Washington Has Most Admired Companies in the U.S., Senate Passes Anti-Gang Bill: SeattleIAM

This is a selection of recent popular blog articles from SeattleIAM where you will find the best blogs from Seattle, Washington as well as video uploads, social networking, rumors, and blog authoring

Washington is Top of the List for the Most Admired Companies

John Gillie at Biz Buzz reports in a recent post that “four Washington companies, Starbucks, Costco, Microsoft and Nordstrom, have placed among the top 20 ‘most admired’ U.S. companies on a Fortune magazine survey.” Washington topped the list with four companies and California came in second with three. “On a list of the world's most admired companies, three companies with Washington connections made the list: Microsoft, Costco and Boeing.”

The post also states that when the magazine polled executives, board members and analysts, Northwest companies also scored well. “Northwestern Mutual Life… was first in the Insurance and Health category… Nordstrom topped the General Merchandisers category… [and] Costco was at the top of the Specialty Retailers group.” Other companies on the list included Weyerhouser and Plum Creek Timber, finishing second and third respectively in the Forest and Paper Products sector. “Microsoft was third in the Computer Software group. And Bellevue's Expedia and Seattle's Amazon.com finished third and fourth in the Internet Service sector.”

Watered Down Anti-Gang Bill Passes Senate

Damon Agnos of The Daily Weekly reports that the anti-gang legislation House Bill 2712 “passed the Senate on Friday, minus two key provisions.” One of the provisions was the “controversial civil injunctions, which could have enabled city attorneys or prosecutors to prohibit gang members from associating with one another, even for lawful purposes.” Senator Margarita Prentice was behind the removal. She was afraid the injunctions “would be used in a racially discriminatory manner.”

Additionally, according to the post, “the Ways and Means Committee removed the social ‘intervention’ programs that were touted as essential by all of the bill's supporters.” Apparently, “the Ways and Means Committee didn't want future legislatures to be bound by the $10 million earmark,” which struck our blogger as odd, as “by the time the bill got to the Ways and Means Committee, the original earmark for intervention programs had been softened to an advisory statement…while real earmarks for the law enforcement end of the bill remained.” The current incarnation of the bill will now go back to the House and then to the Governor for a signature.

PNW Cheeselover Alert! Oregon Cheese Festival This Weekend!

The Pacific Northwest Cheese Project announces the upcoming Oregon Cheese Festival t this weekend. “This is Oregon's annual spring cheese event and a great way to meet cheesemakers, talk about cheese and, perhaps more importantly, eat cheese.” The events take place in Central Point, Oregon and include a benefit dinner at the historic Ashland Springs Hotel and the “farmer's market style” festival featuring cheese, wine, beer and a variety of other Southern Oregon specialties.

The benefit dinner includes “a five course dinner created by Chef Damon Jones, who has developed a menu highlighting Oregon's great artisan cheeses.” Author Laura Werlin will emcee. The festival takes place at Rogue Creamery. Along with all the tastings, participants can attend free classes on cheese preparation and wine and beer cheese pairing. Further details available in the post.

About SeattleIAM

SeattleIAM is part of a groundbreaking network of city-focused blog aggregation, user generated media and social networking websites currently rolling out across North America. Each IAM website filters and organizes blog content as well as offering video upload capabilities, social networking, blog authoring, favourites lists and rumours. The IAM Network is a division of SoMedia Networks Inc which also operates Inveslogic.com, Greenedia.com, Healthedia.com and Blabaloo.com. For more information or to register an account, visit SeattleIAM.