Iran To U.S.: No, You're The Terrorists

Marching in sync to fulfill Nostradamus's prophesies. As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems would reveal. The new scientific comprehension eliminates the caveman 'club/stick' conflict resolution methods still used in the 21st century. Besides, caveman club/stick methods do not work well with nuclear toys, as they threaten all of humanity

Iran To U.S.: No, You're The Terrorists
CBS News - TEHRAN, Iran, Sept. 29, 2007
(AP) Iran's parliament on Saturday approved a nonbinding resolution labeling the CIA and the U.S. Army "terrorist organizations," in apparent response to a Senate resolution seeking to give a similar designation to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The hard-line dominated parliament cited U.S. involvement in dropping nuclear bombs in Japan in World War II; using depleted uranium munitions in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq; supporting the killings of Palestinians by Israel; bombing and killing Iraqi civilians; and torturing terror suspects in prisons. "The aggressor U.S. Army and the Central Intelligence Agency are terrorists and also nurture terror," said a statement by the 215 lawmakers who signed the resolution at an open session of the Iranian parliament. The session was broadcast live on state-run radio. The resolution, which is seen as a diplomatic offensive against the U.S., urges Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government to treat the two as terrorist organizations. It also paves the way for the resolution to become legislation that - if ratified by the country's hardline constitutional watchdog - would become law. The government is expected to wait for U.S. reaction before making its decision. On Wednesday, the Senate voted 76-22 in favor of a resolution urging the State Department to designate Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization. While the proposal attracted overwhelming bipartisan support, a small group of Democrats said they feared labeling the state-sponsored organization a terrorist group could be interpreted as a congressional authorization of military force against Iran. The Bush administration had already been considering whether to blacklist an elite unit within the Revolutionary Guard, subjecting part of the vast military operation to financial sanctions. The U.S. legislative push came a day after Ahmadinejad told world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly that his country would defy attempts to impose new sanctions by "arrogant powers" seeking to curb its nuclear program, accusing them of lying and imposing illegal penalties on his country. He said the nuclear issue was now "closed" as a political issue and Iran would pursue the monitoring of its nuclear program "through its appropriate legal path," the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog. Tensions between the U.S. and Iran have escalated over Washington's accusations that Iran is secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons and has been supplying Shiite militias in Iraq with deadly weapons used to kill U.S. troops. Iran denies both of the allegations. By Associated Press Writer Ali Akbar Dareini
© MMVII The Associated Press.
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Go shop your local Demogog Congresman, if you have the money they can get you anything you want except an honest deal. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------Posted by jowand Fixed it for youGo shop your local Demogog Congresman,Repuligog Congressman, if you have the money they can get you anything you want except an honest deal.

Posted by radiob at 08:46 PM : Sep 29, 2007
+ report abuse
You trying to create a moral equivelency that is not there. Japan had attacked and refused to surrender.Posted by jowand at 07:55 PM : Sep 29, 2007This is the same way OSAMA BEEN-FORGOTTEN justifies killing US civilians since US government support the occupation of Palestinian land by the EUROPEAN INVADERS in PALESTINE who were brought into PALESTINE after WWII to occupy the land of those PALESTINIANS by force who had nothing to do with the actions of HITLER, and US government refuse to stop supporting the occupation of the MIDDLE EASTERN LAND.AL-QAIDA uses American Democracy as reason to justify killing civilians since Democracy means government of the people. They justify killing all those AMERICANS whose TAX MONEY is used in the occupation of the MIDDLE EASTERN LAND. That''s how they manipulate their religion, the original text of which forbids killing women, children, elderly people, burning and destroying properties, etc; just like CHRISTIANS manipulate their religious command of "THOU SHALT NOT KILL" by twisting it to "THOU SHALT NOT MURDER" and that''s how justifiyng killing innocent people to occupy their land for the 2nd coming of JESUS.

Posted by patriotic9 at 08:40 PM : Sep 29, 2007
+ report abuse
Rafterman1,,,, Go to Japan & try to walk down the street with a T-shirt that says "Nuc em till they glow" ---- See how far you make it before the life is beat out of you. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------Posted by j-whitman at 07:56 PM : Sep 29, 2007Go to Iran with a "*** OK" tee shirt on and see what you get.

Posted by jowand at 07:59 PM : Sep 29, 2007
+ report abuse
Also, in some cases MORBIDITY is worse then MORTALITY. Kids still born with congenital anomalies for the conflict they are un aware of. Posted by patriotic9 at 06:47 PM : Sep 29, 2007~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ patriotic9;Nobody can argue with that, but in all fairness, in 1945 few people if any, including President Truman, knew that later consequences (radiation fallout) would be so catastrophic.

