Holy moly. I wouldn’t have guessed this was even possible.

In about a week, a Massachusetts woman is expected to reach the eastern end of Wisconsin’s Ice Age Trail, becoming the first female hiker to finish all 11 national scenic trails in the United States. 

Arlette Laan, whose trail name is “Apple Pie,” had about 200 miles left of the 1,200-mile-long trail as of last week. Once she reaches the trail’s eastern terminus in Sturgeon Bay, she’ll make history. 

Laan’s said “a lot of stubbornness” has helped her complete this journey, which began in 2003 when she hiked the Pacific Crest Trail. 

She’s now done it.

Appalachian Trail: 2,190 miles

State(s): ME, NH, VT, MA, CT,

… Read the rest

JKR going all-in again.

Like many women on the left, I despair that so many self-proclaimed liberals turn a blind eye to the naked misogyny of the gender identity movement and the threat it poses to the rights of women and girls. Walsh's film undeniably exposed what many leftists are too scared to, 2/4

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) July 12, 2022

Walsh believes feminism is 'rotten' and his default appears to be denigrating women with whom he disagrees. He's no more on my side than the 'shut up or we'll bomb you' charmers who cloak their misogyny in a pretty pink and blue flag. 4/4

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) July 12, 2022

… Read the rest

Media Matters did a roundup of right-wing media fussing about Mentioning Slavery At Monticello.

The right-wing media ecosystem is expressing outrage following a New York Post story that Monticello, the estate of Thomas Jefferson, is teaching visitors that the principal author of the Declaration of Independence enslaved hundreds of people.

Note that the outrage isn’t because it’s not true. The outrage is because we’re just supposed to shut up about it. But why should we do that?

The conservative freakout seemingly started with a July 4 tweet from Jeffrey A. Tucker, who complained of “aggressive political messaging” at Monticello. Tucker, who is the president of the Brownstone Institute — formed in May 2021 to oppose COVID-19 precautions — also wrote

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It’s a week! Another week! I didn’t know! I can’t keep up. There are so many of them, along with days and months: it’s impossible to keep up.

https://twitter.com/ScottishTrans/status/1546497094541795328

Are those the non-binary colors? Yellow white purple black? I didn’t know there were non-binary colors. What do they mean? Why those colors in particular?

Is it true that we don’t know “loads” about what non-binary lives are like? Is there anything to know? Are non-binary lives as such any different from other lives? If so, why? What is it about calling yourself “non-binary” that causes your life to be different from the lives of “binary” people?

Why does anyone need to take any steps to “include” them? What reason is … Read the rest

Here’s a bit of Bow-tie Guy telling Fox News how sad it is that Monticello guides talk about slavery instead of Jefferson’s interest in architecture.

Fox brings on a guest who was a recent visitor to Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, to complain about his tour guide over-emphasizing TJ’s history as a slave owner: “I just thought that Monticello would be protected from this disease of wokeism.” pic.twitter.com/dJZFjAiRGG

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) July 11, 2022

Jefferson was an interesting guy, no question, but one of the most profoundly interesting things about him (in my view) was the yawning canyon between his revolutionary rhetoric and his utterly commonplace Southern gentleman exploitation of enslaved human beings.… Read the rest

Fox News is outraged that the people at Monticello inform the visitors about slavery. It’s supposed to be a secret!!!

Today’s little Fox News gem was a segment on what a huge bummer it is to visit Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello these days, what with all the focus on slavery and what not at what was built as a slave plantation.

A bow-tied, bespectacled guest for the segment was billed hilariously in one chyron as a “recent Monticello visitor.” Turns out there’s a little more to the story.

The guest was one Jeffrey Tucker. Who?

…

Tucker is a former Ron Paul acolyte who has worked with Lew Rockwell in various capacities, including at the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

… Read the rest

The ACLU has an article (which it shared on Facebook) by a clinic escort on why abortion rights matter.

Last week, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, upending 50 years of legal precedent and sparking protests across the country. It’s easy to think Roe fell with the stroke of Justice Samuel Alito’s pen, a legal battle lost in a courtroom. But as a clinic escort for the last decade, I’ve watched the fight for abortion access play out in real time on the sidewalks in front of abortion clinics in Missouri and Illinois.

As a volunteer clinic escort, it’s my job to help patients get from their car door to the clinic door safely; to provide a

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NASA has released the first image from the Hubble telescope.

On Monday, July 11, President Joe Biden released one of the James Webb Space Telescope’s first images in a preview event at the White House in Washington. NASA, in partnership with ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency), will release the full set of Webb’s first full-color images and spectroscopic data during a televised broadcast beginning at 10:30 a.m. EDT (14:30 UTC) on Tuesday, July 12, from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Learn more about how to watch.

This first image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe to date. Known as

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Mole at the door has the sarcastic version.

https://twitter.com/moleatthedoor/status/1546552742600212481… Read the rest

Jill Suttie posted an article a few days ago on how access to abortion improves women’s well-being.

Though people may argue over whether this ruling is sound or not, it likely spells disaster for women’s health and well-being. That’s because research suggests women who have the right to choose whether or not to give birth are happier, healthier, and more economically stable than those who don’t. And their children benefit, too, by having a mother who can afford to nurture and provide for them better.

What a surprise, eh, that women who get to have some control over their lives are better off than women who don’t?

Item one is better mental health.

