jon

Links to each category submission thread is above in the list.

Check out the announcement thread for more details. One photo per category per person.

The Ice Category is brought to you by Rab Gear. Check out the announcement thread for more details. One photo per category per person.

The Bouldering Category is brought to you by Seattle Bouldering Project. Check out the announcement thread for more details. One photo per category per person.

The Skiing and Boarding Category is brought to you by Mountain Gear in Spokane. Check out the announcement thread for more details. One photo per category per person.

The Video Category is brought to you by American Alpine Institue. Check out the announcement thread for more details. One video per category per person.

The Scenic Category is brought to you by American Alpine Institue. Check out the announcement thread for more details. One photo per category per person.

The Cragging Category is brought to you by American Alpine Institue. Check out the announcement thread for more details. One photo per category per person.

The Alpine Category is brought to you by Rab Gear. Check out the announcement thread for more details. One photo per category per person.

One thing everyone could do to really help us spread the word about this use the Facebooks and Twitter links at the bottom here.

Cascadeclimbers.com 2013 Photo Contest presented by American Alpine Institute The photo contest is back with $3000 in prizes. This years contest is presented by American Alpine Institute and they have generously donated $1000 in gift certificates for guided trips or classes in the northwest. AAI is located in Bellingham and have some of the best guides in the world, many of whom post here on cc.com. You can find more about their their various programs here. This years categories are the same as last time, but we have added a VIDEO category. Prizes for each category are listed. Category Sponsors for this year include American Alpine Institute, Rab, Seattle Bouldering Project, and Mountain Gear. Big thanks also to BackcountryGear in Eugene. The Categories Rab Alpine Category -- Rab Xenon Jacket^ AAI Cragging Category -- $330 AAI Gift Cert* AAI Scenic Category -- $330 AAI Gift Cert* Mountain Gear Skiing & Boarding Category -- Mountain Gear Backcountry Essentials Avy Package valued at $340 Seattle Bouldering Project Bouldering Category -- 6 month pass to Seattle Bouldering Project valued at $432 Rab Ice Category -- Rab Infinity Jacket^ Humor Category -- $120 BackcountryGear.com + (2) 1 Month SBP passes AAI Video Category -- $330 AAI Gift Cert* In addition each winner, with the exception of the Bouldering Category, gets a 1 Month pass to SBP compliment of CascadeClimbers One thing we are doing differently this year. Instead of submitting your photos into this thread you submit them into the individual category threads. This makes things much easier for everyone! Rules and Instructions: -Post your photos with caption in the photo gallery and then embed them into your reply in the category submission threads. -Photos posted in photo gallery must be appropriately named including title, description, and keywords. -Winning photos from previous years contests CANNOT be submitted. -Only one photo per category per person, so that means only 7 max. -Video submissions need to have cc.com's logo at the end. -Contest is only open to users currently registered on cc.com as of today (today as in the day I posted this and not the day you read it) -No Photoshoped photos except for the Humor category. Stiching, color adjustments, and border effects are fine. -Entries will be accepted for 3 weeks (maybe longer if we feel like it). -Top entries will be decided by a group of volunteer users and those finalists will be voted on for one week by all cc.com users. -Rules and instructions are subject to change. Final Submission Date is Feb 24thMarch 4th March 15th! *Subject to course availability. Email us for questions. ^Winner picks size and color

The Waihee Ridge Trail is awesome if you are still there.

We are very very close to an announcement on this. We will have the same categories as last time around, plus a video category.

The problem is similar that it trickles down. Is it really fair for amateur cyclists at the top level to have to race against doped local pros? This has been the case in PNW.

At one point I thought this was the answer. When is it acceptable for your kid to start doping? 9th grade? I wonder how many kids on Bellevue Football would test positive? 18 And how do you enforce this? If kids know that going into college sports they are going to have to start doping, what is going to stop them from getting an early start? You can't say testing, because that clearly doesn't work. The problem I see is once you make this acceptable the trickle down affect is uncontrollable.

We will have an announcement in a few weeks. We will have more prizes then last year, so get your photos ready! Likely the same categories as last year, but if anyone wants to suggest any changes we are all ears. Cheers, Jon

At one point I thought this was the answer. When is it acceptable for your kid to start doping? 9th grade? I wonder how many kids on Bellevue Football would test positive?

JayB, the flu shot does not prevent the physician from becoming infected with the flu, same as a flu shot does not protect a patient if the doctor is sick with the flu. The only thing that will protect patients from flu exposure is a clear, proactive, compassionate policy where health care workers that are infected with the flu are prohibited from working and are encouraged not to risk working. The reality is health care employers are more concerned with their employees being on sick leave.

