Get Smart With Phone, Rockfish Rebound, Fight IS By Shooting Back

When we get smart, smart phones can change the world; rockfish rebound so now let’s eat; why don’t gun-rights activists go to Syria and Iraq instead of wasting their time trying to get arrested in Olympia?

If you have a smart phone and are a ding-dong who talks or texts while driving, consider the recent development of being able to do a test in 15 minutes on an iPhone for HIV and syphilis. Yes, it does require a pin-prick worth of blood and an low-power attachment called a “dongle,” but this follows equally remarkable advances in being able to do remote testing for other blood-borne diseases like malaria. In any case, it helps to get smart with these smart phones because the state legislature might make cell phone use when behind the wheel a violation that would go on a driver’s record. Want to see what State Patrol would say when you say you were only fooling around with your dongle?

The news about rockfish along the west coast is good: conservation and fisheries management brought stocks back far enough for us to eat them again. Well, I’m not sure anybody noticed that rockfish were not available in local markets but the problem, according to the story, was that, unlike the iconic salmon, Sebastes goes by so many different names that confusion reigns over what’s been really saved. In Puget Sound, yelloweye rockfish, canary rockfish and bocaccio came under federal protection and recovery last year in 590 square miles of near-shore habitat for young rockfish and 414 square miles of deepwater habitat for adults. Of course, since you don’t know the name of the rockfish you may have hooked and rockfish don’t do well after you land them, we might just as well keep our line out of the water, wait until Puget Sound Sebates recover, then get the dinner plate ready.

Now, in the spirit of public health and safety, a modest suggestion for gun-rights activists who went to Olympia last week with their armaments to get arrested for carrying firearms into the legislature’s viewing gallery. The State Patrol locked the gallery and no one got arrested. "What's the world coming to when there are people who want to break the law and they won't let you do it?" one activist complained. Now, now: instead of pledging, “I will not comply” and wearing identify apparel emblazoned with “Fight Tyranny – Shoot Back,” these patriots should go to Syria and iraq where, according to the Associated Press, 20,000 foreigners are headed to join up with the Islamic State. Take your guns, fight IS, shoot back!

--Mike Sato