CAIR's Dark History

Prior to lobbying for the firing of Juan Williams by NPR, CAIR (the Council on American Islamic Relations), which poses as a civil rights organization, had a long history of involvment in and support for terrorism. It is safe to say that Juan Williams knows a lot more about civil rights than the operatives at CAIR ever will. CAIR is, in fact, a foreign-funded front organization. The known facts may shock you:

Senator Charles Schumer (Democrat, New York) describes CAIR as an organization "which we know has ties to terrorism." Senator Dick Durbin (Democrat, Illinois) observes that CAIR is "unusual in its extreme rhetoric and its associations with groups that are suspect." Other members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, have alleged ties between the CAIR founders and Hamas.

Steven Pomerantz, the FBI's former chief of counterterrorism, notes that "CAIR, its leaders, and its activities effectively give aid to international terrorist groups." The family of John P. O'Neill, Sr., the former FBI counterterrorism chief who perished at the World Trade Center, named CAIR in a lawsuit as having "been part of the criminal conspiracy of radical Islamic terrorism" responsible for the September 11 atrocities. Counterterrorism expert Steven Emerson calls CAIR "a radical fundamentalist front group for Hamas."

CAIR has consistently defended Islamic terrorists:

CAIR called the conviction of the perpetrators of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing "a travesty of justice." CAIR labeled the conviction of Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind sheikh who planned to blow up New York City landmarks, a "hate crime."

The founders of CAIR, Omar Ahmad and Nihad Awad, had earlier been officers of the Islamic Association of Palestine (IAP), described by a former FBI analyst and Treasury Department intelligence official as "intimately tied to the most senior Hamas leadership." Both Ahmad and Awad participated in a meeting held in Philadelphia on October 3, 1993, that involved senior leaders of Hamas, the Holy Land Foundation, and the IAP. Based on electronic surveillance of the meeting, the FBI reported that “the participants went to great length and spent much effort hiding their association with the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas)." Participants at the meeting discussed forming a "political organization and public relations” body, “whose Islamic hue is not very conspicuous."

On Feb. 2, 1995, U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White named Siraj Wahhaj as one of the "unindicted persons who may be alleged as co-conspirators" in the attempt to blow up New York City monuments. Yet CAIR deems him "one of the most respected Muslim leaders in America" and includes him on its advisory board.

CAIR's neo-Nazi side came out most clearly in its early years. In 1996 Yusuf Islam (the Muslim convert formerly known as the singer Cat Stevens) gave a keynote speech at a CAIR event, and wrote a pamphlet published by the Islamic Association of Palestine, CAIR's stepparent, which included these sentences:

"The Jews seem neither to respect God nor his Creation. Their own holy books contain the curse of God brought upon them by their prophets on account of their disobedience to Him and mischief in the earth. We have seen the disrespect for religion displayed by those who consider themselves to be "God's Chosen People."

In a July 1994 meeting CAIR was identified as one of the four U.S. organizations comprising the working organizations of the Palestine Committee of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood, the parent organization and supporter of Hamas. At a 1994 meeting at Barry University, Awad said that he was "in support of the Hamas movement". Hamas launched its first wave of suicide bombings in later that year. Hamas was officially designated a terrorist organization in January 1995.

In 1998, CAIR co-hosted an event at which an Egyptian Islamist leader, Wagdi Ghunaym, declared Jews to be the "descendants of the apes."

Omar Ahmad, CAIR’s chairman, announced in July 1998 that “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran...should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth.”

In October 1998, when CAIR demanded the removal of a Los Angeles billboard describing Osama bin Laden as "the sworn enemy," finding this depiction "offensive to Muslims." The same year, CAIR denied bin Laden's responsibility for the twin East African embassy bombings that killed 224 people and wounded 5,000 others.

In the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks which killed over 3,000 people, Journalist Jake Tapper criticized CAIR for refusing to condemn specifically Osama bin Laden, and Islamic extremism.