Posted by jn122736 at 07:58 PM : Sep 29, 2007
+ report abuse
patriotic9 -- I keep hearing from our White House, Baghdad''''''''s a good place to shop Posted by j-whitman at 04:44 PM : Sep 29, 2007So is Kabul, but my wife is neither interested in buying CRUDE OIL nor HEROIN. Both these things are good for Bush and Co. No wonder why Ruh Limbaugh supports Bush war policies. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------Posted by patriotic9 at 06:42 PM : Sep 29, 2007Go shop your local Demogog Congresman, if you have the money they can get you anything you want except an honest deal.

Posted by jowand at 07:57 PM : Sep 29, 2007
+ report abuse
Rafterman1,,,, Go to Japan & try to walk down the street with a T-shirt that says "Nuc em till they glow" ---- See how far you make it before the life is beat out of you.

Posted by j-whitman at 07:56 PM : Sep 29, 2007
+ report abuse
I would ask anyone who answers "yes" whether they think 9/11 was an ethical attack. bin Laden declared war and attacked non-combatants in New York as we did in Hiroshims and Nagasaki. He just wasn''''t as successful.

U.N. Chief: Act Now On Global Warming

Pay very close attention to THE TROUBLE WITH PHYSICS. Scientific ignorance/suppression in the energy sector, skewing our view of reality, is the greatest profound wonder and threat to the survival of civilization in the world today. Scientific ignorance carries a clear and present, lethal danger. The preposterous, comical 'worst case scenario' proposed solutions to global warming confirm an absolute, fanatic belief in a crippled science devoid of simple evolutionary energy options which modern civilization requires for survival. For the majority, the thought does not even exist that simple scientific fundamentals could be missing, blocking advanced energy systems applications which eliminate lack, limitation and unbalanced threats through the normal evolutionary progression of energy systems

U.N. Chief: Act Now On Global Warming
UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 25, 2007
(CBS/AP) With tales of rising seas and talk of human solidarity, world leaders at the first United Nations climate summit sought Monday to put new urgency into global talks to reduce global warming emissions. What's needed is "action, action, action," California's environmentalist governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, told the assembled presidents and premiers. The Bush administration showed no sign, however, that it would reverse its stand against mandatory emission cuts endorsed by 175 other nations. Some expressed fears the White House, with its own forum later this week, would launch talks rivaling the U.N. climate treaty negotiations. President Bush wasn't among the more than 80 world leaders on hand for the summit. But former Vice President and ex-Senator Al Gore was - delivering a luncheon speech on changes already attributed to global warming, including last week's scientific report that the Arctic ice cap this summer shrank to a record-small size. "We cannot continue a slow pace," said Gore, proposing that heads of state meet every three months beginning in 2008 to ensure the world is doing all it can to meet the threat. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon set the day's theme in his opening address, calling for action and describing the U.N. negotiating umbrella as "the only forum" where the issues can be decided. "Two decades ago, here in this hall, climate change first surfaced on the world's political agenda," said the U.N. leader, warning that the stakes are nothing less than "the protection of the global climate for present and future generations of mankind. Much has happened since those early days, but the fundamental challenge remains unchanged and has become even more pressing." "I'm convinced that climate change and what we do about it will define us, our era and ultimately the global legacy that we leave for future generations," said Ban. "Today, the time for doubt has passed. The United Nations panel on global climate change has unequivocally affirmed the warming of our climate and linked it to human activities." At the day's end, Ban said he believed the scores of speeches showed a "major political commitment" to success in the global talks. Monday evening, President Bush attended a dinner, a gathering of key climate players hosted by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Late Monday, U.N. chief Ban was asked by reporters about Mr. Bush's position during the dinner discussions. "He made it quite clear that what he's going to do is help the United Nations effort," he replied. Ban organized the one-day summit to build momentum for December's annual climate treaty conference in Bali, Indonesia, when Europe, Japan and others hope to initiate talks for an emissions-reduction agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol in 2012. The 175-nation Kyoto pact, which the U.S. rejects, requires 36 industrial nations to reduce carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases. It set an average target of a 5 percent cut below 1990 levels by 2012 for emissions from power plants and other industrial, agricultural and transportation sources. Advocates for emissions reductions say a breakthrough is needed at Bali to ensure an uninterrupted transition from the 1997 Kyoto pact to a new, deeper-cutting regime, something that almost certainly would require a change in the U.S. position. The chief U.N. climate scientist, Rajendra Pachauri, told the summit of the mounting evidence of global warming's impact, including the accelerating rise in sea levels as oceans expand from heat and the runoff of melting land ice. "The time is up for inaction," he said. A Pacific islander, President Emanuel Mori of the Federated States of Micronesia, told the summit that encroaching seas are already destroying crops, contaminating wells and eating away at his islands' beaches. "How does one explain to the inhabitants that their plight is caused by human activities done in faraway lands?" he asked. The United States has long been the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases. President Bush objects that Kyoto-style mandates would damage the U.S. economy and says they should be imposed on fast-growing poorer countries like China and India in addition to developed nations. He instead is urging industry to cut emissions voluntarily and is emphasizing research on clean-energy technology as one answer. On Thursday and Friday, Mr. Bush will host his own Washington climate meeting, limited to 16 "major emitter" countries, including China and India, the first in a series of U.S.-led gatherings expected to focus on those themes. "The Washington meeting is a distraction," Hans Verolme, climate campaigner for the Worldwide Fund for Nature, told reporters. U.S. leaders "need to show they are serious and implement domestic legislation to reduce emissions," he said. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking at the summit, put the Washington meetings in a different light, describing them as designed "to support and help advance the ongoing U.N. discussion." Japan's envoy, former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, said Tokyo believes the separate U.S. talks will "contribute to achieving consensus" in the U.N. process, in which all agree that China, India and others must eventually accept emission limits. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the Washington sessions show "the Americans are back in the climate process." But Japan and others, to one degree or another, stressed that all nations - including the United States - must accept emission targets. To try to spur global negotiations, the European Union, which must reduce emissions by 8 percent under Kyoto, has committed to a further reduction of at least 20 percent by 2020. Speaking for the EU, French President Nicolas Sarkozy told Monday's summit that "all the developed countries and the largest emitters" must commit to a 50 percent reduction by 2050. He also said the U.N. negotiating process is the only "efficient and legitimate framework." Schwarzenegger told delegates that U.S. states are embracing emissions caps even if the Bush administration isn't. California's Republican governor and Democrat-led legislature have approved a law requiring the state's industries to reduce greenhouse gases by an estimated 25 percent by 2020. "California is moving the United States beyond debate and doubt to action," Schwarzenegger said. "What we are doing is changing the dynamic."
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc

More Profit and Less Nursing at Many Homes

Contempt for Life: Oh, the profits are divinely obscene! What life? What health care? Bridges falling down? ......Meanwhile, back at the here and now reality, the priority one subheadings remain in LIMBO ...................Priority One A: energy evolution - stagnant and dead with a 100 year old equation, E=MC2, unexpanded, unevolved, petrified as in stone .............Priority One B: Survival Criteria for increasingly complex, energy intensive 'holistic' global systems - nonexistent. (these criteria are derived directly from evolving energy stages beyond the caveman approach to nuclear energies - but then, that's The Trouble With Physics and pending trouble with civilization's future survival)

NYT September 23, 2007
More Profit and Less Nursing at Many Homes
By CHARLES DUHIGG

Analyzing the Data
For this article, The New York Times analyzed trends at nursing homes purchased by private investment groups by examining data available from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a division of the Department of Health and Human Services.
The Times examined more than 1,200 nursing homes purchased by large private investment groups since 2000, and more than 14,000 other homes. The analysis compared investor-owned homes against national averages in multiple categories, including complaints received by regulators, health and safety violations cited by regulators, fines levied by state and federal authorities, the performance of homes as reported in a national database known as the Minimum Data Set Repository and the performance of homes as reported in the Online Survey, Certification and Reporting database.

