Posted by RonnieBear on February 8, 2004, 1:29 am, in reply to "How was your trip Samantha??" The Seattle area is headquarters to companies including Starbucks Coffee (in much of downtown Seattle there are Starbucks stores on every block), Costco Wholesale Corporation, Washington Mutual Bank, AEI (the "Muzak" people), Microsoft Corporation, Safeco Insurance, Food Services of America, and other major companies. More than any other major US city, Seattle is very dependent on international trade and commerce. Our economy hurts when the Bush administration embarks on poorly-conceived "trade wars" with our foreign trading partners. Seattle seems far-removed from other major US cities - 1,900 miles from Chicago, 2,800 miles from New York, 800 miles from San Francisco.... the closest major metro area is Vancouver, British Columbia (140 miles to the northwest). Washington State has developed fairly strong smoking restrictions in public places. However, in spite of this, people still willingly smoke cigarettes, though I think many Seattle-area smokers have "gone underground" as "closet" smokers due to the nasty social stigma attached to cigarette smoking here. Pierce County (Tacoma) recently attempted to impose a 100% ban on smoking in all public places including bars, pubs, restaurants. However, the State Supreme Court apparently shot down their ban as the County Health Department did not have the legislative authority to impose such a sweeping ban. The whole issue is being debated in the state legislature, and it raises some very troubling questions about government's ability to interfere with individuals' rights and freedoms.
67.5.197.X
The Greater Seattle metro area, including Everett, Bellevue and Tacoma and environs - has about 2.8 million population. The Space Needle is a priceless souvenir from the 1962 Century 21 World Exposition.
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