In December 2001, federal agents shut down the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, an Islamic "charity," for raising millions of dollars for Hamas. In the aftermath of September 11, CAIR featured the Holy Land Foundation on its Web site. The Holy Land Foundation was founded by Hamas deputy Marzook (who is now believed to be in Syria). Ghassan Elashi was once its chairman.

CAIR continued to expose its Fascist political orientation by its repeated activities with William W. Baker, exposed as a neo-Nazi in March 2002. Even after that date, CAIR invited Baker to speak at several events, for example in Florida on August 12, 2003 and New Jersey on October 18, 2003. CAIR liked Baker's work so much, it used the title of his book, "More in Common Than You Think", in one of its ad campaigns in March 2004, and as the title of an Elderhostel lecture.

In 2002, CAIR launched an effort to "put quality materials about Islam in all 17,000 public libraries in the United States." The initiative was funded with an initial $500,000 contribution from Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud, whose donation to the Twin Towers Fund was refused by then-Mayor Rudy Guliani because it came with a letter attributing US support for Israel for the 9/11 attacks.

In 2003, CAIR's communications director and civil-rights coordinator Randall "Ismael" Royer was arrested for his role in the Northern Virginia jihad terrorist network. After four of the eleven defendants pleaded guilty, the remaining seven, including Royer, were accused in a new, 32-count indictment of yet more serious charges: conspiring to help Al-Qaeda and the Taliban battle American troops in Afghanistan. Royer admitted in his grand jury testimony that he had already waged jihad in Bosnia under a commander acting on orders from Osama bin Laden.

In July 2003, Rabih Haddad was deported to Lebanon after being arrested and held by federal agents during a raid on the Global Relief Foundation, which billed itself as a charitable organization. According to the Treasury Department the organization "has connections to, has provided support for, and has provided assistance to Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda network, and other known terrorist groups." A co-founder of the Global Relief Foundation, Haddad was also a fund-raiser for the Ann Arbor CAIR chapter.

In September 2003, Bassem Khafagi pled guilty to charges of making false statements on his visa application and bank fraud. He had been charged with funneling money to promote terrorist activities through the Islamic Assembly of North America (IANA), of which he was a founding member. The Washington Post reported in October that federal prosecutors described IANA's objective as the "dissemination of radical Islamic ideology, the purpose of which was indoctrination, recruitment of members and the instigation of acts of violence and terrorism." In January, the Syracuse Post-Standard revealed that Khafagi also had business ties to Rafil Dhafir, who has been accused of illegally sending money to Iraq. Dhafir is also a former vice president of IANA. Khafagi was sentenced to 10 months in prison and deported to Egypt. At the time of his arrest, Khafagi was a community affairs director of CAIR.

According to CAIR's Form 990 filings for 2003, its California offices invested $325,000 with the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT). The NAIT was established in 1971 by the Muslim Student Association of the U.S. and Canada, which bills itself as the precursor to the Islamic Society of North America, now the largest member of the Wahhabi lobby. According to Newsweek, authorities say that over the years "NAIT money has helped the Saudi Arabian sect of Wahhabism—or Salafism, as the broader, pan-Islamic movement is called—to seize control of hundreds of mosques in U.S. Muslim communities."

CAIR affiliates regularly speak at events sponsored by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), an umbrella organization of the Wahhabi lobby. Nabil Sadoun, a director of CAIR-DC, spoke at the ISNA's regional conference in 2003. Hussam Ayloush, executive director of CAIR's Southern California chapter, and Fouad Khatib, the CAIR-California chairman, spoke at an ISNA-sponsored event. Safaa Zarzour, president of CAIR-Chicago, was also an ISNA speaker, as was Azhar Azeez, a board member of CAIR-Dallas, who has spoken at several ISNA conferences.

