Mr. & Mrs. McCarthyism

"I would say, what I would say is that the news media should do a penetrating expose and take a look -- I wish they would. I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America? I think the people would love to see an expose like that."

Doesn't that sound familiar? What other Minnesota propagandist has been saying things like that -- for years?

"I would like to see the media investigate why Bachmann, Olson, Vandeveer and Zimmermann promoted PRT" Source

"The next time you read a puff piece... write the publication or Web site and demand a real investigation of the PRT flim-flam." Source

"The next time you read a puff piece... let them know you don't buy their con -- write the publication or website and demand a real investigation of the PRT flim-flam." Source

"As I have said before, there needs to be an investigation of PRT by the major media before the election this fall." Source

"The media in the Twin Cities has let the electorate down by not investigating the role PRT has played in Minnesota politics. I hope there will be an investigation of PRT before next year's election" Source

"I have asked the Star Tribune to investigate the claims of the PRT promoters for years." Source

"Perhaps the best way to sort fact from fiction about PRT is to ask an investigative reporter to verify the claims of the PRT proponents... Perhaps GRIST would consider an investigative article on PRT?" Source

"I've been encouraging publications to assign reporters to investigate PRT and sort out fact from fiction." Source

Kiln Ovendoor probably has all our names on a list in his pocket.

Hypocrisy alert: Kenwood guilt-by-associates PRT to Bachmann at 1:45 pm, Oct. 19.
Then at 2:02 pm he criticizes Bachmann for using guilt by association! (h/t Atren)

Hypocrisy Update (10/23): He posts again about Bachmann's guilt by association -- and then he GBAs Bachmann to Olson. Also GBAs PRT to Olson.

"I'm shocked, shocked to find there is guilt by association going on!"

gPRT
Ken Avidor says PRT isn't pro-America

Rehab

What do you do when you need to hide from your embarrassing past? Why, you "retire," then get someone to write a puff-piece on you to rehabilitate your image!

That's what a blogger named Roz has done, making the Minnesota anti-PRT propagandist the subject of the first of a series about "creative people I admire" (Update, 3/6/09. Months later, the only other person she admires appears to be Gumby -- not that there's anything wrong with that).

Roz lists a whole mess of stuff about Kenwood that makes him sound like a modern day Albert Schweitzidor -- down to the interest in parasites and disease! Roadkill Bill, blogging, bicycling, and civic participation are all mentioned.

But wait -- Roz doesn't mention anything about Labridor's greatest claim to fame, that for which he is known on at least two continents. That's right: nowhere does Roz mention Kennel Ration's vendetta against Personal Rapid Transit, and his smear campaign against its supporters. Just like he forgot to mention PRT when he "retired" from blogging in January of this year.

I guess you didn't know about that, Roz. That's OK. Maybe he doesn't talk about it in the meatworld. Here's a secret -- I don't really talk about it either. Anymore. Because when I used to talk about it, people would be flabbergasted at the way Kenmore uses smear and Talking Points like he learned them at the feet of Karl Rove.

That's what your hero has been doing for the last five years, Roz -- making up stuff about a technology about which he knows nothing, and alleging a a decades-long conspiracy he tries to blame for everything from community blight in central England, to the failure to build light rail in Minneapolis in the 1970s.

A "commentator"? His record of inaccuracy is laughable. And yet he has never admitted his mistakes, even when caught.

Then there're the smears. There are lots of them, but for my money the most despicable was the time Ovendoor blamed the wrong company for a multi-fatality rail accident -- simply because the company's co-founder sits on the board of a PRT company.

In second place is Kenny-Boy's repeated use of guilt by association to attempt to discredit Prof. Ed Anderson, whose only sins are that he helped oppose the Reagan administration's MX missile policy, and now wants to improve public transit.

I guess if I had done all that, I'd want to bury it too.

New - Ovendoor is shocked, shocked to find that Smoochy Bachmann uses guilt by association!

gPRT
Ken Avidor -- English for cajones grande

Busted

Slap the truth-cuffs on Kennel Ration the Minnesota anti-PRT propagandist, another of his 'conjectures' has come up empty.

