The course was really hilly, but I still beat my last time by four minutes.

Eman is currently on a quest to become the fattest woman ever, beating the 1200 pound mark once held by Rosalie Bradford, who died in 2006, but what good is a goal if you don't have someone to share it with?

It's a little-noticed part of the federal budget:  Each year U.S. taxpayers pick up the tab for the expenses of our former Presidents.  For the likes of Carter, Clinton and Bush that means free rent, postage, phone and office staff — all courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer.

They certainly don't seem to need the money.  These days being a former U.S. President is a lucrative business.  After all, Bill Clinton raked in more than $10 million just in speaking fees last year.  George W. Bush made even more:  $15 million just for giving speeches.

Jogging regularly could add about six years to your life, a new Danish study suggests.

“It appears from our study that we have the evolutionary drive” to exercise. But modern man has learned to ignore it.

“Our results are very preliminary,” Dr. Raichlen says. “But if they have a message, it’s that our evolutionary history appears to have included this kind of endurance activity and rewarded it. And as a result, we continue to have a biological imperative” to move.

A follow-up photo to my seed here.

The globe is expected to remain indefinitely atop the old Seattle P-I building on the waterfront. But if it ever has to move, the city would provide staff time and community outreach to help find a new location.

Two commercial fishermen in Mexico received the surprise of a lifetime Sunday when they hauled up a great white shark measuring nearly 20 feet and weighing about 2,000 pounds, according to local news reports. The rare catch of such a large white shark -- at 20 feet it'd be among the longest ever recorded.

Wayfair was founded with one goal in mind: to get as big as possible. Next stop: $1 billion.

It occurred to them that the Next Big Thing wasn't one thing at all. It was hundreds of little things. Like birdhouses. And beanbag chairs. And meat slicers and porch swings and gun safes.

All of those items—and about 4.5 million more, in 25 categories—can now be found at Boston-based Wayfair.com, the largest online-only retailer of home goods in the United States. The company pulled in sales of more than $500 million in 2011. Its head count is approaching 1,000. And yet, most people have never heard of it—even if they have shopped the niche sites. Some entrepreneurs would find that distressing. Shah and Conine think it's exciting. They have built a company this big with almost zero name recognition. Imagine how big it can get once people know what it is.

I hope the sharing of my thoughts can generate a new conversation: Why was a puffy face cause for such a conversation in the first place? How, and why, did people participate? If not in the conversation about me, in parallel ones about women in your sphere? What is the gloating about? What is the condemnation about? What is the self-righteous alleged “all knowing” stance of the media about?

As I've previously written, I am hosting a Vinemeet in Roswell during the UFO Festival. As, I get to know how many are interested, I will gladly give you the names of hotels, motels, camp grounds and RV parks in the area. Book early, if you are planning on coming...the closer to the Festival, the more expensive things get!!!

Here are a few links to show you what will be going on in town that weekend:

http://www.ufofestivalroswell.com/

http://www.roswellufomuseum.com/museum/2012festival/speakers/speakers.html

http://www.prlog.org/11835828-roswell-2012-conference-marks-65th-anniversary-of-roswell-ufo-crash.html

For those of you not interested in aliens, UFOs and such..we have parks, swimming, a free zoo of indigenous animals, many many art galleries, antique shops,  Carlsbad Caverns nearby, Ruidoso and Sierra Blanca nearby, Lincoln County with a lot of history about Billy the Kid and the Inn Of The Mountain Gods Indian (Apache) casino.

Let me know if interested and definitely let me know if you're coming!!!

Thanks!

The fix-up portrayed in the delightful new musical "First Date" at ACT Theatre isn't an instant love connection.

But this crowd-pleasing show attracts the audience from the moment nervous, nebbishy Aaron (Eric Ankrim) enters a bistro to meet sleek, skeptical Casey (Kelly Karbacz).

A nine-year-old Chinese schoolgirl has become one of the world's youngest mothers after giving birth to a healthy boy.

Pauline, like more than 3,000 other children in Northern Uganda, has been struck by the mysterious syndrome that has doctors and scientists puzzled and has shattered lives in this rural community.

Nodding disease gets its name from the strange nodding-like symptoms that children display in the first stages of a seizure. But doctors on the ground and at the U.S.-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) say that is the least profound effect.