In 2003, Ibrahim Hooper made the point that if Muslims ever become a majority in the United States, it would be safe to assume that they would want to replace the U.S. Constitution with Islamic law, as most Muslims believe that God's law is superior to man-made law.

Other CAIR personnel also express their contempt for the United States. Ihsan Bagby of CAIR's Washington office has said that Muslims "can never be full citizens of this country," referring to the United States, "because there is no way we can be fully committed to the institutions and ideologies of this country."

In July 2004, five Palestinian brothers were convicted in federal court of conspiring to use their Texas-based computer company to make illegal shipments of high-tech goods to Libya and Syria, two nations the U.S. State Department classifies as sponsors of terrorism. One of the brothers, Ghassan Elashi, the company's vice president of international marketing, was convicted of three counts of conspiracy, one count of money laundering and two counts of making false statements about the shipments. Mr. Elashi, along with two of his brothers, also faced a separate federal trial on charges relating to business dealings with Mousa Abu Marzook, the deputy political leader of terrorist organization Hamas. Mr. Elashi is also the founding board member of a Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) chapter in Texas.

Former FBI counterterrorism chief Oliver “Buck” Revell has described the IAP as “a front organization for Hamas.” This linkage between the IAP and Hamas was decisively established in 2004, when a federal judge in Chicago found it partially liable for $156 million in damages for its role in aiding and abetting Hamas in the murder of David Boim, a 17-year-old American citizen.

In May 2007, the U.S. filed a court action against the Holy Land Foundation (the largest Muslim charity in the United States at the time) for providing funds to Hamas, and Federal prosecutors filed pleadings. Along with 300 other organizations, they listed CAIR (and its chairman emeritus, Omar Ahmad), Islamic Society of North America (largest Musim umbrella organization in the United States), Muslim American Society, and North American Islamic Trust as unindicted co-conspirators.

In March 2008, former CAIR-Michigan director Muthanna al-Hanooti, was indicted for spying for Saddam Hussein and lying to the FBI. Hanooti was accused of working for Iraqi intelligence, while coordinating trips to Iraq for congressional delegations as CAIR director. The following year, Republican Senators Jon Kyl of Arizona and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and New York Democrat Charles Schumer called for a government-wide ban on the terror-linked CAIR.

Current Support For Terrorism

- In October 2008, an FBI raid stopped the armed robbery of a warehouse in Detroit by a domestic terrorist group. During the raid, terrorist leader Luqman Ameen Abdullah opened fire on FBI agents and killed an FBI dog. FBI agents returned fire killing Abdullah before he could harm anyone else. CAIR subsequently filed lawsuits against numerous law enforcement agencies across Michigan in an attempt to discover sources and methods.

That Addullah was a terrorist is indisputable. He had told his followers that "America must fall... We should be figuring out how to fight the Kuffar" (unbelievers). "We got to take out the U.S. government. The U.S. government is nothing but Kuffars." With respect to the FBI, Abdullah declared: "Deal with them, deal with them the way, the way they supposed to be dealt with.... It's not that complicated, man....If they are coming to get me I'll just strap a bomb on and blow up everybody." A law enforcement official wrote in an affidavit that "Abdullah and his followers have trained regularly in the use of firearms, and continue to train in martial arts and sword fighting" - in accord with Abdullah's dictum that every Muslim believer should "have a weapon and should not be scared to use their weapon when needed."
Abdullah claimed that the Qur'an "justified stealing, robbing and other illegal acts, as long as they profit Islam."

The FBI has described Abdullah as a leader of a radical Sunni group that wants to create an Islamic state within the U.S. Authorities say Abdullah preached hate for the government and encouraged his followers to commit violence, especially against police and federal agents. Abdullah told an FBI informant that if the government messed with him, "it will be straight up war," according to a court document.

Dawud Walid, the director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which filed the lawsuits, seeks to learn the identity of confidential informants. It is likely that they would be killed if their identities were revealed.

The Justice Department's civil rights division is currently investigating Abdullah's death.

