Category: News

Trust Fund roll call for baby boomers

When Social Security was first instituted, current wage-earners’ payroll taxes were used to fund current retirees’ benefits. This worked as long as the numbers of wage-earners and retirees were approximately the same.

In 1983, former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill and former President Ronald Reagan foresaw an crisis in Social Security —baby boomers, as retirees, would greatly outnumber the wage-earners. Their solution was to double payroll taxes on current wage-earners. “Boomers” would finance our parents’ retirement benefits as well as our own. Surplus tax collections would be held in a Social Security Trust Fund. This additional payroll tax was set to “sunset” in about 2035 as I could recall, by which time many boomers would no longer be around to collect benefits.

This worked for a year or so. Then Reagan wanted to balance the budget while keeping his tax cuts. The “excess” cash sitting in the Trust Fund proved irresistible and every president since then —regardless of party —has regarded the Trust Fund as his administration’s personal ATM.

Now that boomers are retiring, it’s time to pay us the benefits we have earned and paid for instead of blaming us for the “crisis” and “tweaking” us around!

— Paula Joneli, Des Moines

Neighbors not poised for noise

This is a response to [“Chef wants to clean up park with Pike Place salmon bake,” NWWednesday, May 19]. While I salute Tom Douglas for his civic-mindedness and fine restaurants, his proposal to include loud entertainment is most worrisome. Those of us who live next to Victor Steinbrueck Park have struggled with the Parks Department over noise issues for several years. After several favorable rulings by the city’s Hearing Examiner and the Pike Place Market Historical Commission, the department has been ordered on a trial basis not to introduce amplified sound into the park.

The results have been great. The park remains beautiful and safe, the neighbors are free from intrusive noise and the department has been able to further its objectives with quiet activities instead.

Persistent, loud drumming and chanting would upset this balance. If Douglas wants Native American -themed entertainment, how about Native American arts and crafts or unamplified storytelling?

— John Mason, Neighbors for a Peaceful Park, Seattle

A fishy situation

Tom Douglas’s idea is good, up to a point. But rather than spending the $12 a plate on hiring security to drive the “bad” element out of Victor Steinbrueck Park, why not take a portion of that money to provide services or training in restaurant work for those homeless people who spend their days in that park?

A positive solution might go much further than just driving people from one location to another.

— Elizabeth Sheets, Seattle

Dude, where’s my representative?

Government representatives don’t seem to work for their constituents anymore.

I understand that less than 40 percent of Seattle residents support the recent City Council decision to boycott Arizona businesses. It just doesn’t seem right that the city of Seattle should interject itself in the politics of Arizona.

It would be fitting for Seattle to empathize with Arizona and the problems that illegal immigrants bring with them to that state. Instead of boycotting Arizona businesses, how about confronting the federal government and demanding that the government secure our borders?

Imagine Washington State having “human drug trains” entering our country from Canada. Imagine our residents having to provide the social services to thousands of illegal immigrants who pay little or nothing in taxes.

Arizona is trying to do something to confront crime: There are thousands of illegal immigrants who cross its border illegally each month. Yes, many if not most of these illegal immigrants are hard-working folks who provide valuable service to farmers and so on. But there is a legal way for them to continue to enter the United States and do this work.

If they choose to cross our borders illegally, we should have the right to demand they be arrested and dealt with. The City Council’s action was just wrong.

— Ray DeJong, Sequim

If there was ever a brand that personifies exactly what the fashion standard for New York is at this moment, it would be Unis. For the current Spring/Summer season, Unis brings to the table versatile looks that allows one to trek around the city in a non restricted manner. The pieces are laid back and comfortable and includes items such as plaid shirts, henleys, chambray shorts, light jackets, and more. We particularly favor the “Gio” pants in both rust and pink colors for the summer.

Continue reading for more images.

Four signs to rule them all, but which ones?

On May 15th, I received a letter from the Washington State Liquor Control Board (WSLCB) informing me that as of April 3rd, I would be limited to four neon signs in my tavern’s windows. Furthermore, the signs could be no larger than 1,600 square inches.

The purpose of this rule was to ensure that innocent children would not be overexposed to garish advertisements that would induce them to consume products that could contain alcohol.

I have conformed to the new rule. However, I have a small dilemma: Which of the 13 neon signs that used to hang in my windows is least likely to cause children harm?

