Jan. 29
Really Super Big if True: A major breakthrough in continental disaster prevention occurred this week when His Imperial Highness Donald John Trump, upon reascending the throne, informed the world that the long-rumored secret faucet connecting copious water from the Northwest to California had been wrenched open by the U.S. Supreme Faucet Command, thus ending the wildfire crisis down south.
In Case You Thought We Made This Up: Quoting directly the commander in chief, via “Truth” Social on Monday: “The United States Military just entered the Great State of California and, under Emergency Powers, TURNED ON THE WATER flowing abundantly from the Pacific Northwest, and beyond. The days of putting a Fake Environmental argument, over the PEOPLE, are OVER. Enjoy the water, California!!!”
Thank the Gods For That: The revelation does raise a host of questions, however. Including: It gets pretty damn cold in Northern Cal in February. What happens if The Faucet freezes up? Does the Corps of Engineers — do we even still have a Corps of Engineers? — have some sort of small-city-sized heat tape to wrap around the Northwest Faucet?
And Furthermore: How will this be applied given the inexplicable shortage of regional day laborers?
Just Spitballin’ Here: Perhaps The Faucet could be protected from ice storms by a tan Styrofoam cone the size of, say, Goldendale. Affixed by a quarter-mile-long rubber band.
Next Week: The President, drunk with large-scale plumbing success, solves the nation’s climate-change problem by yanking down the previously unknown North American Sun Shade, which has inexplicably been rolled up in a massive ditch between Manitoba and Saskatchewan since last used in a joint forces air raid drill in 1957.
Jan. 23
Hurry Up and Get Ready to Wait: You might have already read in CDN about the summerlong Traffic-pocalypse likely to result from the pending “Fish-Enhancement Project” (Patent Pending, 2024, Jay Inslee administration), which will slow Interstate 5 traffic near Lake Samish to a crawl over the next two summers.
Little Did You Know: Getting through that significant governmental Charlie Foxtrot will be the least of your problems commuting from here to Seattle or Everett between now and the U.S. midterm elections of 2026.
Yep, It Gets Worse: The Secret Creek project, another mondo culvert replacement down near Arlington, launches within weeks. This one includes an I-5 diversion in both directions (opening by May, lasting nine months) and overall lane reductions for 11 months for a job that might be complete by 2026.
This Means What? That if you have to catch a flight at Paine Field on, say, Aug. 12, you should leave Whatcom County by … yesterday.
Oh and Also: Don’t think you can just drive around. Nearby Old Highway 99 will be completely closed starting a year from now until all the work is finished.
Why Is This Being Done? Because a lawsuit by regional tribes, built on the Boldt Decision, established a treaty right for upstream salmon habitat. A federal court ordered replacement of every state-owned culvert (cost: about $8 billion) by 2030.
Isn’t Fish Passage a Good Thing? Sure! But Seattle Times reporting has already shown many of the culvert projects to be of no immediate or even long-term benefit to fisheries because of other blockages on the same streams, or the non-existence of viable runs in some streams. Doesn’t matter.
Jan. 8
By Any Means Unnecessary: President-elect Trump, R-Vitalis, is openly talking about taking certain territories, not the least of which are Canada, Greenland and select cuts of Panama — by force, if necessary. All part of the Trumpification of North America.
Hammer Thinks: Wow. Seems … pushy.
On the Other Hand: If he’s really going to do it, how about taking by force some things that are truly worth having, especially given what’s surely to be rampant bleating by all the existing residents?
Like, You Know: Paris. The Alps. Vienna. The spa-equipped parts of Iceland. Costa Rica. Etc. (Seems like we could get a list from Rick Steves.)
And What About: Hawaii? Oh wait, already been there, done that.
Big Picture: It ought not be forgotten that the USA has demonstrable trouble managing the territories it already stole. There’s such a thing as too much. So perhaps DJT should consider the rule imposed here in the Fourth Corner by Mrs. Hammer: For every newly acquired thing brought into the domain, something else has to go.
Hammer Suggests: Starting with Florida, moving on to Mississippi, and working in a straight line westward to the Pacific. Sorry San Diego and Reno, we hardly knew ye.
Closer to Home, Yet (Way) Farther Afield: Not sure about everyone else, but 2025 seems simply daunting. The Trump re-ascendency would be bad enough, with all these exotic new, previously unknown rare species being discovered all over the globe, then dutifully reported by The Bellingham Herald’s “X” social media feed.
Seriously: Should we be taking appropriate precautions from previously unimagined levels of novel bacteria — and/or search-engine optimization run amok?
Couple More Thoughts on That: It must be nice to have that sort of reporting reach and depth. And we can’t argue that this ongoing coverage truly does qualify as unique local news.
Collisions Pending: Two items of note from this week’s news coverage: The City of Bellingham discussing creative ways to seek and find more state funding for various programs. And everyone from the governor to the janitors in Olympia warning in no uncertain terms that the cash cow was long ago milked dry. It’s the ill-considered thought that counts, right?
Who Knew? Dept.: Trump’s blabbering about tariffs is causing justified dyspepsia along the northern border, largely due to scale: British Columbia imports as much as $7 billion in state goods annually (sorry, no, that’s not Canadian dollars.) And, as business writer Frank Catalano notes, another $5 billion in goods flows the other way, to the north.
You’re Way Ahead of Us Here: Yes, surely most of that cash flow is milk from the Bellingham Costco.
The Hammer, posted monthly and updated somewhat regularly, is the alter-ego and collective consciousness of CDN’s executive editor and staff, informed and inspired by the feisty, humor-capable readers of Cascadia Daily News. Don’t take him too seriously. Send comments, complaints or ideas for Hammer items to ronjudd@cascadiadaily.com.