The case in Detroit is not the first time that CAIR acted on behalf of domestic terrorists. CAIR has called the extradition order of Hamas terrorist Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook "anti-Islamic", calling the closing of the Holy Land Foundation for collecting money used to support Hamas "unjust" and "disturbing", praising and defending convicted murderer H. Rap Brown as well as convicted attempted murderer Adnan Chaudhry.

- A weblog created by Affad Shaikh, the Civil Rights Manager of CAIR-Los Angeles, presently contains a link to the official website of Anwar al-Awlaki, the imam that issued a death fatwa against Seattle newspaper cartoonist Molly Norris.

Shaikh’s weblog, Muslamics, contains the link to al-Awlaki’s site, under the section titled “‘Muslamic’ Blogs We Read.” The link is found on every one of the pages of Muslamics, including the homepage. In September 2006, on another blog he created, Shaikh admitted that, following the 9/11 attacks, he became a fan of al-Awlaki.

Shortly after the failed Christmas Day bombing of a Detroit-bound U.S. airliner, which officials believe al-Awlaki had a hand in planning, the White House took the unprecedented step of authorizing the CIA to kill or capture him.
Al-Awlaki has recently called on American Muslims to commit violence against their fellow Americans; he is the extremist Muslim cleric who corresponded with Maj. Nidal Hasan prior to the Fort Hood shootings.

Civil Rights Organization?

Neuroscientist and best selling author Sam Harris has criticized CAIR's legitimacy, saying CAIR is "an Islamist public relations firm posing as a civil-rights lobby".

CAIR has long engaged in other activities inconsistent with those of a civil rights organization:

Financial Intimidation:
in March 2005, when CAIR campaigned to have National Review remove two books: Serge Trifkovic's "The Sword of the Prophet" and J.L. Menezes' "The Life and Religion of Mohammed" (as well as the positive reviews of those books), from its online bookstore. CAIR claimed the books defame Islam and the Prophet Muhammad. When it did not get immediate satisfaction from National Review, it instructed its operatives to pressure the Boeing Corporation to withdraw its advertisements from the magazine.

Other CAIR targets of intimidation have included the Simon Wiesenthal Center (for juxtaposing a picture of the Ayatollah Khomeini beside Adolf Hitler), and the Reader's Digest for an article, "The Global War on Christians," which CAIR found "smears Islam" by citing well-documented cases of Christian persecution.

Media Intimidation:
After Daniel Pipes published an article in July 1999 explaining the difference between moderate and radical Islam, CAIR launched fifteen separate attacks on him in the space of two months, attacks widely reprinted in Muslim publications. Dozens of letters followed to the newspapers that carried Pipes' articles, some calling him harsh names ("bigot and racist"), others comparing him to the Ku Klux Klan and the neo-Nazis

In December 2003, CAIR ruined the career of an army officer and nurse, Captain Edwina McCall, who had treated American soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan but ended up resigning under a cloud of suspicion. Her crime? Using her military e-mail address on an Internet discussion board concerning the Islamist agenda. CAIR sent the comments to the secretary of defense, calling attention to her allegedly "bigoted anti-Muslim comments" and demanding that her "extremist and Islamophobic views" be investigated and then followed by "appropriate action." The Army immediately cast the officer under suspicion, leading her to resign from a career she had loved.

Intimidating Moderate Muslims:
In at least two cases (Hisham Kabbani and Khalid Durán), CAIR has defamed moderate Muslims who reject its extremist agenda, leading to death threats against them. Some Muslims criticize CAIR for being overly conservative from a religious standpoint, for example by taking the disputed position that all Moslem women are required to veil their hair.

Embracing Murderers:
CAIR responded to the arrest and conviction of Jamil Al-Amin (the former H. Rap Brown) by praising him, raising funds for him and then denying his guilt after his conviction for the murder of an Atlanta policeman. Likewise with Ahmad Adnan Chaudhry of San Bernardino, Calif.: Disregarding his conviction for attempting murder, CAIR declared him "innocent" and set up a defense fund for him.