One sign says “Rainier” in red with a white mountain behind it. Is this safe? Another sign is shaped sort of like a guitar and says “Budweiser.” Would this cause children to pester their parents to buy the product or, even worse, aspire to become a rock star?

There was a sign that said “Steam” over an anchor design. This I knew to be dangerous to children because it surely would inspire them to get a bad hairdo and start reading the most alarming things to an unsuspecting public on evening television.

The worst of all was a sign that said “Schlitz” in big letters with the cryptic message: trade pure mark. That could encourage almost anyone to start speaking English badly.

The WSLCB did not include in its notification any guidelines on how to select a non-offending neon. I ask The Times and its readers for some help. How would one choose a neon advertisement that will not threaten the well being of our children?

— Gustav Hellthaler, Blue Moon Tavern owner, Seattle

For years, the common criticism of Wikipedia was the “brain surgery” myth, which usually was something along the lines of saying, “you wouldn’t let an amateur or ‘the crowd’ perform brain surgery, so why would you let them create a reference book?” Of course, that makes a bunch of bogus assumptions. First, it assumes that there’s some sort of equivalence between creating an encyclopedia and doing brain surgery. But that’s silly. Second, it assumes that no one involved in Wikipedia is an expert, which is not true. In fact, there are some brain surgeons who patrol Wikipedia as well. Finally, it assumes that these kinds of services are based on everyone being on equal footing, rather than recognizing that well-supported content is what gets through.

Along those lines, we’ve now got people using the same bogus “brain surgery” myth to attack the concept of “citizen journalism”:

First, would you trust a citizen neurosurgeon to remove your kid’s neuroblastoma? No, you wouldn’t. You would not trust a citizen dentist either for your cavities. Or even a people’s car repairman.

Of course not. But most people seem to recognize the basic difference between reporting on something and cutting into someone’s brain. And, many people also recognize that most reporters themselves are often not experts in the field they’re reporting on — and what participatory journalism and the internet enable is the ability for actual experts on the topic to take part in the discussion and reporting as well.

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Late last month, two young coal miners were killed in western Kentucky when a roof collapsed at the Dotiki coal mine, a non-union operation owned by Tulsa, Okla.-based Alliance Resource Partners.

Today, Rand Paul, the GOP nominee to replace outgoing Kentucky Sen. Jim Bunning (R), weighed in on the disaster:

“We had a mining accident that was very tragic,” he told Good Morning America. “But then we come in and it’s always someone’s fault. Maybe sometimes accidents happen.”

Sometimes accidents happen? The Associated Press notes the safety history at the mine since 2009:

Records show inspectors from the Kentucky Office of Mine Safety and Licensing have issued 31 orders to close sections of the mine or to shut down equipment because of safety violations since January 2009. Those records also show an additional 44 citations for safety violations that didn’t result in closure orders.

MSHA records show the mine was cited 840 times by federal inspectors for safety violations since January 2009, and 11 times closure orders were issued.

Here at TWI, we tallied the safety violations at Dotiki this year:

Since the start of the year, the mine has tallied 214 citations for federal safety violations, according to data compiled by the Mine Safety and Health Administration. Sixty-five of those were deemed “significant and substantial,” indicating that they are “reasonably likely to result in a reasonably serious injury or illness.” Eleven of them are related to roof-support systems, the failure of which is the likely cause of last night’s collapse.

And the Charleston Gazette’s Ken Ward Jr. pointed out the not-so-wonderful record of fatal accidents that Alliance Resource Partners has accumulated in recent years:

We don’ t have any idea yet what caused the massive roof fall that has left two miners missing at Craft’s Dotiki Mine in Western Kentucky … But we do know that in recent years miners have died in Alliance’s non-union operations because the company violated mine safety laws. …

A quick check of U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration reports revealed seven such incidents that claimed nine lives in the last five years alone:

The mine’s record hasn’t been lost on Kimberly Freeman Brown, who heads American Rights at Work, a pro-union group. She issued a statement Friday blasting Paul’s comments as “simply bizarre.”

“Obviously,” she said, “he hasn’t read the published reports about the mine disaster in his own state.”