Habana Health Care Center, a 150-bed nursing home in Tampa, Fla., was struggling when a group of large private investment firms purchased it and 48 other nursing homes in 2002.
The facility’s managers quickly cut costs. Within months, the number of clinical registered nurses at the home was half what it had been a year earlier, records collected by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services indicate. Budgets for nursing supplies, resident activities and other services also fell, according to Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration.
The investors and operators were soon earning millions of dollars a year from their 49 homes.
Residents fared less well. Over three years, 15 at Habana died from what their families contend was negligent care in lawsuits filed in state court. Regulators repeatedly warned the home that staff levels were below mandatory minimums. When regulators visited, they found malfunctioning fire doors, unhygienic kitchens and a resident using a leg brace that was broken.
“They’ve created a hellhole,” said Vivian Hewitt, who sued Habana in 2004 when her mother died after a large bedsore became infected by feces.
Habana is one of thousands of nursing homes across the nation that large Wall Street investment companies have bought or agreed to acquire in recent years.
Those investors include prominent private equity firms like Warburg Pincus and the Carlyle Group, better known for buying companies like Dunkin’ Donuts.
As such investors have acquired nursing homes, they have often reduced costs, increased profits and quickly resold facilities for significant gains.
But by many regulatory benchmarks, residents at those nursing homes are worse off, on average, than they were under previous owners, according to an analysis by The New York Times of data collected by government agencies from 2000 to 2006.
The Times analysis shows that, as at Habana, managers at many other nursing homes acquired by large private investors have cut expenses and staff, sometimes below minimum legal requirements.
Regulators say residents at these homes have suffered. At facilities owned by private investment firms, residents on average have fared more poorly than occupants of other homes in common problems like depression, loss of mobility and loss of ability to dress and bathe themselves, according to data collected by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
The typical nursing home acquired by a large investment company before 2006 scored worse than national rates in 12 of 14 indicators that regulators use to track ailments of long-term residents. Those ailments include bedsores and easily preventable infections, as well as the need to be restrained. Before they were acquired by private investors, many of those homes scored at or above national averages in similar measurements.
In the past, residents’ families often responded to such declines in care by suing, and regulators levied heavy fines against nursing home chains where understaffing led to lapses in care.
But private investment companies have made it very difficult for plaintiffs to succeed in court and for regulators to levy chainwide fines by creating complex corporate structures that obscure who controls their nursing homes.
By contrast, publicly owned nursing home chains are essentially required to disclose who controls their facilities in securities filings and other regulatory documents.
The Byzantine structures established at homes owned by private investment firms also make it harder for regulators to know if one company is responsible for multiple centers. And the structures help managers bypass rules that require them to report when they, in effect, pay themselves from programs like Medicare and Medicaid.
Investors in these homes say such structures are common in other businesses and have helped them revive an industry that was on the brink of widespread bankruptcy.
“Lawyers were convincing nursing home residents to sue over almost anything,” said Arnold M. Whitman, a principal with the fund that bought Habana in 2002, Formation Properties I.
Homes were closing because of ballooning litigation costs, he said. So investors like Mr. Whitman created corporate structures that insulated them from costly lawsuits, according to his company.
“We should be recognized for supporting this industry when almost everyone else was running away,” Mr. Whitman said in an interview.
Some families of residents say those structures unjustly protect investors who profit while care declines.
When Mrs. Hewitt sued Habana over her mother’s death, for example, she found that its owners and managers had spread control of Habana among 15 companies and five layers of firms.
As a result, Mrs. Hewitt’s lawyer, like many others confronting privately owned homes, has been unable to establish definitively who was responsible for her mother’s care.
Current staff members at Habana declined to comment. Formation Properties I said it owned only Habana’s real estate and leased it to an independent company, and thus bore no responsibility for resident care.
That independent company — Florida Health Care Properties, which eventually became Epsilon Health Care Properties and subleased the home’s operation to Tampa Health Care Associates — is affiliated with Warburg Pincus, one of the world’s largest private equity firms. Warburg Pincus, Florida Health Care, Epsilon and Tampa Health Care all declined to comment.
Demand for Nursing Homes
The graying of America has presented financial opportunities for all kinds of businesses. Nursing homes, which received more than $75 billion last year from taxpayer programs like Medicare and Medicaid, offer some of the biggest rewards.
“There’s essentially unlimited consumer demand as the baby boomers age,” said Ronald E. Silva, president and chief executive of Fillmore Capital Partners, which paid $1.8 billion last year to buy one of the nation’s largest nursing home chains. “I’ve never seen a surer bet.”
For years, investors shunned nursing home companies as the industry was battered by bankruptcies, expensive lawsuits and regulatory investigations.
But in recent years, large private investment groups have agreed to buy 6 of the nation’s 10 largest nursing home chains, containing over 141,000 beds, or 9 percent of the nation’s total. Private investment groups own at least another 60,000 beds at smaller chains and are expected to acquire many more companies as firms come under shareholder pressure to sell.
The typical large chain owned by an investment company in 2005 earned $1,700 a resident, according to reports filed by the facilities. Those homes, on average, were 41 percent more profitable than the average facility.
But, as in the case of Habana, cutting costs has become an issue at homes owned by large investment groups.
