Ken Avidor's Longtime Friend Caught with Mrs. Nussbaum's Credit Cards

So everyone's heard by now how Ken Avidor's long time friend and blogging partner Mark Knapp was charged with aggravated identity theft for using credit cards obtained in another man's name.

There are so many hilarious ironies to this event that I had a hard time selecting which to write about. Most of the good quips have already been made: "the guilt-by-association king has guilty associations!", "Zimmermann is looking forward to having a fellow Green as a cellmate", and my personal favorite: "Green Party Gone Bad!"

The last, of course, is a reference to the blog, "greenpartygonebad.blogspot.com" that Mark Knapp and Ken Avidor shared right up until Ken apparently took it down when Knapp went fugitive. Can you imagine the scene at Avidor's computer that day, as he frantically tried to purge all his associations with Knapp? I imagine it was like those movie scenes when the cops arrive for a drug bust, and a drug dealer frantically flushes his stash down the toilet.

Ken Avidor flushing Knapp down the toilet. Now there's an amusing visual.

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.

Now, given that he didn't know about Knapp's criminal behavior beforehand, I started wondering what it looked like when Avidor finally found out. I think this photo captures it perfectly:

STOLEN!!

UPDATE:

I just received this email from Ken:

Michael Carrato,

You have made serious, false and defamatory statements concerning me in this blog post:

http://weinerwatch.blogspot.com/2010/01/ken-avidors-longtime-friend-caught-with.html

You may be liable for spreading false and misleading information about an ongoing criminal investigation.

The authorities have been contacted. You may want to consult an attorney.

Jeez, here I am, sticking my neck out, telling the world that I believe that Avidor knew nothing of Knapp's alleged wrongdoing, and what do I get in return? Avidor threatens me! No good deed goes unpunished, I suppose.

And no, I won't be contacting my lawyer.

He Really Believes He's a Sleuth

Ken Avidor has dramatically announced "the end of the road" for me. He claims I "slipped up" in revealing my IP address.

The real fact is, I've been dropping clues for months. I left a trail of breadcrumbs so obvious that an 11 year old hacker could have tracked me down in 15 minutes. But months later, Avidor still hadn't figured it out, so I had to get more obvious.

So a few days ago, I left this comment as "Mike C" on Streetsblog in which I basically revealed myself:

David Gow and I are enthusiastic about all forms of well-conceived public transportation, not just those which happen to be large vehicles gliding on precisely 2 rails. :-)

Notice that "enthusiastic" and "transportation" are in italics, and there's a smiley at the end. Get it? "A Transportation Enthusiast." How much more obvious can that be? Does that look like a "slip"?

So, Ken, congratulations on finally realizing the obvious. And, now that you know my true identity, surely we can commence our debate, right?

The Hypocrisy of TreeHugger.com

"TreeHugger". The name is synonymous with in-your-face environmentalism - the kind of activism that stands up to corporate abuses in defense of nature's majesty.

So imagine my surprise at seeing Lloyd Alter, one of the most active members of TreeHugger.com, acting at the behest of corporate construction interests!

Allow me to explain. In one corner, there is personal rapid transit, PRT, a promising new green transportation technology. A PRT system is currently being built at Heathrow Airport in London. For the uninitiated, here are a few facts about this system:

• Phase one is on budget and on schedule to open next year as a parking lot circulator, with plans in place to extend it throughout the airport and beyond.


• The system features light, automated, battery-driven vehicles which run on demand on a dedicated guideway, and initial versions will move 1200-4800 people per hour, equivalent to buses running every 1-3 minutes.


• Vehicles produce no local emissions, using batteries charged from the electrical grid.


• Vehicles consume the equivalent of a 100 mpg automobile, and are even more environmentally friendly than that because they run off grid power, and can therefore take full advantage of advancements in clean power generation.


• The system is more energy efficient per passenger than any other transit mode.


• Construction and operating costs are significantly less than light rail, and PRT provides no-wait, non-stop, private travel, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week


• The system meets Kyoto sustainability targets today - 35 years ahead of schedule.

Now, if you are a true environmentalist, what possible problem could you have with a system like that?

So that's PRT. In the other corner, there is traditional light rail transit. Now, I'm as much a fan of rail as anyone - I'm amazed by metro/subway systems like NYC and Toronto - but light rail is not a panacea. There are many situations where PRT is a much better option than light rail.

The problem is, light rail has its proponents, and those proponents see PRT as a threat. Light rail construction firms and consultancies stand to lose BILLIONS of dollars if a new technology like PRT cuts into their monopoly on city transit, so it is in their best interest to see PRT fail.

Which brings us to the Light Rail Now (LRN) website. LRN is a corporate astroturfing website - basically a site that presents itself as a grass roots effort, but is in reality just an undercover marketing campaign - in this case, underwritten primarily by three rail companies.

LRN has a somewhat famous "analysis" of PRT called "Cyberspace Dream Keeps Colliding With Reality". It was written anonymously, never published, and only exists on the LRN website in its "FACTS" section. It's basically promoted as a scientific analysis of why PRT would not work.

One problem: it's complete fiction. It's not a scientific analysis, it's marketing fluff, written to disparage PRT and preserve light rail's monopoly on city transit. Here are four separate, detailed rebuttals which debunk every major point in the "analysis".