Promoting anti-Semitism:
The head of CAIR's Los Angeles office, Hussam Ayloush, routinely uses the term "zionazi" when referring to Israelis. CAIR co-hosted an event in May 1998 at which an Egyptian militant Islamic leader, Wagdi Ghunaym, called Jews the "descendants of the apes."
The Anti-Defamation League and Emerson have also accused CAIR of having a long record of propagating antisemitic propaganda.

Religious Intolerance:
As reported by the San Ramon Valley Herald, CAIR Chairman Omar M. Ahmad told a crowd of California Muslims in July 1998, "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran . . . should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth."

Impeding Counterterrorism:
A class-action lawsuit brought by the estate of John P. O'Neill, Sr. charges CAIR and its Canadian branch of being, since their inception, "part of the criminal conspiracy of radical Islamic terrorism" with a unique role in the terrorist network:

"both organizations have actively sought to hamper governmental anti-terrorism efforts by direct propaganda activities aimed at police, first-responders, and intelligence agencies through so-called sensitivity training. Their goal is to create as much self-doubt, hesitation, fear of name-calling, and litigation within police departments and intelligence agencies as possible so as to render such authorities ineffective in pursuing international and domestic terrorist entities."

Under the guise of participating in counterterrorism, CAIR does its best to sabotage counterterror efforts.

CAIR's annual budget of around $3 million (as of 2007) comes in large part through large donations from people and foundations identified with Arab governments. Their public spokesmen attempt to appear reasonable and thoughtful, while the organization continues to pursue its Wahabist, chauvanist agenda.

It is time that National Public Radio and other media outlets halted their misleading practice of referring to CAIR as a civil rights organization. CAIR is a foreign funded organization whose leaders have been engaged in criminal activites, including espionage, throughout its history. Unlike a legitimate civil rights organization, CAIR promotes religious intolerance and employs intimidation tactics. CAIR has engaged in fund raising for terrorist organizations around the world, has praised acts of terrorism within the United States, and has come to the defense of domestic terrorists using legal maneuvers and espionage activities.

There are a number of web sites dedicated to monitoring CAIR's activities; I encourage you to visit these sites to learn more:

CAIR: Islamists Fooling the Establishment
http://www.danielpipes.org/3437/cair-islamists-fooling-the-establishment

Former CAIR Michigan Director Indicted for Spying for Saddam
http://cairhateandterror.blogspot.com/2008/03/former-cair-michigan-director-indicted.html

CAIR Watch
http://www.americansagainsthate.org/cw/

Jihad Watch
http://www.jihadwatch.org/

Anti-CAIR
http://www.anti-cair-net.org/
"Let there be no doubt that the Council on American-Islamic Relations
is a terrorist supporting front organization that is partially funded
by terrorists, founded by terrorists, and that CAIR wishes nothing
more than the implementation of Sharia Law in America"


Note: sources and text for this posting include the Associated Press, DanielPipes.org, and Wikipedia.

Juan Williams' reputation is beyond reproach

Juan Williams' reputation is beyond reproach, and we strongly disapprove of the McCarthy-ite/East German Communist tactics of NPR's leadership (who should be fired):

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2010/10/22/2010-10-22_npr_goes_off_the_dial_firing_juan_williams_is_political_correctness_on_steroids_.html

"NPR goes off the dial: Firing Juan Williams is political correctness on steroids

Friday, October 22nd 2010, 4:00 AM

National Public Radio fired Juan Williams for the offense of being human.

Appearing on "The O'Reilly Factor," the NPR commentator made the mistake of confessing that a thought about Muslims had occasionally crossed his mind when he traveled on airplanes. It is a thought that has crossed millions of American minds. Here it is:

"I mean, look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they're identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."