“The first thing owners do is lay off nurses and other staff that are essential to keeping patients safe,” said Charlene Harrington, a professor at the University of California in San Francisco who studies nursing homes. In her opinion, she added, “chains have made a lot of money by cutting nurses, but it’s at the cost of human lives.”
The Times’s analysis of records collected by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reveals that at 60 percent of homes bought by large private equity groups from 2000 to 2006, managers have cut the number of clinical registered nurses, sometimes far below levels required by law. (At 19 percent of those homes, staffing has remained relatively constant, though often below national averages. At 21 percent, staffing rose significantly, though even those homes were typically below national averages.) During that period, staffing at many of the nation’s other homes has fallen much less or grown.
Nurses are often residents’ primary medical providers. In 2002, the Department of Health and Human Services said most nursing home residents needed at least 1.3 hours of care a day from a registered or licensed practical nurse. The average home was close to meeting that standard last year, according to data.
But homes owned by large investment companies typically provided only one hour of care a day, according to The Times’s analysis of records collected by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
For the most highly trained nurses, staffing was particularly low: Homes owned by large private investment firms provided one clinical registered nurse for every 20 residents, 35 percent below the national average, the analysis showed.
Regulators with state and federal health care agencies have cited those staffing deficiencies alongside some cases where residents died from accidental suffocations, injuries or other medical emergencies.
Federal and state regulators also said in interviews that such cuts help explain why serious quality-of-care deficiencies — like moldy food and the restraining of residents for long periods or the administration of wrong medications — rose at every large nursing home chain after it was acquired by a private investment group from 2000 to 2006, even as citations declined at many other homes and chains.
The typical number of serious health deficiencies cited by regulators last year was almost 19 percent higher at homes owned by large investment companies than the national average, according to analysis of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services records.
(The Times’s analysis of trends did not include Genesis HealthCare, which was acquired earlier this year, or HCR Manor Care, which the Carlyle Group is buying, because sufficient data were not available.)
Representatives of all the investment groups that bought nursing home chains since 2000 — Warburg Pincus, Formation, National Senior Care, Fillmore Capital Partners and the Carlyle Group — were offered the data and findings from the Times analysis. All but one declined to comment.
An executive with a company owned by Fillmore Capital, which acquired 342 homes last year, said that because some data regarding the company were missing or collected before its acquisition, The Times’s analysis was not a complete portrayal of current conditions. That executive, Jack MacDonald, also said that it was too early to evaluate the new management, that the staff numbers at homes over all was rising and that quality had improved by some measures.
“We are focused on becoming a better organization today than we were 18 months ago,” he said. “We are confident that we will be an even better organization in the future.”
A Web of Responsibility
Vivian Hewitt’s mother, Alice Garcia, was 81 and suffering from Alzheimer’s disease when, in late 2002, she moved into Habana.
“I couldn’t take care of her properly anymore, and Habana seemed like a really nice place,” Mrs. Hewitt said.
Earlier that year, Formation bought Habana, 48 other nursing homes and four assisted living centers from Beverly Enterprises, one of the nation’s largest chains, for $165 million.
Formation immediately leased many of the homes, including Habana, to an affiliate of Warburg Pincus. That firm spread management of the homes among dozens of other corporations, according to documents filed with Florida agencies and depositions from lawsuits.
Each home was operated by a separate company. Other companies helped choose staff, keep the books and negotiate for equipment and supplies. Some companies had no employees or offices, which let executives file regulatory documents without revealing their other corporate affiliations.
Habana’s managers increased occupancy, and cut expenses by laying off about 10 of 30 clinical administrators and nurses, Medicare filings reveal. (After regulators complained, some positions were refilled and other spending increased.) Soon, Medicare regulators cited Habana for malfunctioning fire doors and moldy air vents.
Throughout that period, Formation and the Warburg Pincus affiliate received rent and fees that were directly tied to Habana’s revenues, interviews and regulatory filings show. As the home’s fiscal health improved, those payments grew. In total, they exceeded $3.5 million by last year. The companies also profited from the other 48 homes.
Though spending cuts improved the home’s bottom line, they raised concerns among regulators and staff.
“Those owners wouldn’t let us hire people,” said Annie Thornton, who became interim director of nursing around the time Habana was acquired, and who left about a year later. “We told the higher-ups we needed more staffing, but they said we should make do.”
Regulators typically visit nursing homes about once a year. But in the 12 months after Formation’s acquisition of Habana, they visited an average of once a month, often in response to residents’ complaints. The home was cited for failing to follow doctors’ orders, cutting staff below legal minimums, blocking emergency exits, storing food in unhygienic areas and other health violations.
Soon after, nursing home inspectors wrote in Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services documents that Habana was at fault when a resident suffocated because his tracheotomy tube became clogged. Although he had complained of shortness of breath, there were no records showing that staff had checked on him for almost two days.
Those citations never mentioned Formation, Warburg Pincus or its affiliates. Warburg Pincus and its affiliates declined to discuss the citations. Formation said it was merely a landlord.
“Formation Properties owns real estate and leases it to an unaffiliated third party that obtains a license to operate it as a health care facility,” Formation said. “No citation would mention Formation Properties since it has no involvement or control over the operations at the facility or any entity that is involved in such operations.”
For Mrs. Hewitt’s mother, problems began within months of moving in as she suffered repeated falls.