But even though the LRN report is not accurate, it's very effective. Responsible journalistic entities wouldn't touch it - they know better than to trust anonymously written marketing fluff from an astroturfing site - but the LRN report gets plenty of circulation in blogs and forums, where transit activists who've never heard of PRT quickly buy into the criticism and spread it further.

Which brings us back to TreeHugger. Lloyd Alter apparently got a stack of propaganda from Ken Avidor, including one of Avidor's cartoons and a link to the LRN report. But Lloyd is not a journalist, so it didn't occur to him that an activist sending out propaganda should not be trusted to provide the full truth. Lloyd basically parroted Avidor's campaign verbatim.

But bad journalism is not necessary hypocrisy - maybe Lloyd was just being lazy? Nope. I posted a comment to that thread which outlined Ken Avidor's association with LRN, and LRN's association with corporate rail interests, but my comment never appeared. Then I sent an email to the TreeHugger editor detailing my concerns - no response.

And then there's this comment from Lloyd, in which he sarcastically acknowledges the objections. So Lloyd certainly cannot claim ignorance to the evidence.

No, Lloyd and TreeHugger have clearly chosen to ignore fact and support corporate rail. He's been shown the potential environmental benefits of this new technology, and he knows it's being built as we speak at Heathrow, yet he's still touting the rail company line.

Pure hypocrisy.

So the next time Lloyd goes on and on about the importance of biodegradable flooring, ask him why he is bashing the most environmentally friendly transit solution since the bicycle. Ask him why he has such a problem with a transit technology that can provide ultimate convenience and availability, and can also get us to Kyoto energy levels 20 years ahead of schedule.

It's obviously a question he's trying to evade.

Does Ken Avidor Profit Financially from his anti-PRT Propaganda?

In the comments section of this Lloydletta abomination, I asked Ken Avidor a simple question: how much have you made on your anti-highway, anti-PRT cartoon, Roadkill Bill?

Ken refuses to respond.

Why is this relevant? Well, for weeks now, Ken himself has been asking pro-PRT people if they make money to promote PRT - on Wikipedia he tried (and failed miserably) to imply David Gow (Mr Grant) had a financial conflict of interest, and he's also aggressively questioned other pro-PRT people.

So certainly the question is relevant for Avidor himself.

But unlike Avidor's fishing expiditions, I have actual evidence to back up my question:

• Roadkill Bill ran for almost 4 years in Pulse of the Twin Cities during which time I assume Avidor was paid for producing it. (How much, Ken?)


• Roadkill Bill is aggressively anti-highway, and Ken has repeatedly tried to link PRT to highways but has never provided shred of evidence to support that bogus claim. Could there be a financial reason for Ken's persistent attempts to associate PRT with highway promoters?


• At some point (right around the time he stopped getting paid for producing Roadkill Bill), he produced this anti-PRT Roadkill Bill comic - pretty strange considering that PRT doesn't run on roads. This was right around the time PRT was being discussed heavily in Minnesota and he was ramping up his anti-PRT propaganda campaign. Could it be that Ken used PRT to revive his Roadkill Bill cartoon?


• Later, in the context of his never-ending attack on the Wikipedia PRT article, he posted another Roadkill Bill comic - this one critical of Wikipedia. What possible link could there be between an online encyclopedia and a cartoon about roads?


• Ken's anti-PRT pages are located on his Roadkill Bill website - so people searching on PRT are directed to roadkillbill.com.


• There is a Roadkill Bill paperback listed at Amazon. Does Ken continue to make money by keeping Roadkill Bill in the spotlight?

Is Ken Avidor's anti-PRT campaign nothing but a tool to promote his cartoon? It's a valid question.

Here's a very plausible scenario: in 2003, as Roadkill Bill was running out of steam, PRT was a big topic in Minnesota. Everyone was talking about this new exotic form of transportation that rode above the streets, but few people had any concept of how such a system would work or how much it would cost - it was a complete unknown for the general public.

In other words, PRT was ripe for attack - especially by a train advocate who was looking for new ideas for his floudering cartoon. Unlike the anti-highway movement, which is always battling against the huge majority that is the car-driving public, attacking PRT was a piece of cake.

But, how can an anti-highway cartoon like Roadkill Bill be used to attack a new form of public transit? Easy - just tell everyone that PRT is a tool of the highway lobby! It's really brilliant: you scare the left by linking PRT to highways, you scare the right by calling it a tax boondogle, you scare everyone else by linking it to terrorism - and all the while you revive your failing cartoon!

So here we are, several years later. Ken Avidor has kept PRT (and therefore Roadkill Bill) in the limelight for several years after the last Minnesota PRT bill was defeated. He's splashed his Roadkill Bill anti-PRT and anti-Wikipedia cartoons all over the Internet. He even got an article on Roadkill Bill at Wikipedia. And web searches on PRT direct you to... roadkillbill.com.

Indeed, PRT has gained Roadkill Bill much more exposure than the anti-car movement ever could - and I assume the royalties are still coming in from his paperback.

How much of this scenario is true? Who knows? It seems we'll never know, since Ken refuses to answer any questions about his profits from Roadkill Bill. But look at all the evidence above and judge for yourselves. I think it's a very safe assumption that Ken Avidor has benefited handsomely from his anti-PRT crusade. The only remaining questions are: how much has he made so far, and how much more business does he drum up every time he posts a new PRT smear?