While we’ve all noticed the great deal of international media attention regarding the Foxconn suicides, the local press offers a response all their own in this Chinese cartoonist’s take on the tragedies. More »

Filed under: Etc., Technology, Audi, BMW, Ford, GM, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz

More tech in your car? Oh, that’s inevitable. But automakers are trying to figure out the best way to implement it. There are two main architectures currently; tethered and embedded. Ford’s SYNC is an example of a tethered tech-integration system that uses Bluetooth to connect to mobile devices consumers already own and carry with them. General Motors’ OnStar system is an embedded setup that builds the technology into the car. Going forward, the consensus seems to be that we’re going to see systems that combine elements of both.

A tethered system is typically less costly than an embedded alternative, and it works with equipment you already own and know how to use. Systems like Sync can extend the functionality of your gear and is an attractive option to tech-savvy consumers. The lower cost makes it possible to proliferate these kind of features into more models, instead of just being a high-end feature. However, embedded systems offer advantages of their own. With communications hardware built in to the vehicle, performance is more reliable, and safety can be enhanced by tying in to the vehicle’s crash sensors and stability control to automatically call for help if it detects a severe accident.

True to the cliche, it seems that the young’ins are more comfortable with tethered systems, while older generations prefer embedded systems. OnStar is already starting to do this, opening up the system in Chevrolet Volt applications with a mobile app that lets drivers connect to their car even when they’re away from it. The future likely holds a system that combines aspects of both, enhancing safety, beating back obsolescence and drawing on the strength of each technology to deliver the best experience as cars continue to become more sophisticated.

[Source: AutoObserver.com]

The Next Big Debate: Hardware or software? originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 21 May 2010 16:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A mais nova categoria da Família Stock Car chega com ritmo forte ao Rio Janeiro, para a realização da segunda etapa da temporada. Neste sábado o Mini Challenge fará a disputa da primeira bateria no Autódromo Internacional Nelson Piquet. O pole position foi Fabio Viscardi, que fez o tempo de 1min33segs627. José Mario de Castilho largará ao seu lado na primeira fila, após marcar 1min33seg765, enquanto o terceiro melhor tempo foi de Alexandre Conil,1min33seg787. A prova do sábado tem largada marcada para as 10h48, enquanto que no domingo a segunda bateria acontece 9h48, ambas terão transmissão pelo Speed Channel.

A segunda bateria, que abre a programação do domingo em Jacarepaguá, terá o experiente Guto Negrão largando na frente, com o tempo de 1min33seg872. Em segundo largará Leonardo Burti, que estreia na categoria e finalizou o classificatório com 1min33seg879 e o terceiro foi José Mario de Castilho, 1min34seg061. Fabio Viscardi, que competirá nas duas baterias, vai largar em oitavo na disputa de domingo.

Fotos: Fernanda Freixosa

Fonte: Stock Car

The most important part of a mobile phone’s lifespan is when it’s hacked to run old video games. Few games are more classic than Everquest, the game that brought the MMO to a mass audience. I think that’s fair to say. Anyhow, today’s the Droid’s lucky day!

Most of my friends know I’m not a huge fan of EV startups. They take massive amounts of capital, the end customer (i.e. you and I) tends to be very sophisticated, demanding, and a pain in the neck, the technology is extremely challenging and I don’t believe the startups understand their long term costs as well as they think they do. But worse than that, the competition is very, very good and well entrenched. So while I love the concept of EVs and more specifically Plug in Hybrid EVs, I’ve been a huge skeptic of EV venture deals.

But . . .

• Go Tesla! The Toyota tie up is an exciting move. Toyota gets access to the EV business as a hedge against the possibility that the Volt and Leaf cleaning its clock and take the mantle of most green car company away, plus they get a massive much needed dose of positive PR that’s worth their $50 mm investment all by its lonesome to counteract the legions of recent “Toyota’s quality just went to hell” articles and the latest “let’s grill the Toyota executives” push in Washington. This is good.

• Toyota gets a great use for the recently shut down NUMMI plant in California, making them look like the hero in that story without having to actually operate a high cost union plant again (apparently a large part of the reason they got out of it). For those that missed that story – NUMMI was a GM – Toyota JV in Fremont, the last auto plant west of the Mississippi, and apparently Toyota’s only union facility. When GM went bust (sorry when you and I decided we liked losing money in the car business), Toyota took the opportunity to back out of the JV, leaving a huge hole in the local economy (it was just about the only customer for a number of local manufacturers). California’s political bosses get a brief reprieve from their shellacking by helping with big tax breaks to ink a deal that may bring back 10% of the lost jobs (about 10 of the top legislators and administrators joined the Governator to announce it).