That was enough for NPR, whose executives are surely able to swear that never have they harkened back to 9/11 on seeing an identifiably Muslim person at the check-in counter.

It's a natural reaction in an era when 19 Islamist fanatics hijacked four planes and killed 3,000 people and when Islamist fanatics attempted to down airliners with shoe and underwear bombs.

What's more, recognizing, as Williams clearly does, that some mental responses carry the danger of stigmatization is quite healthy. The result is no action, no harm, no foul.

Finally, Williams went on to say it is as wrong to blame all Muslims for 9/11 as it is to blame all Christians for the crime of Timothy McVeigh.

He also challenged his host for fearmongering: "We don't want, in America, people to have their rights violated, to be attacked on the street because they heard rhetoric from Bill O'Reilly."

The episode comes down to prejudgment. And that's exactly what NPR did to Williams."

James McQuaid

Use EMET On Windows Machines

"The Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit v2.0 (EMET) is a utility designed to help IT Professionals protect systems from common threats. EMET works by applying security mitigation technologies to arbitrary applications to block against exploitation through common attack vectors."

Microsoft has made EMET very easy to use and free of charge. It significantly hardens Windows machines against Zero Day malware and hack attacks. You can download EMET v2.0 here:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=200220&clcid=0x409


NOTE: This site appears to be under attack, and Microsoft has repeatedly changed the link, so you made need to search Google.



After you install EMET, you will need to tell it how much protection to provide. First, click on the Configure System button:



Select Maximum Security Settings, and click the OK button.




Click on the Configure Apps button:




Click on the Add button for each application you wish to add protection for. You will then browse to the executable file in the Programs folder to choose it. You will want to add browsers, instant messaging software, FTP clients, Adobe products, HP software, anti-virus software, and any software application that Secunia's PSI reports as being "End of Life".



After you have selected the programs to be protected, reboot the computer.

Two of the security engineers who created EMET, Andrew Roths and Fermin J. Serna, have an excellent video which demonstrates using EMET:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/ff859539.aspx

EMET provides the following advanced protections:

Dynamic Data Execution Prevention (DEP):
DEP has been available since Windows XP. Unfortunately, most software applications have not been compiled with the required special flag. EMET allows applications compiled without that flag to be opted in to DEP.

Structure Exception Handler Overwrite Protection (SEHOP):
This protects against currently the most common technique for exploiting stack overflows in Windows. This mitigation has shipped with Windows since Windows Vista SP1. Recently with Windows 7, the ability to turn it on and off per process was added. With EMET, these Windows 7 capabilities become available on any platform back though Windows XP.

Heap Spray Allocation:
When an exploit runs, it often cannot be sure of the address where its shellcode resides and must make a case when taking control of the instruction pointer. To increase the odds of success, most exploits now use heapspray techniques to place copies of their shellcode at as many memory locations as possible. This mitigation blocks the use of addresses most common in today’s exploits.

Null Page Allocation:
This is similar technology to the heap spray allocation, but designed to prevent potential null dereference issues in usermode.

Export Address Table Access Filtering:
This mitigation is designed to break nearly all shell code in use today. Before a piece of shellcode can do anything useful, it generally has to locate windows APIs first. This mitigation blocks a common current technique shellcode uses to do this.

Mandatory Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR):
ASLR randomizes the addresses where modules are loaded to help prevent an attacker from leveraging data at predictable locations. The problem with this is that all modules have to use a compile time flag to opt into this. EMET forces modules to be loaded at randomized addresses for a target process regardless of the flags it was compiled with.

A helpful User Guide is available:
http://blogs.technet.com/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer-Components-PostAttachments/00-03-35-03-78/Users-Guide.pdf

EMET does not require end user decision making, so you can deploy it on Windows computers throughout your organization (or on your mom's machine). With 75% of anti-virus software applications unable to recognize Zero Day malware, EMET is an application which you must have in order to secure Windows. EMET also installs and runs seamlessly on Windows servers.