“I would call and call and call them to come to her room to change her diaper or help me move her, but they would never come,” Mrs. Hewitt recalled.
Five months later, Mrs. Hewitt discovered that her mother had a large bedsore on her back that was oozing pus. Mrs. Garcia was rushed to the hospital. A physician later said the wound should have been detected much earlier, according to medical records submitted as part of a lawsuit Mrs. Hewitt filed in a Florida Circuit Court.
Three weeks later, Mrs. Garcia died.
“I feel so guilty,” Mrs. Hewitt said. “But there was no way for me to find out how bad that place really was.”
Death and a Lawsuit
Within a few months, Mrs. Hewitt decided to sue the nursing home.
“The only way I can send a message is to hit them in their pocketbook, to make it too expensive to let people like my mother suffer,” she said.
But when Mrs. Hewitt’s lawyer, Sumeet Kaul, began investigating Habana’s corporate structure, he discovered that its complexity meant that even if she prevailed in court, the investors’ wallets would likely be out of reach.
Others had tried and failed. In response to dozens of lawsuits, Formation and affiliates of Warburg Pincus had successfully argued in court that they were not nursing home operators, and thus not liable for deficiencies in care.
Formation said in a statement that it was not reasonable to hold the company responsible for residents, “any more, say, than it would be reasonable for a landlord who owns a building, one of whose tenants is Starbucks, to be held liable if a Starbucks customer is scalded by a cup of hot coffee.”
Formation, Warburg Pincus and its affiliates all declined to answer questions regarding Mrs. Hewitt’s lawsuit.
Advocates for nursing home reforms say anyone who profits from a facility should be held accountable for its care.
“Private equity is buying up this industry and then hiding the assets,” said Toby S. Edelman, a nursing home expert with the Center for Medicare Advocacy, a nonprofit group that counsels people on Medicare. “And now residents are dying, and there is little the courts or regulators can do.”
Mrs. Hewitt’s lawyer has spent three years and $30,000 trying to prove that an affiliate of Warburg Pincus might be responsible for Mrs. Garcia’s care. He has not named Formation or Warburg Pincus as defendants. A judge is expected to rule on some of his arguments this year.
Complex corporate structures have dissuaded scores of other lawyers from suing nursing homes.
About 70 percent of lawyers who once sued homes have stopped because the cases became too expensive or difficult, estimates Nathan P. Carter, a plaintiffs’ lawyer in Florida.
“In one case, I had to sue 22 different companies,” he said. “In another, I got a $400,000 verdict and ended up collecting only $25,000.”
Regulators have also been stymied.
For instance, Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration has named Habana and 34 other homes owned by Formation and operated by affiliates of Warburg Pincus as among the state’s worst in categories like “nutrition and hydration,” “restraints and abuse” and “quality of care.” Those homes have been individually cited for violations of safety codes, but there have been no chainwide investigations or fines, because regulators were unaware that all the facilities were owned and operated by a common group, said Molly McKinstry, bureau chief for long-term-care services at Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration.
And even when regulators do issue fines to investor-owned homes, they have found penalties difficult to collect.
“These companies leave the nursing home licensee with no assets, and so there is nothing to take,” said Scott Johnson, special assistant attorney general of Mississippi.
Government authorities are also frequently unaware when nursing homes pay large fees to affiliates.
For example, Habana, operated by a Warburg Pincus affiliate, paid other Warburg Pincus affiliates an estimated $558,000 for management advice and other services last year, according to reports the home filed.
Government programs require nursing homes to reveal when they pay affiliates so that such disbursements can be scrutinized to make sure they are not artificially inflated.
However, complex corporate structures make such scrutiny difficult. Regulators did not know that so many of Habana’s payments went to companies affiliated with Warburg Pincus.
“The government tries to make sure homes are paying a fair market value for things like rent and consulting and supplies,” said John Villegas-Grubbs, a Medicaid expert who has developed payment systems for several states. “But when home owners pay themselves without revealing it, they can pad their bills. It’s not feasible to expect regulators to catch that unless they have transparency on ownership structures.”
Formation and Warburg Pincus both declined to discuss disclosure issues.
Groups lobbying to increase transparency at nursing homes say complicated corporate structures should be outlawed. One idea popular among organizations like the National Citizens’ Coalition for Nursing Home Reform is requiring the company that owns a home’s most valuable assets, its land and building, to manage it. That would put owners at risk if care declines.
But owners say that tying a home’s property to its operation would make it impossible to operate in leased facilities, and exacerbate a growing nationwide nursing home shortage.
Moreover, investors say, they deserve credit for rebuilding an industry on the edge of widespread insolvency.
“Legal and regulatory costs were killing this industry,” said Mr. Whitman, the Formation executive.
For instance, Beverly Enterprises, which also had a history of regulatory problems, sold Habana and the rest of its Florida centers to Formation because, it said at the time, of rising litigation costs. AON Risk Consultants, a research company, says the average cost of nursing home litigation in Florida during that period had increased 270 percent in five years.
“Lawyers were suing nursing homes because they knew the companies were worth billions of dollars, so we made the companies smaller and poorer, and the lawsuits have diminished,” Mr. Whitman said. This year, another fund affiliated with Mr. Whitman and other investors acquired the nation’s third-largest nursing home chain, Genesis HealthCare, for $1.5 billion.
If investors are barred from setting up complex structures, “this industry makes no economic sense,” Mr. Whitman said. “If nursing home owners are forced to operate at a loss, the entire industry will disappear.”
However, advocates for nursing home reforms say investors exaggerate the industry’s precariousness. Last year, Formation sold Habana and 185 other facilities to General Electric for $1.4 billion. A prominent nursing home industry analyst, Steve Monroe, estimates that Formation’s and its co-investors’ gains from that sale were more than $500 million in just four years. Formation declined to comment on that figure.