• The venture capitalists who backed Tesla get a new investor to pony up a chunk of the massive cash that will be required at good valuations. Even better, the backing of Toyota in my mind drastically increases the chances that a Tesla IPO can get done, despite the huge questions analysts have had on their near term revenue prospects since they filed the prospectus earlier this year.

• You and I, who are funding a big chunk of Tesla anyway with the massive $400 mm+ DOE loan guarantee, now get a foreign auto company to invest underneath us. (Of note this will be our second multi-hundred million investment into that part of the San Francisco Bay Area, since we are doing the same thing for the solar start-up Solyndra a couple of miles down the road.)

• Tesla gets much needed cash, a cheap ready to go plant without union labor requirements, and access (if they are smart enough to leverage it) to the considerable manufacturing , marketing , and distribution talents of what has been up until recently the best run auto manufacturer in history. With it comes the automotive street cred that they are sorely lacking.
Filed under the “what’s the real story” side – a couple of questions have been raised by various analysts in the press.

1) Why is Toyota not doing this as a JV or operating partner? Which would make even more perfect sense from both parties perspective. There’s been no mention of Toyota helping on marketing/distribution and service, areas that Tesla will sorely need if they get rolling. But maybe it’s just early days.

2) How many of the local jobs are actively coming back? Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla was quoted as saying 1,000 jobs were planned (there were many, many, many times that many jobs lost when NUMMI shut down), and he was apparently very ambivalent on the subject of union or non-union.
But regardless, there is a lot to like about a Tesla Toyota Tie up.

Neal Dikeman is a partner at Jane Capital Partners LLC, a cleantech merchant bank, and the editor of Cleantechblog.com

Content provided by and all rights reserved to CleantechBlog.com. Also check out http://www.cleantech.org

With all Dell’s recent handsets running Android, many may wonder if the recent leaks of a Dell Windows Phone 7 handset will still come to fruition.

In a recent earnings conference call CEO Michael Dell re-affirmed the company’s commitment to Windows Phone 7.

"We’re very much working with Android and Windows Mobile 7, and we see those platforms as more attractive alternatives to other suggestions that you may have offered." he said.

The alternatives he referred to was Dell buying their own operating system, much like HP did.

The argument of owning vs licensing a mobile OS is currently being waged in the market, with companies which largely control their own OS appearing to be at a natural advantage at the moment. Dell has clearly chosen the later model, and will hopefully find success in the market due to this with some great Windows Phone 7 devices such as the rumoured Dell Lightening.

Read more at eweek.com here.

Check before you fold

Editor, The Times:

This is a response to “McDermott says don’t ban Internet gambling, tax it” [NWThursday, May 20].

Has anyone checked what is going on at the casinos here and in Las Vegas? Would taxing truly generate the numbers listed in the story? How would we identify who pays?

I question not only the idea, but also the Internet listings. Are we going to be required to identify players, get their names and addresses, then tax them? Or would we get the records of the offshore website and decide who pays and how much? This is a proposal that looks more complicated and has little chance of passing.

So why is this appearing just today? I wonder if it is Rep. Jim McDermott’s way of getting his name in front of voters for the primary. I guess it is the benefit of being an incumbent, but what does this really mean for Seattle?

This bill is a poor way to show voters that McDermott is bringing back to his community what we need. It is time to question whether he truly represents our concerns. There is a “remove the incumbent” movement in the country. I think its time to make that change.

— David Krafchick

Hands up for policies supporting longevity, prosperity

In supporting a sales-tax increase, Metropolitan King County Council Councilmember Julia Patterson states that police, prosecutors and juvenile-probation officers are “the basic services for which government exists.” [“Sales-tax hike may miss August ballot,” NWTuesday, May 18].

When tax revenues are robust, politicians are fond of providing moneys for tax-supported programs —which might not be the reason for government — only to find that these programs develop a core constituency and are hard to get rid of when economies sour.

It is when economies are thriving that government officials should be most careful in how they spend revenues and in budgeting for programs that support government’s purpose and could be sustained long-term.

— Richard Grubb, Redmond

Spend less

We need to tell the Metropolitan King County Council that the proper response to insufficient funds is to spend less money —not rob your neighbors.

— David Rogers, Bellevue

A team of scientists led by Mark Raizen at the University of Texas at Austin had the gumption to take on Einstein. And according to their new paper in Science, they won. The point of contention? The lovechild of statistical mechanics and thermodynamics: Brownian motion.

