Randal O'Toole: The Man, The Contrarian

"Over and over, O'Toole rattles off numbers that defy intuition. Each claim is a research project unto itself.

All are based on government data, a point that his boosters say makes him a tough foe for smart-growth advocates. O'Toole has no graduate degrees in a quantitative area -- he dropped his pursuit of economics and urban planning degrees after four years at the University of Oregon -- but he said "there's no doubt about the methodology" he has used.

Stacy Davis, who authored the "Transportation Energy Data Book," which O'Toole used for some of his conclusions, said otherwise."