Arctic Ice Continues Record Melting

Freedom and vigilance at full alert: shopping dropping, footsybally, baseybally, stucky in traffic, Ipoding, and staying number one as the most productive low paid, vacation deprived, uninsured (unaffordable insurance) workers in the world. Time will tell the Gifts we bring to ourselves and our children in the next few years - the major forces at play accelerating and foretelling our destination are in the headlines - science suppression causing the Trouble With Physics and creating the stagnant energy science is an extremely unwise and lethal choice as it also deprives us of the evolutionary wisdom and understanding that accompanies new energy revelations - all requirements for survival Evolution Freedom Survival The Promise of New Energy

Arctic Ice Continues Record Melting
Arctic Ice the Size of Florida Gone in a Week
By CLAYTON SANDELL
ABC Sept. 10, 2007 —
An area of Arctic sea ice the size of Florida has melted away in just the last six days as melting at the top of the planet continues at a record rate.
2007 has already broken the record for the lowest amount of sea ice ever recorded, say scientists, smashing the old record set in 2005.
Currently, there are about 1.63 million square miles of Arctic ice, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo. That is well below the record of 2.05 million square miles set two summers ago and could drop lower before the final numbers are in.
North Pole's Ice Disappears
In just the last six days, researchers say 69,000 square miles of Arctic ice has disappeared, roughly the size of the Sunshine State.
Scientists say the rate of melting in 2007 has been unprecedented, and veteran ice researchers worry the Arctic is on track to be completely ice-free much earlier than previous research and climate models have suggested.
"If you had asked me a few years ago about how fast the Arctic would be ice free in summer, I would have said somewhere between about 2070 and the turn of the century," said scientist Mark Serreze, polar ice expert at the NSIDC. "My view has changed. I think that an ice-free Arctic as early as 2030 is not unreasonable."
Sea ice melt will likely reach the absolute minimum in the next few days as temperatures at the North Pole cool and refreezing begins.
Worldwide Climate Implications
Melting sea ice, unlike land-based glaciers like the ones in Greenland and elsewhere, does not raise sea level. But it does play a major role in regulating the planet's climate by affecting air and ocean currents.
"It will shift some of the weather patterns in ways that we are just beginning to understand," said Robert Correll, a scientist who chairs the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment and is also the climate change director at the Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment in Washington, D.C.
Correll said that white sea ice also acts as a mirror at the top of the planet, reflecting much of the sun's energy back into space. As it melts, it reveals darker water that absorbs more energy from the sun -- further warming the ocean in a process scientists call a "feedback."
"If there is no ice, the ocean is going to continue to heat, and that is going to accelerate the global warming process," said Correll.
In coastal villages throughout the Arctic, less sea ice also means less protection from wind and waves that erode the shoreline. Less ice also means less habitat for animals like polar bears and other marine animals.
Last week, the United States Geological Survey issued a report that found if the ice continued to decline at the current rate, two-thirds of the world's polar bear population will disappear by 2050.
"Our results do give me some concern," said Steve Armstrup, a Polar Bear Project Leader with the USGS. "In Northern Alaska, where I've been working for these years, there may not be polar bears. So as Polar bears go, that probably reflects to a great extent a lot of things that are happening to other organisms in the Arctic system."
Northwest Passage Opening
The melting ice is also opening up the fabled Northwest Passage, long-sought by explorers and shipping companies as a short cut between Europe and East Asia.
Historically, that debate has been largely theoretical because the passage has been frozen and impassable. But in August, satellite images showed the passage has now become more navigable than ever, fueling a hot debate between the United States and Canada over who should control it.
At a summit last month in Montebello, Canada, the leaders of the two nations expressed their disagreement.
"Canada's position is that we intend to strengthen our sovereignty in the Arctic area, not only military, but economic, social, environmental and others," said Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
"We believe it's an international passageway," President Bush countered a moment later.
The latest satellite image shows a clear, wide path running through the Arctic that has major implications for global commerce.
For example, ships that must currently go around South America's Cape Horn because they are too big to traverse the Panama Canal could save about 10,000 miles out of their shipping route.
The passage also saves about 5,000 miles when shipping between Europe and Asia.
Canada, the United States and Denmark are also competing for resources as melting Arctic ice reveals potential deposits of oil and gas.
A mini-submarine placed a Russian flag at the North Pole last month in a symbolic claim to that country's share of Arctic resources.
Environmental groups worry that increased traffic through the Arctic could put the natural resources in jeopardy if there is an oil spill or other disaster in the remote region.
2007 ABC News Internet Ventures