Here’s how they did it.

Step 1. Learning the Moves

In the 1820s, Scottish botanist Robert Brown looked through a microscope at plant bits floating in water, and wrote [PDF]:

“I observed many of them very evidently in motion . . . [these motions] arose neither from currents in the fluid, nor from its gradual evaporation, but belonged to the particle itself.”

To make sure that the pollen wasn’t alive–actually swimming around–Brown tried it with coal dust. Dust had the same moves.

Today, we understand that Brownian motion, the random break dance of these tiny particles, comes from the water molecules bumping against them. In 1907, Einstein determined the properties of the liquid and the particles that would help describe their wanderings and the motion of molecules. But he also said that it was “impossible” to determine at any moment the speed and direction of a single particle during this dance.

Step 2. Water Into Air

The reason for Einstein’s doubt? The particles bumped around too quickly to ever measure their speed and direction:

He believed that it would be impossible in practice to track this motion, given the incredibly short timescales over which the Brownian fluctuations take place. [PhysicsWorld]

How quick is too quick? A very tiny glass sphere (think micrometers) in water would change direction almost every 100 nanoseconds (about the time it takes light to travel 30 meters). Raizen wanted to make the time between moves longer, so they didn’t use water. They put the glass beads on a dance floor with fewer partners, using a medium whose molecules are farther apart: air.

Step 3. Floating on Air

Pollen doesn’t float on air. Neither does a micrometer-sized glass bead. Raizen’s team needed something to hold the glass up. They decided that the answer was light particles in a pair of laser chopsticks:

In 1907, Einstein likely did not foresee a time when dust-sized particles of glass could be trapped and suspended in air by dual laser beam “optical tweezers.” Nor would he have known that ultrasonic vibrations . . . would shake those glass beads into the air to be tweezed and measured as they moved in suspension. [ScienceDaily]

They could control a glass bead’s motion to the precise point where it was still dancing the Brownian, but not too fast to follow. But the lasers allowed them to do more than suspend the glass: By looking at how the glass bead deflected the light while it was buffeted by air molecules and bounced about on the chopsticks, the researchers could determine what Einstein dubbed impossible, a bead’s instantaneous direction and speed.

Step 4. Future Directions

Understanding these discrete steps will help wherever Brownian motion rules: everywhere from cell guts to the scent of perfume wafting through apparently stagnant air.

“It is certainly an important achievement to be able to directly measure the velocity of the Brownian particle at these short times,” says Christoph Schmidt of the University of Göttingen in Germany. “Technically it is now becoming possible to track individual particles with very high time and spatial resolution, limited in the end only by how many photons per second one can get to interact with the particle.” [New Scientist]

Related content:
80beats: Putting “Ears” on a Microscope Lets Reseachers Listen to Bacteria
Cosmic Variance: The Cell is Like Tron!
DISCOVER: Einstein’s Gift for Simplicity
DISCOVER: Einstein’s Lonely Path

Image: Science / AAAS

Job picture brightens, but not with help of rose-colored glasses

To lead off “Job picture brightens; older workers struggle” [page one, May 19] with Larry Dinwiddie was both unfair and misleading for the ranks of people over age 55 who are still searching for gainful employment. Though I feel badly for Dinwiddie, what he did in leaving a good job in a deep recession because he “had a life” casts a misrepresentation on what has really happened to many.

Most people over age 55 who are currently out of work were let go after putting in many years with companies. Many of these companies have used the recession and tight economy to clear out the higher-paid, longer-tenured employees and replace them with younger, lower-salaried employees.

This could be the legacy of this recession —people who put in many years for a company being cast aside when the opportunity presented itself.

— Robert Oberlander, Issaquah

To celebrate Pac-man’s thirty years, you can play online at the official 30^th anniversary Pac-man site, pac-man.com, or at Google where they have their first interactive doodle that allows everyone to play pac-man at the search engine’s home page. You can also download pac-man from the internet and play the game while you’re offline.

Pac-man is a game made by Bandai Namco Games in Japan. They chose the title for their popular character, PUCK MAN – which was later on called PAC-MAN. It was released in the United States in October 1980. This game became a huge hit worldwide that sold over 100,000 a year.