Many women are made to feel

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This guy (who has half a million followers) –

Respectfully — and I sincerely mean respectfully — you need to fall back and support men like Matt Walsh. You're not built for this conflict. The failure and cowardice of men got us into this mess. Matt is standing up. You need to support him. Men have to fix this. https://t.co/czKT2RHqKq

— Jason Whitlock (@WhitlockJason) July 10, 2022

There is nothing even slightly “respectful” about telling a woman to “fall back” and let the men take over. (There’s also nothing respectful about telling women to support men like Matt Walsh – who is a conservative Catholic who opposes abortion rights.) It’s all the more insulting when the woman in question is … Read the rest

From The Telegraph:

The Church of England has said that there is “no official definition” of a woman.

Did it say anything about an official definition of a man?

Senior bishops have insisted that until recently, the answer to questions such as what constitutes a woman “were thought to be self-evident”. However, now “additional care” is needed.

Let’s talk about more official definitions. What’s the official definition of “God”? How about “soul”? Sin? Faith? Prayer? Miracle? Magic? Voodoo?

The stance comes as the institution struggles to remain relevant and progressive amid declining congregant numbers and in an increasingly secular society.

So they try to be progressive by telling women that men are also women?

Rev Angela Berners-Wilson, who became

… Read the rest

And we’re back! WordPress tripped over its own feet but sainted webmaster fixed the problem.

Pink News tells us:

A gay couple are suing a California fertility clinic after they requested a male embryo but ended up having a baby girl.

Well they didn’t “have” a baby girl did they. Having a baby=giving birth. They didn’t do that; someone else did it for them. They paid a woman to gestate the baby and push it out.

According to CBSNews, Albert and Anthony Saniger were determined to be fathers to two sons. Before the couple wed in 2013 they had already chosen the names of their future kids and even created Gmail accounts for them.

The HRC Fertility clinic and

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Let’s play will he won’t he again.

Steve Bannon, the onetime strategist to Donald Trump who was involved in the former president’s efforts to invalidate his defeat in the 2020 election, has opened discussions with the House January 6 select committee about testifying to the inquiry into the Capitol attack.

I don’t see why he gets to open discussions. I don’t see why they don’t just tell him to bring his ass in for questioning.

Bannon signalled in an email to the select committee, first obtained by the Guardian, that he was prepared to initiate discussions about a time and place for an interview, after Trump said in a letter he would waive executive privilege if he reached an

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As Julie Bindel points out, this is a series of three men cheerily shrugging off women’s rights.

Absolutely agree. Cut out the divisive nonsense. https://t.co/G0zLuO9zZj

— Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) July 10, 2022

“Let people live their lives”=Let men claim to be women and steal everything women have fought for and treat women as the domineering entitled privileged sex.… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Councillor Homophobe.

How is it that these “feelings” are not only given a pass, but are enthusiastically supported, and defended with bullying, threats, intimidation and emotional blackmail?

It’s actually much worse than this. It’s not just a matter of celebration and valourization. It’s also about recruitment. How many other disorders or delusions are promulgated by the power of state institutions and backed up by the force of law? The idea that you’ve been “born in the wrong body” is not just introduced to a wider audience than it would have othewise. It is promoted to children and teens who might not have considered this until it was offered, or … Read the rest

The World Health Organization has updated its “gender mainstreaming manual,” whatever tf that is.

The first edition of the manual dates from 2011, and WHO is now updating it in light of new scientific evidence and conceptual progress on gender, health and development.

Conceptual progress? More like regress.

The review and update process will build on the extensive work already featured in the manual. It will focus on:

1. Updating key concepts around gender;

…

3. Going beyond non-binary approaches to gender and health to recognize gender and sexual diversity, or the concepts that gender identity exists on a continuum and that sex is not limited to male or female.

4. Introducing new gender, equity and human rights frameworks

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Historian Catherine Allgor explains “coverture”:

Coverture is a long-standing legal practice that is part of our colonial heritage. Though Spanish and French versions of coverture existed in the new world, United States coverture is based in English law. Coverture held that no female person had a legal identity. At birth, a female baby was covered by her father’s identity, and then, when she married, by her husband’s. The husband and wife became one–and that one was the husband. As a symbol of this subsuming of identity, women took the last names of their husbands. They were “feme coverts,” covered women. Because they did not legally exist, married women could not make contracts or be sued, so they could not

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More homophobia from the LibDems:

https://twitter.com/HannahPerkin/status/1545468549052960771

She’s a councillor in Faversham (Kent).

https://twitter.com/HannahPerkin/status/1545734160031031298

She doesn’t welcome conversation with the peasants who replied to her “Absolutely not” though.

Boo lesbians and gays, hooray for men in womanface. How did we get here?… Read the rest

Arwa Mahdawi on the conservatism of the Dems:

Some top establishment Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi, have been very busy throwing their weight behind Henry Cuellar, the last anti-choice House Democrat, in the primary for Texas’s 28th congressional district. I’m not sure exactly what makes the gun-loving, abortion-hating Cuellar a Democrat, because he seems to have basically all the same policy positions as a Republican, but he has a (D) next to his name. Even when they knew Roe was on the verge of being overturned, top House Democrats chose to help Cuellar – the incumbent – fend off a challenge from Jessica Cisneros, a pro-choice progressive. In the end Cuellar won by just 289 votes. The Democrats have

… Read the rest