, dear readers, noticed the hilarious thing? The WeinerWatch post being satirical commentary, the only thing really defamatory is the followup statement "I'll assume the latter, since I already know that's true."

Which was in a private email. Which Avidor made public by posting it on PRT Moondoggie.

Can he sue himself for defamation?

Also today:
Avidor continues to ignore fact that

the City of Irvine, CA, has apologized for

saying PRT is "Not Feasible"

gPRT Hey Ken, I bet you can find a Mr. or Mrs. Nussbaum who will sue