Back when the second Podcar City Conference was wrapping up, Labridor was making up all kinds of stuff about it not being a success (without attending in order to see for himself, natch):

"Podcar conference a bust," went one claim.

More guesswork: "I'm sure they also expected to see some national publicity come out about the conference. In the last few days... (crickets)." [ellipsis in original]

Is this supposed to mean "elitism"? "The Ithaca Podcar Conference Charging Students $60 (no food)"

And: "Only a handful of Ithacans showed up at the State Theater"

Well a photo record of the conference has finally been posted, and nothing refutes empty lies like some pictures:

Banquet

Day 1

At the press lunch

These are students! (Maybe $60 was a lot when Humidor was a student, back in the Coolidge Administration)

And how about these for media coverage? Do these qualify?

Rep. Hinchey Visits C.U. For Podcar Convention 9-15-08
Can PRT, or Podcars, Replace the Automobile? 9-18-08
Ithaca takes a hard look at podcars 9-20-08 (NY Times)
Ithaca, NY, wants to be America's 1st podcar city 10-10-08 (AP, which is therefore picked up all over the place)

More news hits

Far from a bust, then. Any comment, Kenwood? Kenwood? (crickets)

Also: "over 100 people" attended the State Theater event

gPRT
Ken Avidor used to be Ken Weiner, but decided to give up his meat name

That Was Fast (or, This Also Sounds Familiar)

A mere two weeks after writing --

I'm not going to be wasting time following the pathetic antics of... the Personal Rapid Transit pod people anymore.

Source

(In other words:)

Now lo and behold, here comes Kiln Ovendoor out of retirement with more of his reheated anti-PRT propaganda Talking Points.

This time his smears -- innocuously titled A Brief History of PRT in Minnesota -- are on the site of Minnesota 2020, a progressive think tank. Why Minnesota? I thought Kennel Ration said he lives in Alameda.

This time he's again trying to fool people into thinking that because some PRT supporters hold certain political positions on transit, all PRT supporters in the whole wide world must believe the same things.

The result is Kenwood's usual slanted and biased view of PRT. It's sad that someone with his record of willful, repeated distortion and inaccuracy (documented by multiple writers) has the nerve to call anything he writes about PRT a "history."

Welcome MN2020 readers: debunking the "PRT promoters helped to block the MTC proposal" lie

gPRT
Ken Avidor can't afford to retire -- his karma is bankrupt

What grade is a slippery slope?

This looks like fun. All these little guys need are elevated rail, automation and offline stations. Could Little Railroad Pods are a Joke be in our near futures?




gPRT
The Good, the Bad, and the Ken Avidor

It sounds familiar, somehow...

Yes, it's another end of another era for Kiln Ovendoor the Minnesota anti-PRT propagandist:

The Dump Mark Olson Blog Going Back Into Mothballs

...I'm not going to be wasting time following the pathetic antics of Rep. Mark Olson or his pals the Personal Rapid Transit pod people anymore.

Source

I know, he's declared victory so many times that his latest announcement of retirement from blogging is more underwhelming than usual.

The last time was when A Transportation Enthusiast and I called Kenwood on his kid-glove treatment of conservative Democrat Elwyn Tinklenberg. This followed on the heels of his embarrassment over the Ray Cox Affair, as well as Poolgate and a smear on Cornell University.

Kennel Ration needed to lay low for a while, so he claimed a New Year resolution (more then 2 weeks after Jan. 1) to spend less time on the internet, and made himself scarce.

It lasted until June.

As for the newest 'retirement,' I had several premises to choose from for this post. There was:

"Regulators seize Dump Mark Olson - Value of
blogger retirement sinks on repeated erroneous prediction
of foes' demise"

Topical -- but too wordy. I could also have gone with:

"End of the Propagandist - A Transportation Enthusiast
orders flags to be flown at 99.999-hundredths staff"

Or:

"A&E starts 15-year countdown clock to
Propagandist's where-are-they-now retrospective"

Or even:

"Propagandist quits to spend more time with Michele Bachmann"

But I think one image is all we need:



Will he be back? Of course he will! He's gonna be bogged down in his ill-conceived War on Gadgetbahn for a hundred years!

Read Part II

gPRT
You won't have Ken Avidor to kick around anymore

Against it before he was for it

Now he's an urban planner.

The city of Alameda (Kenwood claims he lives there) is working with the developer SunCal to redevelop Alameda Point, the site of the former Alameda Naval Air Station. Good idea? That's for the community to decide.

The Point is a sprawling 770 acre brownfield at the west end of Alameda's island.

One version of SunCal's proposal, option "B," was designed by reknowned planner Peter Calthorpe. The concept calls for 6,000 homes on 700 acres of the Point. This translates to 13,056 people on just over 1 square mile, nearly the density of San Francisco (16,634). Alameda's current density is on the order of 2500-ish per sq mi.

Calthorpe has designed it to have a PRT network, and SunCal wants to connect it to BART in Oakland. Therefore, Kenmore hates the "B" plan.

Kennel Ration says PRT is being put forward to get around environmental regulations that limit density, instead of offering "real solutions" for transit:

Is PRT also an Environmental Regulation-Busting Tool?[*]
. . .
PRT is being used to bamboozle citizens in Alameda into scrapping Measure A, a ballot initiative aimed to regulate development...

...The 1972 ballot initiative regulates lot size and forbids construction of housing units that would accommodate more than two families. The developer has put forward two potential options, both of which would require a ballot initiative, likely in 2009, that would waive Measure A at least at Alameda Point.

Instead of offering a real solution to the transportation needs of the people who move into those additional 2,000 units, Suncal offers an imaginary, snake-oil solution - PRT... CLEVER!!! Source

In other words, he is complaining the Point "B" plan ought to be using light rail. Here's his contradictory logic: with light rail, plan "B" would still be 13,056 people per sq mi. Hold on -- is that density "regulation-busting," or isn't it? Note also that Lubridor misrepresented Measure A's purpose -- it is not primarily to protect the environment, but to keep density low (no more than 2 families per lot). The slogan of the Keep Measure A campaign is "No Overcrowding."

But if the regulations aren't busted, that low density is not cost effective for light rail. And if you don't have density, the alternative is sprawl somewhere else. Humidor is either supporting Measure A against Smart Growth and higher densities that help any mass transit work better, or is fine with busting regulations if it is light rail doing the busting.

He's against Smart Growth before he was for it! He was a NIMBY until he wasn't!

Thermidor always thinks light rail is the solution and ignores the urban planning context. Now, I'm not an urban planner either. But I've looked at enough MUPs to notice some realities at Alameda that would render conventional, large-vehicle transit problematic, although not impossible.

It has to do with distance and cost. The most direct route for a light rail connection to BART is to go north about 1200 yards, to the West Oakland BART station.

Except there's something in the way: the Oakland Inner Harbor. This is a 300 yard wide navigable waterway. An expensive high bridge would be needed to cross it, in order to allow ocean-going freighters and the San Francisco ferries to pass beneath.

The alternative would be to run the light rail line east through the built-up area of Alameda. Not only would this create a beneficial transit connection to and for the rest of the city, but it would also allow light rail to cross the Inner Harbor channel at its narrowest point in the Fruitvale Bridge area, and then on to the Fruitvale BART station. These would be good results.

The problem is that it's about 4.8 miles to Fruitvale Bridge, and through the heart of town. Do you think Alameda or SunCal have $250 millionish for such a disruptive project? Light rail in this situation would be a non-starter politically. No redevelopment, no "busting" of regulations -- no Smart Growth. "CLEVER!!!"

* Notice his longtime and frequent use of the question mark. It's a classic cheat used by ignoramuses and propagandists -- a question mark turns a smear into a question. They don't really answer the question, they just present distortions, so to the casual reader it appears the smear is the answer to the question. Plus, if fact-checkers catch them lying, propagandists can use the excuse 'I was only asking a question.'

Update (11/23): Developer chooses the 4,000 home option

He's green until he's not (2012)

gPRT
Someone's knockin' on my Ken Avidor, somebody's ringin' the bell