TACOMA – A 3-year-old boy fatally shot himself with a gun he found in a car while his family stopped for gas early Wednesday in Tacoma, police said. It was Western Washington’s third recent shooting by a child.

What does environmental devastation actually look like? At TEDxVictoria, photographer Garth Lenz shares shocking photos of the Alberta Tar Sands mining project -- and the beautiful (and vital) ecosystems under threat.

Cause Celeb highlights a celebrity’s work on behalf of a specific cause. This week, we had the pleasure of speaking with Alison Arngirm about her work with Protect.org.

Alison Arngrim is well known for her character Nellie Oleson on the hit show Little House on the Prairie. Since then, she has made many other TV appearances as well as being seen on film and stage. Alison was one of the original founders of Protect and is still on the National Advisory Board and the Board of Directors of The National Association to Protect Children helping to fight child abuse across the country. She also serves on the Ambassador Council of AIDS Project Los Angeles and on the Board of Trustees for Tuesday's Child.

The National Association to Protect Children is a national association that was founded in 2004. They work to protect children from sexual, physical and emotional abuse. They were formally known as Promise to Protect. Protect is also a national organization that works to gain legislation to protect children from sexual, physical and emotional abuse. They work on a national, state and local level. Protect and The National Association to Protect Children have a joint website as Protect.org 

Interviewed by Giacinta Pace

Introduction by Meg Zrini

Q:  Why and how did you get started working with Protect?

Alison: A family member convicted of raping a child would be out of the court house door five minutes later and have custody of the victim. Something’s not right! They [Protect] realized that there were extraordinary loopholes in the law, both at the state and federal level that allowed people who abuse children to go absolutely free. What if we had an organization which actually went into the state house and into Washington DC and advocated, lobbied, pushed for legislation and made functional changes to the law to better protect children and close these loopholes. I thought "what a brilliant idea." When [Protect] started they had already changed laws in North Carolina, Arkansas, and Illinois and they hadn’t even opened an office yet! They didn’t waste all their money on t-shirts and stationary and then try to do some work. I’ve been on the board of the National Association to Protect Children (Protect.org) ever since. In my case, indeed there is a personal connection, because as I’ve said quite publically on Larry King Live and in my book, I was sexually abused as a child myself. I completely understood the total short shrift that these victims get.

Q: How many states to date have they been able to change laws in at this point?

Alison: We’re up to seven or eight. We’ve done stuff on the federal level too. We have gotten legislation past that has allocated millions of dollars for law enforcement. We’re at least down to 30 states now with the change to the incest exception which is a law where if someone rapes their own child, if they’re related to the victim in any way, they can plead guilty and serve no jail time whatsoever. They have their record expunged as long as it’s their own child. In New York, your felonies are all by letter; you have ‘A felony’ and ‘B felony’ etc. So, people who rape their child, instead of being convicted of rape or sexual assault, they would plead guilty to incest which was an ‘E Felony’. That’s four years max, usually probation. In some states, rape would be a felony; incest would be a misdemeanor. It was based on a 17th century law that you shouldn’t marry your 30 year old cousin. It wasn’t a rape law; it was incest crime against the marital state. In California, a sex offender could have multiple victims and could rape  all four of their children, they could have continuous sexual abuse. But as long as it said: parent, step parent, grandparent, brother, sister, uncle or anyone living in the home like a family member, meaning: the mom’s boyfriend, they were counted as a relative. And then they were eligible for deferral of sentence, so the sentence was not only deferred but the judgment was deferred. They were not listed as convicted sex offenders or registered sex offenders and the victims were usually required to attend therapy with the person who had sexually assaulted them. We went in and said “You know this is really nuts. We think that if somebody rapes a child, somebody rapes a child and that just because the victim didn’t correctly choose their rapist, they shouldn’t have to see them go free.” We successfully changed this law. We changed it in North Carolina, Arkansas, West Virginia, New York, California and Illinois. We also see that in states that haven’t encoded it, there’s a terrible push to try to reunite the family under even the most egregious bizarre circumstances of abuse. It’s sort of an uphill battle. We have been pleased because on the federal level we have been getting a lot of money allocated for the ICAC ‘Internet Crimes Against Children’ task force. There are people who are able to trace the uploads of child pornography. We’re seeing that so much of child pornography is made by the child’s own family or people known to the child. When these videos are uploaded of children being sexually assaulted, the police trace these to that computer, they have an address and they can actually remove children who are being actively abused.

