The Washington Public Interest Research Group (WashPIRG) said a family of a single parent with three children, or a couple with one child who filed joint tax returns, would have spent the equivalent of a $1,500 stimulus check between the week of Feb. 11, when the stimulus legislation was enacted, and this week.

Four days before payday, Christi was in a familiar place -- broke -- and facing so many bills that the lure of emergency cash was hard to resist.

It is considered an empirical fact that if countries throughout the world do not significantly reduce the amount of carbon dioxide they produce by burning fossil fuels, our climate will get abnormally warmer, resulting in catastrophic effects on human health, the environment and economic growth throughout the world.

Why does government seem incapable of solving the most obvious problems? The late historian Barbara Tuchman put it this way: "In this sphere, wisdom, which may be defined as the exercise of judgment acting on experience, common sense and available information, is less operative and more frustrated than it should be. Why do holders of high office so often act contrary to the way reason points and enlightened self-interest suggests? Why does intelligent mental process seem so often not to function?"

Last Friday, about 80 people gathered for the first Wild Seafood Exchange. Fishermen's News, an industry newspaper, sponsored a daylong event at the Bell Harbor Conference Center that allowed independent commercial fishermen, retailers and chefs to connect. Even the mayor of Yakutat, Alaska, attended.