- James McQuaid

Updated 12-1-2010

DNS Black Hole Update

USMC Lance Corporal Albert Miranda, Lance Corporal David Burdwell, and platoon Lieutenant Alec Bodenwiser hold Khe Sanh.

(photograph by David Douglas Duncan)


We now have 114,163 unsavory domains blackened. Russian and Ukrainian cyber criminals are in our sights, and should give it up. This latest update includes the Alantron pill pushing domains which attempted to DDOS Brian Krebs on 9-23-2010.

You can get the (free) DNS Blackhole for Smoothwall files at: http://doc.emergingthreats.net/bin/view/Main/HoneywallSamples

If you use the Bind or Mara DNS servers, the best DNS Black Hole resource is David Glosser's Malware Domains.

James McQuaid
10-15-2010

The Chevrolet Volt As A Strategic Weapon

Last week I ordered a Chevrolet Volt, and today received a very polite telephone call from Chevrolet confirming my order. The female caller indicated that I would be contacted by a Volt Advisor when my Volt was scheduled for production.

There are only three options available: 1) leather interior, 2) polished chrome wheels, and 3) a parking assist package which includes a rear view camera. I selected the leather interior and polished chrome wheels, but concluded that I didn't need parking assist. Most of the options on a conventional car are standard on the Volt.

Driving to work on a daily basis, I will not need to purchase gasoline. This will significantly reduce total cost of ownership for me, making the Volt less expensive to own and operate than the Chevrolet Impala.

The advantage of the Volt over other electric cars is its ability to use gasoline. A car with a limited range between charge ups would not have been practical for me. The Volt has no range limitations.

When it is operating on gasoline, the Chevrolet Volt uses a hybrid system which is somewhat technologically more advanced than the Toyota Prius. This enables the Volt to accelerate more rapidly whether on electric battery or on gasoline.

The Chevrolet Volt, and other alternatively fueled vehicles, offer the United States the opportunity to significantly reduce its dependence on foreign oil. In not contributing to the coffers of Hugo Chavez, Iran, and other hostile nations, I will enjoy a quiet victory by driving the Chevrolet Volt.

- James McQuaid

*****

Popular Science: Never Mind the Naysayers: The Chevy Volt is Excellent
http://www.popsci.com/cars/article/2010-10/never-mind-naysayers-chevy-volt-excellent

"Behind the wheel, we find that GM’s highest-profile concept car has become a refreshing, radically different kind of production vehicle.

For every wave of goodwill, the Volt has endured a backlash of bile and skepticism. By now, the car has become a political football, a proxy for anger over the bailout of GM and Chrysler and a symbol of the future of the American auto industry. That’s a lot of baggage for a compact car to carry. And it’s a remarkable amount of baggage to accumulate before anyone even knew how the finished car would drive.

Now, after several hours and nearly 200 miles driving and riding in saleable Volts, we know how the the finished product drives. And the news is very good."

*****

Chevrolet Volt Wins Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award
http://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/2010/10/chevrolet-volt-wins-popular-mechanics-breakthrough-award.html

"the Chevrolet Volt, which has been praised by Popular Mechanics as “more than the sum of its cutting-edge parts.”

Just one of the features that helped secure the award is the fact that when its 16-kilowatt-hour battery pack is empty, the Volt car automatically switches to a gas engine. Popular Mechanics thinks “it’s a dramatic reinvention of the great American car, without sacrificing the great American road trip.”

*****

Car And Driver: 2011 Chevrolet Volt - Feature Test
http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/car/10q4/2011_chevrolet_volt-feature_test

"The immediacy you feel shows up better in the 3.7-second 30-to-50-mph time, which is just a couple of ticks slower than a V-6 Mazda 6.
In EV mode, the cabin is as quiet as a Lexus RX350’s at 70 mph, and even with the engine running, it matches the Prius at 72 dBA. The point at which the engine fires is barely discernible—the reconfiguring of the digital dash when it transitions is far more obvious. When the driver hammers the Volt in range-extending mode, the engine revs more assertively but is never harsh or intrusive.

