Fact-Checking the "PRT Boondoggle" Blog
A project of the PRT NewsCenter

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Don't blame us

Ken Avidor the anti-PRT propagandist notes recently at the PRT Moondoggie that he doesn't get much e-mail from the pro-PRT side:
I don't get a "sizable amount of emails" about my "anti-PRT stance". In fact, I hardly get any emails from pod people.


He then uses this as a shred of evidence to back his claim that PRT doesn't have much support.

The reality is, there's a much simpler reason Ken never hears from us. It's found at his own website. Here it is:


--and the fine print reads:

Go on. You know you want to. 

What's next-- Ken claims no one supports PRT because there are no pro- comments posted at his PRT Moondoggie? Of course, there are no comments supporting him either- Hey, that must mean no one opposes PRT.

UPDATE - Don't Blame Us for This, Either: 
Incoming right-wing governors in Ohio and Wisconsin are refusing High Speed Rail funds because 1) they hate the federal government and 2) they want President Obama to fail. Ken Avidor thinks it's because the chairman of the Minnesota HSR Commission also supports PRT



Friday, December 10, 2010

Journalistic shmethics

Mock Journalist, Part XI

Ken Avidor's latest PRT Moondoggie post today revisits an old meme of his: that the internet accurately mirrors reality.  PRT-related forums don't have many members, he reasons, therefore PRT is unpopular.  The underlying logic is similar to This photo of Cardiff doesn't show the ULTra test track, therefore it must have been bulldozed.

Avidor has styled himself as some sort of muckraker and reporter, and tried to be an online news editor at the TC Daily Planet.  He has appointed himself a courtroom sketch artist.  He has even wailed about how hard it is to practice citizen journalism.

So readers of PRT Is a Joke IS A JOKE -- well aware of Ken's Fox-level journalism -- will get a good laugh (and shake their heads) over this: Ken reproduces a reader's email without permission. This despite the email including a specific instruction not to reproduce it.




Also:  This could be Ken's stupidest post in a long, long time. How many stupid things can YOU find in it?


AP (Avidor Putz) Stylebook

Wednesday, December 08, 2010

Pot Calls Kettle "Klassy"

Ken Avidor, whose smears, distortions and outright lies are recounted in this forum, today is taking great umbrage at being called names, and at the craaaaazy idea that American corporations have "outsourced" jobs to other countries. Because we all know that's not happening, no sir.


The correct term Ken's looking for is offshored, but other than that I think his hypocritical umbrage (as well as ignorance of current events) speaks for itself.




Archives: Ken Avidor slurs the Poles
-10/18/2009



gPRT

No really -- Ken is just trying to make India (as though there's just one Indian) think all PRT companies are thinking like Jack Slade. Ken thinks he can use that as a wedge to disrupt potential ULTra contracts in India. Simple-minded geopolitics, Ken.

Saturday, December 04, 2010

Wanted: used copy of the DSM-IV

Because there are some symptoms I want to look up.

By this time it's pretty much established that personal rapid transit is neither Democratic or Republican, right? Considering -- among others -- the greens backing the Ithaca program, the European Commission, and now the state of Punjab, it would be insane for anyone to continue to insist that PRT is only the domain of ultra-right wing Resmuglicans -- wouldn't it?

Yet that is what Ken Avidor does once again over at the PRT Moondoggie blog.

We've long since established that during 2003-04 (the legislative session when Michele Bachmann sponsored the PRT-related bill that Avidor keeps yammering on about) Democratic sponsors of PRT legislation outnumbered GOP sponsors 13 to 5.

But Ken doesn't like talking about that session anymore. Today he switches to the 2006 Mark "Slappy" Olson bill which went down 26 to 107; it's much friendlier to Avidor's propaganda needs, because the Yea vote was 24 GOP and 2 Democratic.

It's as if, in his mind, the facts from 2003-04 don't exist. What do you call such obsessive pigheadedness?

And the three members from 2006 vote he chooses to mention by name? All GOP. All of whom are in some way extremist or notorious.* This allows Ken to claim, "Minnesota's Worst Politicians Supported Personal Rapid Transit."

Totally ignoring that over the years it has been supported by a lot of good ones as well. Klassy as always, Ken!



* And list those items - police-blotter style - he does, not that they have anything to do with transportation. It's just more of Avidor's guilt by association