Pac-man has simple rules with cute and colorful characters. The goal is simple, to eat all the dots in the maze and avoid getting caught by any of the four ghosts – Inky, Blinky, Pinky and Clyde. A power pellet gives Pac-man the ability to eat ghosts but only for a limited time. The pac-man trend resulted to popular animated television series and a hit disco record, “Pac-man Fever” by Buckner and Garcia. Namco Bandai will also celebrate their character with a new video game to be presented by mid of June at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles.

Related posts:

1. Celebrate the 30th anniversary of Pac-Man
2. Pac Man 30th Anniversary: ‘Insert coin’ for two player pacman free online game
3. Pac-Man Celebrating its 30th Anniversary

Earlier, the internet was delighted to find Google celebrating Pac-Man’s 30th anniversary with a playable doodle of the game. But in a freaky coincidence, some Firefox users are being haunted by ghostly music from the very same game. Mysterious! [BryanSchuetz] More »

Corrode, then erode

The hypocrisy of our local government officials is unbelievable. Danny Westneat’s May 19 column “Who are we to judge Arizona?” [NWWednesday] quotes Mayor Mike McGinn saying the Seattle City Council’s boycott of Arizona speaks to our values.

How does it speak to our values based on the fact that the boycott bypasses the largest contract with Arizona for the red-light cameras? These cameras bring tons of money to local government, but we continue to hear about huge budget problems.

I may not agree with Arizona, but let the state deal with the fallout of its actions; let us worry about our own problems. Citizens’ support for local government would continue to erode based on what we see and hear, and it would have lasting effects for this area.

— Fran Whitehill, Shoreline

Turn off your red light

As a Seattle native, I am ashamed of the recent City Council action to boycott Arizona. Having served the city for more than 15 years, owned a business in Seattle and even ran for Seattle City Council, I am now retired in Tucson.

Sorry Seattle. I voted for a sunny instead of a rainy retirement.

I am embarrassed by the boycott vote. Did any of our seven council members read the law before they voted? I seriously doubt it. What it says, as an example, is if you are stopped for a traffic violation, you will be asked for your driver’s license and registration. If you do not have them, you might be held to check documentation.

You would not be questioned in any way because of the color of your skin. So what’s the difference? Your license is run through a system to check for any arrest warrants.

Is our esteemed City Council aware that a half of all illegal immigrants entering the United States do so through Arizona? Could it be any wonder that 70 percent of Arizonans support the new law? And exactly what business is it of Seattle or any other city to tell Arizona how to handle its laws, which are being violated?

Mexico President Felipe Calderón said that the illegal immigrants are not illegal despite 111,000 Mexicans entered legally last year and are now citizens of the United States. Los Angeles also did this and we reminded the city that a quarter of all their water-generated electricity is supplied through Arizona.

Perhaps a reverse boycott should be considered? I hope Seattle loses its red-light cameras and I am sure that would disappoint many Seattleites.

— Bob Days, Tuscon, Ariz.

Never again

Since the Seattle City Council has boycotted Arizona, I plan to boycott Seattle. I will never shop in Seattle again.

— Larry Blanchcroft, Shoreline

Staying on the Eastside

With Seattle being the latest city to pass a resolution boycotting Arizona, I thought I would chip in too. Wild Ginger, Pike Market and a couple of watering holes such as the Pyramid Alehouse around Safeco Field will not be getting any more patronage from my family. We are boycotting Seattle and will keep our money on the Eastside.

— John Hession, Redmond

More than 8,000 in state foster-care system

Helping Washington’s foster children is a year-round labor of love

May is National Foster Care Month and it has prompted me to reflect on my experiences with the child-welfare system.

Growing up the youngest of seven children in a struggling, working-class family in Seattle’s Beacon Hill neighborhood, money was in short supply, but we always had room for another child, be it a cousin or neighborhood youngster. The motto was: “We take care of children.”

Before I had my own children, I became a foster parent. I took in 10 teenagers. They filled my home with love and joy.

More than 8,000 children and youth —through no fault of their own —are in Washington’s foster-care system. The state provides training and guidance for foster parents and comprehensive support for foster children whether they are in the courtroom, in a classroom or “aging out” of the system. However, the real heroes are the foster, relative and adoptive parents.

Foster parents take care of our children during difficult times. They complement the Legislature’s ongoing efforts to provide stability and support for families and children. I encourage more people to step forward.

— Sen. Claudia Kauffman, Kent