The Madness Of "King George"

"But the price of freedom, then as now, is vigilance; and somehow the lumbering giant of American democracy fell asleep at the wheel, tranquilized by its own success". Time will tell the Gifts we bring to ourselves and our children in the next few years - the major forces at play accelerating and foretelling our destination are in the headlines - science suppression causing the Trouble With Physics and creating the stagnant energy science is an extremely unwise and lethal choice as it also deprives us of the evolutionary wisdom and understanding that accompanies new energy revelations - all requirements for survival Evolution Freedom Survival The Promise of New Energy

The Madness Of "King George"
CBS News Sept. 3, 2007
(The Nation) This column was written by Simon Prentis.
To those of us here in Britain, there is an Orwellian edge to the news that George Bush is invoking executive privilege to protect his policies from Congressional investigation. Just like that scene in "Animal Farm," when the newly-liberated animals start to believe that some are more equal than others, it sounds like the President of the United States has reverted to the divine right of kings. Wasn't that something you guys fought so hard to escape from? The phrase "I'm the decider" may have a certain folksy charm that Charles I would never have stooped to, but it's clearly coming from the same stable. And we should be just as suspicious of it now as we were then. I say "we," because even though you decided it was wiser to cut and run, risking all for a new life across the pond, those of us you left behind in the seventeenth century didn't like it any more than you did. Nobody does; it's humiliating to have to submit to someone who thinks he's unaccountable. We tried our hand at civil war, cut the head off our king and toughed it out for a while, but in the end our nerve failed us. And as we negotiated our shabby compromise with royalty, you moved the project forward with a nation devoted for the first time to the cause of liberty - leaving us to watch with an older brother's bitter blend of scorn and envy as his younger sibling threatened to outdo him. As, of course, you eventually did. And little wonder. With the dispossessed of every land flocking to your shores in search of life on a level playing field, you were a beacon of hope for those on the run from tyranny and oppression. France even sent you the Statue of Liberty, a gift to mark your first centenary, and a fitting symbol of what you represented to ordinary people everywhere. Fueled by the power of this American Dream, you were then the beneficiary as the Old World fell apart over its ancient tribal rivalries. For a while, you shone as the best hope for stability and civilization in a world now facing a new kind of tyranny, the ideological impasse of the totalitarian state. But as the cold war ended, the mad math of the military buildup left you the de facto policeman of the world. What a chance you had then to use such awesome power for the good! To use that unique moment in history to reform the international institutions, make them truly democratic and bring the dream of world peace to fruition by consent! But the price of freedom, then as now, is vigilance; and somehow the lumbering giant of American democracy fell asleep at the wheel, tranquilized by its own success. The neocons - cheered on by our very own neocon-man, Tony Blair - were allowed to let that power go to their heads. And what they decided was not that the world was to be one but that it was theirs to be won - by force if necessary. Back here in Britain, when Bush came to shove and we were asked to sign up for the Iraq debacle, we turned out for the biggest demonstration in British history, with more than a million people choking the streets of London in protest against such lunacy. I know - I was there with my family, and old friends and new from all walks of life. We were there because we knew there was more at stake than the same old corruption of power. We were there to protest the assertion of executive privilege on the grand scale - the sidelining of the UN, the flouting of international law and the principle of the pre-emptive strike. Of course, it didn't do much good. As an old Empire on our uppers, we can only ever hope to play Greece to your Rome, with our leaders clinging lamely to your coattails. But this is not about empire anymore. It's about the future of our children, the future of the human project, the future of our planet. Because unlike the days of the Founding Fathers, there's nowhere else for us to go - the ground has run out under our feet. Whether we like it or not, we're all in this together now. The only place left to make a fresh start is where we already are. So as we watch your President elevate an excuse for evasion into a point of principle, we can't help wondering whether history has come full circle. Does this mean the world's most successful political experiment is destined to fail after all? Will the land of life, liberty and happiness succumb to presidential prerogative? For the sake of the rest of us, for the sake of the world, we can only hope you care enough to call your neo-King George to account, and say it ain't so.
By Simon Prentis MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc