Hello Minnesota 6th Congressional District!

Nedken Luddidor the Minnesota anti-PRT propagandist is posting at Dump Bachmann again. You'll never guess on what subject -- oh, who am I kidding. It's PRT again.

Michele Bachmann voiced her support for Rep. Mark Olson's and Gary Dean Zimmermann's Personal Rapid Transit scheme... Bachmann also sponsored legislation for PRT when she was a state senator.

The next paragraph is a litany of distorted or already-disproven talking points about a technology, not Bachmann, so I'll spare you from mentioning them here.

I'm a recovering politician, though, so one observation does leap to mind:

PRT is not an issue in Congress.

Don't want to spend money to develop PRT? I think the majority of Minnesotans have already spoken on that through their legislators. Taxi 2000 has received no tax incentives or exemptions from the state, and likely never will. You have been protected from PRT. Move on!

Might PRT receive Federal money someday? Maybe. But it would have to pass the rigorous criteria of either the USDOT's Large or Small Starts programs. In other words, such funds for PRT would be extensively reviewed by a Kucinich Administration (okay, more likely a Clinton Administration, but you know what I mean). Move on!

Maybe I'm spoiled. I've got Jim McDermott; maybe I don't fully appreciate what it's like to have a loony right-wingnut like Bachmann representing me. I would share Sunny Jim with you if I could, honest. But all I can do is urge you to Dump Bachmann! Please!

But how is the Dump Bachmann Blog going to do that effectively, how are you going to convince the all-important swing voters, if one of your Dump Bachmann Team is wasting his time obsessing about non-issue PRT?

Move on! Health insurance, Iraq, the economy, the deficit, civil liberties, and a host of other issues need solutions from a progressive majority. Labridor's PRT obsession is a distraction from that.

Remember 2006? Didn't the Propagandist write then,

When is MPR going to ask Bachmann about her promoting and writing legislation for PRT? MPR did a couple of stories on PRT and even quoted Bachmann a few years ago....

http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2004/04/26_mccalluml_prt/....

Why Has Bachmann's promotion of PRT gone down the memory hole? Source

Of course, Bachmann was then elected. And didn't Lloydletta's Eric Zaetsch then write that PRT "probably was a non-issue"? So why would it be an issue this time?

But something tells me that a certain Minneapolis cartoonist is going to persist in making PRT the centerpiece of his Dump Bachmann efforts in 2008. It worked so well last time, didn't it?

Update (5/22/08): PRT is still his only Bachmann issue

gPRT
Ken Avidor is the +/- 3% margin of error

Where does the Propagandist keep his money...

... if he's against savings accounts???

..."right-wing libertarians who think everything should be privatized and "personal"; personal saivngs [sic] accounts, personal rapid transit... you get the picture." Source

gPRT
Under a mattress buried in Ken Avidor's back yard?

Reminder - Vectus PRT is not Raytheon PRT...

... even though the Minnesota anti-PRT propagandist keeps claiming otherwise.

There is merely a superficial resemblance.

Also today: See the first official Vectus video (Quicktime format)

gPRT
Ken Avidor needs his eyes checked

Propagandist-TC Daily Planet love affair kaput

Remember when Ken Avidor the Minnesota anti-PRT propagandist was wearing the vaunted mantle of Transportation Editor of the Twin Cities Daily Planet? Yes, he got a lot of mileage out of it for a while, using the title to gain credibility in pushing his disinformation -- such as here, here and here.

Then in June we noticed it had been quite some time since he had written anything for TCDP. His name disappeared from the masthead.* A series of articles on light rail appeared on TCDP -- not written by him, but by one Jane McClure. (At that time a Minneapolis source said of McClure, "If TC Daily Planet has Jane McClure, they are starting to gain a lot of credibility in my book. She is great... really informative without being biased.")

After some period of silence, the gloves came off and, suddenly, Avidor attacked his old mates -- in a long post at Lloydletta's Nooz (sic) he implies that TCDP editor Mary Turck pulled and changed an article about a proposed biomass plant due to a complaint from the office of Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak.

The background on the biomass plant is pretty irrelevant to our present purpose -- he obfuscates with a lot of smoke about the project's history, with zero linkage to the revision issue. What is notable is that Avidor manages to knit himself the start of a conspiracy theory: it seems a law firm involved in the project was also involved in the Avidor-hated 35W access project. Yes, believe it or not, a law firm has more than one client.

For her part, Turck responded that she was exercising this thing known as editorial judgment, and actually made the contested article longer -- and also corrected basic factual errors. Which is funny, because it means Avidor is on Turck's case partly because she fixed mistakes, something he has never done (for instance).

Phew! I hate it when mommy and daddy fight.

What caused the relationship to sour? Avidor's own account of the breakup makes it clear that original TCDP editor Craig Cox made two fatal mistakes: he asked Avidor to write for free but paid others and, in an article for Harvard's Nieman Foundation for Journalism, Cox failed to mention Avidor by name. The ever-prickly Ken also took exception with Cox's opinion that amateur journalists may not have the time or training to always provide quality and reliable reporting.
Cox and Turck had better be careful; Avidor might give them the Zoe Naylor treatment (see Nov. 5).

Also Oct. 6 -- Avidor makes a fool of himself in front of actual liberals at Daily Kos

gPRT
I got me a Chrysler as big as a Ken Avidor, it's about to set sail* Though at this time Avidor's commercial Roadkill Bill website is still listed in the Transportation section under "Helpful Links."

Speaking of biting

On September 10, Kenwood Humidor the Minnesota anti-PRT propagandist related in his Dump Mark Olson blog that a PRT company has had problems. In fact, he wrote:

Another PRT Company Frog/2getthere is "failliet" (bankrupt)

and another one bites the dust:
Frog/2getthere, the company that has devised the unmanned peoplemover, is bankrupt.

Source

But this post is not about defending that company, as if it needed it. It is not about the propagandist calling Frog "PRT," when in the past he has claimed it is not PRT.

Nor is it about the mistake in the post's headline: "Another PRT company... bankrupt." What other PRT companies have gone bankrupt? Recently?

This post is also not about the background to the story, which explains that the original Frog company may be bankrupt, but its separate units have reorganized and continue to operate:

Frog has restructured earlier this year, splitting the company in three independent companies. The industrial business is still conducted by Frog AGV Systems, while Advanced Cargo Transhipment (ACT) is responsible for harbor applications and 2getthere for APM-systems. Source, #5 (Transport-Innovators group)

Therefore, the part in his headline about 2getthere being "failliet" is wrong too. This post could be about that; but it's not.

What this post is about is that Kiln Ovendoor put up his "failliet" news item on September 10 -- two days after the Transport-Innovators message was posted. The full story was available. Kenwood simply cherry-picked the part of the story that served his propaganda purpose.



gPRT
Ken Avidor gives your pet a shiny, healthy coat

M.I.A. on S.L.U.T.

Conventional rail transit is being mercilessly bashed today in a Seattle P-I Sound Off, but the Minnesota anti-PRT propagandist and his poss-y are nowhere to be found. Why do they reserve their attacks only for innovators? Because "bashers" who are not active technology innovators are not perceived to be a threat to light rail and streetcars?



gPRT
Ken Avidor: Two! Two! Two mints in one!

Still waiting

Ben Humidor the Minnesota anti-PRT propagandist has asked whether the ULTra personal rapid transit system is greenwashing for the Terminal 5 expansion at Heathrow Airport. Then he answers his own question.

For my part, I'm still waiting for him to explain why ULTra is greenwashing, but train service to T5 by at least three rail lines (and a shiny new station) is not greenwashing.



gPRT
Lead danger prompts Ken Avidor recall by Mattel