Q: Do you deal directly with any of the victims?

Alison: No, We fight and try to educate law makers, lawyers, judges and the general public about these issues. As an organization in changing laws we’re not providing direct service to the victims. Now mind you, several victims from some very extreme cases have decided to come forward and speak. We have a thing called Alicia’s law. Alicia Kozakiewicz was kidnapped, assaulted and tortured, and she was only found because they were able to trace the internet connection of her kidnapper. Had they not been able to do this, they would not have found her in time. She goes and speaks around the country about the need for these kinds of teams to be able to form child rescues.

Q: Is there anything else that you’d like to add?

Alison: Anyone can go to protect.org. We have a whole thing on the website on how people can get involved in the local level, the state level and the county level. Right now our big push, we’re calling it ‘not one more child coalition.’ Right now the child exploitation and child pornography situation has exploded so severely. We’re talking about hundreds of thousands of people. This is in fact a state of emergency. We’re trying to get money to give to law enforcement teams and there is money available for the ICAC [Internet Crimes Against Children] teams but it isn’t being given out. We’ve heard from police departments that know where these people are. They have their addresses, they know what they’re doing, they’ve seen these videos of them abusing these children in the home and they simply don’t have the wherewithal and the man power to go and arrest them!

On Sunday, I'm interviewing Nick Denton at SXSW about Gawker & the "failure of comments". Have web comments failed?

Web comments about how to fix web comments.

Edit: Titles on Branch are awkward, changed headline to reflect the discussion [there]. Thanks, proglib.

A Washington state corrections officer has been charged with bigamy after Facebook discovered two women were connected to him and suggested they might want to "friend."

Blakely owns 100% of the private company, has zero debt, has never taken outside investment and hasn’t spent a nickel on advertising. At 41 she’s the youngest woman to join this year’s World’s Billionaires list without help from a husband or an inheritance. She is part of a tiny, elite club of American women worth ten figures on their own, including Oprah Winfrey and Meg Whitman.

According to a new survey of more than 3,000 women conducted by Real Simple magazine and the Families and Work Institute (FWI), at least 50% of women say they don't have enough free time and more than 60% feel guilty spending what little time they do have on themselves. Surprisingly, 68% claim that work doesn't interfere with their personal lives. The full results are published in the April 2012 issue of the magazine.

On Monday, March 5, a group of locals and tourists united to save an estimated 30 dolphins from beaching themselves. The improvised rescue took place on the shores of Arraial do Cabo, Brazil, just north of the city of Rio De Janeiro.

There are many wonderful people on Newsvine. People that make us smile, shock us, keep us abreast of the hot news issues, amuse us, help us, and make us think.

Kavika is exceptional. His name is synonymous with Native American (NA) matters. From teaching us to speak and understand NA languages to NA cultural traditions. From explaining past injustices inflicted on NAs to heightening our awareness of current day injustices borne by NAs.

Kavika's articles also raise our awareness of issues concerning indigenous peoples around the world.

In addition, Kavika is also an activist. Perhaps his most notable endeavour is, when he joined forces with Enoch-2699399 (affectionately known as Enoch) to rally support inside and outside of Newsvine to petition the Canadian government to examine and correct their policy regarding the treatment of school children of First People descent. To view that article click on THIS.

I am sure that you can recall other significant contributions which Kavika has made.

Please join me in nominating Kavika for a Random Act of Vineness award. He certainly deserves one. If you agree, please click HERE, follow the instructions, and submit your nomination to the Newsvine staff, now. Thank you, for your support.

I welcome your comments and also invite you to take the poll.

"People who don't have money don't understand the stress," said Alan Dlugash, a partner at accounting firm Marks Paneth & Shron LLP in New York who specializes in financial planning for the wealthy. "Could you imagine what it's like to say I got three kids in private school, I have to think about pulling them out? How do you do that?"

There was a time, not so long ago, when I was busy, busy, busy. At least I thought I was.

I told people I worked 60 hours a week. I claimed to sleep six hours a night. As I lamented to anyone stuck next to me at parties, I was basically too busy to breathe. Me time? Ha!

Now I work 45 hours a week and sleep close to eight hours a night. But I'm not getting any less done.

My secret? I started keeping track of how I spent my time, logging how many hours and minutes I devoted to different activities such as work, sleep and chores.