Are you for real, JayB? A health care worker who has received a flu shot will not protect a patient if the worker got sick any way. The only protection is a clear policy that prohibits sick workers from working. So what if you have to pay them another day of PTO, at least they aren't infecting their coworkers. How many times have you had a coworker infect half your office? At my old work you were put on short-term disability if you were on sick related PTO for more then three days, with benefits based on tenure. When your business model revolves around seeing sick patients all day you have to build in the fact that your own workers are going to get sick as well. I find it interesting how virulent this years strain is, and I can't help but thinking that the virus, just like HIV, is creating escape mutations that circumvent the immunity created by the vaccine. In the case of HIV, the virus will constantly mutate to evade the immune responsive even if it poses a short-term decrease in fitness, but when given the opportunity will mutate back into it's prior form when protection to that particular epitope is lost.

In the article I read about the Spearhead hut the problem seemed to be that it was not going to be viable without trails being built for summer use at a cost of a million dollars, and somehow WhistlerBlackcomb, who owns the heli skiing operation, was not going to provide the money for that unless their tenure was approved. Am I understanding this correctly?

The guy just bought an island in Hawaii, I think he isn't too bent out of shape over his taxes. And most of his wealth is in Oracle stock which he sells as long term capital gains at 15%.

But did they? How many people making 400K a year make that all in salary, now taxable at 39.6 %? I'd bet you it is more likely they make $150K salary and 250K elsewhere, so that 4.6% increase applies to about a third of this salary, and is an increase of a whopping 1.5+%. Actually there is no increase because dividend income under $500k is still taxed at 15%. It's a good question though, I have both a lawyer and a dentist you pay themselves through an S Corp at the moment to lower their taxes. But most lawyers and dentists don't make over $500k. But you have highlighted one of my points; Most people don't understand one of the biggest problems with the Bush tax cut. People wonder why Romney didn't release his taxes? It's because he didn't pay any because he offset his dividend income of 15% somehow. Also, why should a company like Microsoft pay 18% corporate tax when a little startup trying to make a competing product pays much more? The reality is that the Republican plans is anti-small business no matter how much sunshine they blow up people's asses. I have often wondered why there are so many rich small and medium business owners up in BC, and it's due to the fact their corporate taxes for under $500k are incredibly low, along with a tiered dividend tax.

Does anyone (JayB) have a diagram showing which part of the Bush tax cuts actually contributed to the deficit. The problem is what most people know about the Bush tax cuts and the deficit come from the media, ignoring the issue of what parts have been so detrimental to most of us. Here is my take. Estate tax is totally overblown. I don't know much about the estate tax, I know there is someone here who does, but my understanding is this is largely a non-issue because most people can shelter the money in trusts. The big problem is the dividend tax. The dividend tax was set at 15% because Bush argued it was double taxation under the guise that corporate taxes are 38%, which they are not. Most large corporations like Microsoft pay 18%. The lower dividend tax was advertised as helping people invest in companies, but there is a difference in providing actual capital to a small business and buying stock on market. When you buy 100 shares of CocaCola you aren't helping them be successful, they are doing just fine. Yet you only pay 15% on that "investment" income. I think for most people paying 15% if fine but the problem is the upper tier earners are the one taking advantage of this to the fullest. With the introduction of the lower dividend tax people converted businesses to S Corps, take a small reasonable salary, and pay themselves in dividends. I think for most small and medium sized business, that is pretty fair. You worked hard to get there, the tax code doesn't take into consideration time and sacrifice, so that is fair, but there has to be a limit. Should you really only be paying 15% taxes on a $10 million a year income? Obama at least got them to raise it for income over 500k to 20%, but I think that is too little. In my mind the dividend tax needs to be completely reworked, make publicly traded and privately held different, put limits on privately held dividend income to make it fair for small and medium sized business owner but so it can't be abused by private equity firms. So you can say that things haven't changed, but I guarantee you 1-3% of people who just had their tax rate raised 5% will disagree with this conclusion.

Kirk and KK, how about you share your vision on how to prevent this from happening again? Because it will happen another three times in the next year at this rate. Or do we just accept this as part of the American dream?

It's funny that when it comes to gun rights this is a question, but if you substituted any other situation the answer is clear. Let's try it out. - The bank left the vault unlocked when the robbery took place and they stole all the cash in it. - The soldiers left the nuclear payload unsecured when the insurgents attacked the base. - You left your car unlocked and the thief stole the belongings. This women had some clear choices being faced with an unstable son. Secure the weapons in such a way he would never be able to get them OR just get rid of them. She choose not to.