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To: energyplay who wrote (65756)	7/1/2005 1:07:29 AM
From: elmatador	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

Eplay, here is the Iran version of WMD: Bush administration demanded the Iranian government clarify role of Ahmadinejad in the 1979 siege of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran after several former hostages declared that they recognized the president-elect as one of their captors. <<ELMAT: This is going to be the way the US will push Iran.>> latimes.com U.S. Seeks Answers on Iranian Leader's Past By Tyler Marshall and Paul Richter, Times Staff Writers WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration demanded Thursday that the Iranian government clarify the role of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the 1979 siege of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran after several former hostages declared that they recognized the president-elect as one of their captors. U.S. officials also pledged to conduct their own investigation into Ahmadinejad's past after several of the 52 Americans held hostage said he was a key figure in their 444-day long ordeal. ADVERTISEMENT "The Iranian government ... has an obligation to speak definitively concerning these questions that have been raised in public," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters at a regular briefing. McCormack, White House spokesman Scott McClellan, and national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley said in separate briefings that the United States would launch its own efforts to determine if Ahmadinejad had a role in the crisis. "We need to get the facts," Hadley told reporters. On Thursday, the president-elect's staff denied that he had any active involvement in the embassy standoff. An aide, Meisan Rowhani, told The Associated Press that Ahmadinejad had recently said he had been against targeting the U.S. Embassy because he "believed that if we do that the world will swallow us." Dozens of students, mainly from Tehran's Polytechnique University, stormed the U.S. facility 10 months after the ouster of the shah of Iran. Some accounts said the students were apparently spurred by concerns that that their Islamic revolution was already unraveling. Rowhani said Ahmadinejad dropped his opposition to the embassy takeover after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the revolution, approved it. But Ahmadinejad did not participate in the hostage-taking or the events that followed, Rowhani said. The crisis ended with the freedom of all 52 Americans. In Iran, the allegation that Ahmadinjed might have been a hostage taker is unlikely to spark public outrage. Some hostage takers went on to hold key positions in the government and parliament. Some have become reformists, speaking out against the Islamic regime led by the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who inherited Khomeini's role. But the hostage crisis marked one of the most painful public dramas in recent U.S. history and still influences Iranian-American relations. The two countries have had no formal diplomatic ties since the takeover. It was not immediately clear how the former hostages' allegations might impact the debate within the Bush administration about how to deal with Tehran. Since President Bush took office five years ago, the administration has been divided between hardliners who want to isolate Iran and others who believe improving contacts with the regime is the best way to soften Tehran's anti-American policies. Earlier this year, Bush decided to support European efforts to negotiate an agreement with Tehran, offering economic incentives and security guarantees in exchange for abandoning uranium enrichment that U.S. officials and others believe is part of a quest for nuclear weapons. Iran claims it needs the energy for a peaceful nuclear power program, although it has tried to conceal sensitive aspects of its development program. Hadley said Thursday that, whatever the truth of Ahmadinejad's actions in 1979, it would not alter U.S. views about his new role. "Obviously, though, this man has now been elected by the Iranian people," Hadley said. "It is an election that we think is less than free and fair; we've been very clear about that. But he will step into that government." Questions about Ahmadinejad's role in the embassy takeover surfaced earlier this week with the release of photographs taken during the hostage crisis that shows a man resembling Ahmadinejad among the captors. In an Associated Press report, five former hostages said they were certain the person was Ahmadinejad. Reached by the Times later Thursday at his home, one of the five, William J. Daugherty of Savannah, Ga. said he was "absolutely" sure that Ahmadinejad was among the group of older, more experienced Iranians who supervised the detention of the hostages in the first days of the embassy takeover. Ahmadinejad is 48 and would have been in his early 20s during the crisis.

To: energyplay who wrote (65756)	7/1/2005 8:27:27 AM
From: shades	Respond to of 74559

HAHA, the wierd ones are more fun in the sack sometimes - no reward without risk! Greed and FEAR - the 2 strongest human emotions: Like I told Jay, i lived in Hawaii where people were unified, but here in tampa it seems we are divided. sptimes.com Social life can help fight fear By SUSAN THURSTON, City Times Editor Published July 1, 2005 ------------------ Shark attacks. Missing girls. Stabbings in Ybor City. Every day, it seems, there's something else to fear. Another reason to hole up at home. More proof that evil lurks. And it's sucking the life out of our community. That was one of the conclusions of a group looking into ways to better connect people so they can work together to solve problems. Creative TampaBay organized the "World Cafe" event downtown last week to get the conversation started. The question pondered: How do we build links? The group based the discussion on a 2000 book by Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. He says we don't know our neighbors anymore or get involved in groups or clubs. We spend more time alone, either in our cars or in front of the TV. All this leads to a decline in what he calls social capital. Have a lot of social capital and people prosper. Have a little and society slides. The 70 people at the talk blamed everything from technology to suburban sprawl for reducing Tampa's social capital. E-mails and instant messages eliminate face-to-face conversations. Long commutes devour our leisure time. The word fear came up again and again. We fear getting hurt by strangers. We fear losing our jobs if we don't work long hours. We fear our children will disappear if we let them play outside. Many admitted that a lot of fear is irrational. Crime is down in Tampa. Police Chief Steve Hogue said so just last week. Still, fear keeps our guard up and alters our behavior. All the stats in the world can show that Ybor is getting safer. But when we hear about shootouts near Seventh Avenue and stabbings at a nightclub, we're likely to stay away for a while. Why risk it? David Rigall, a landscape architect who lives in Central Tampa, went as far to say the last election was won on fear. We feared a new president might not have a strong enough plan for fighting terrorism. We feared the bad guys could strike again if we didn't stay on the offensive. No doubt, 9/11 brought fear to new levels. Now all the closet scaredy-cats had overwhelming reason to be fearful. Our worst fears came true. No one was afraid to be afraid anymore. The attacks made us more reluctant to meet new people, especially those different from ourselves, said Kimberly Finn, community relations director of the Tampa Bay History Center. Rather than curious, we became skeptical. The transient nature of Tampa hinders us from building social capital, the group said. People come and go every day. Most haven't lived here their whole lives and haven't had time to dig roots. They come from someplace else for a job, family or the sunshine. When they arrive, it takes a while to acclimate. They often find connections through work, schools and churches but are afraid to stray from their comfort zones. They don't know their surroundings and lack local perspective. They say, "How can I weigh in on community solutions when I don't even know the problems?" Today's cutthroat job market doesn't help, either. People no longer stay in the same job for 30 years, and layoffs are feared - even anticipated. As a result, we work harder to keep the bosses happy and work harder to cover the duties once handled by two or three people. Leisure time becomes a luxury. We're in la-la land if we think we can eliminate fear. But we can do a better job of managing it. The group offered various ways of tackling fear for the sake of building connections.