Following the EPA’s proposed direction for its 2012 fuel-economy labels [pictured below], we computed an energy-equivalent efficiency of the Volt during our 152 miles of EV operation. Even with a lot of aggressive driving, the result is still impressive: 74 MPGe.

This is without a doubt the most important new car since the advent of hybrids in the late ’90s, and GM has nailed it."

*****

USA Today Review: Chevy Volt delivers on GM's promises
http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/reviews/2010-10-10-chevy-volt-review_N.htm

"The Volt promised to overcome the two great weaknesses that short-circuited electric vehicles for a century: short driving range and long charging time.
Its batteries' 40-mile range is expected to cover the daily driving of 60% of American motorists. An onboard generator — yes, it's gas-powered — produces electricity for longer drives, eliminating the range anxiety that limited the appeal of electric cars from the 1907 Detroit Electric to the General Motors EV-1 and Toyota RAV4-EV in the 1990s.

Based on my recent test drive, the Volt is up to the job. It's fun to drive, practical, good looking and in a league of its own technically. The sleek compact accelerates briskly. Its handling is responsive and sporty. The interior provides plenty of space and comfort for four adults."

*****


First Test: 2011 Chevrolet Volt
Mission Accomplished: Chevrolet Welcomes a New Era in Automobility

http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/alternative/1010_2011_chevrolet_volt_test/index.html

While commuting, Motor Trend boss Angus MacKenzie noted, “This is where the Volt shines. Quick and nippy in traffic, it proceeds with a silent, oozing surge of acceleration, like a downsized Rolls-Royce Phantom.”


*****

MSNBC: The moment when a Volt runs down
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/10/11/5271220-the-moment-when-a-volt-runs-down

"For the rest of the day, then, we're driving a car with a gasoline engine that is powering the electric drive train. When we stopped to fill the Volt's 9-gallon gas tank in Tacoma, the tripmeter read 45.3 miles, with about a third of a gallon of gas expended. If you don't count the cost of the electricity, our fuel efficiency is 128.1 miles per gallon. If you do count the electric cost, I figure we still did the equivalent of 80 mpg or so."

*****

Going Hands On With GM’s Chevy Volt
http://www.earthtechling.com/2010/10/going-hands-on-with-gms-chevy-volt/

by Nino Marchetti, October 11th, 2010

"It was a cold Monday morning in the Portland, Oregon suburb of Hillsboro when four mostly silent Chevy Volt cars rolled onto one of the campuses of Intel to greet local media, Intel employees and electric vehicles lovers alike. The vehicles, which were lined up for demo rides near a couple of electric vehicle charging stations, represent for GM, once a struggling American automaker but now slowly recovering, a future which could have it seeing green in more ways than one."

*****

The Economist: The Volt's inner secrets
http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2010/10/volts_inner_secrets

"If the battery is depleted and the car is running in range-extended mode, then a series of planetary gears that connect the electric motor and the generator seems to also transmit power to the wheels from the petrol engine itself, a bit like a hybrid Toyota Prius. According to Motor Trend, which has been putting the Volt through its paces, this means that although the petrol engine never drives the wheels all by itself, when the battery is low it “participates in the motive force” at higher speeds. The arrangement, the magazine notes, improves the efficiency of the vehicle by 10-15%."

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Debate fueled on whether Volt is really electric
http://www.freep.com/article/20101011/COL14/101011084/1319/Debate-fueled-on-whether-Volt-is-really-electric

"If you buy a Volt extended-range electric car when it hits dealerships next month, you’ll run on a battery for the first 40 miles of your daily drive. A 1.4-liter gasoline-powered generator will produce more electricity for longer drives, for a total cruising range of around 350 miles."