Kate Harding points out a skill that often escapes even the most accomplished women: accepting compliments without self-deprecation. So how to acknowledge your awesomeness without being an ass?

Dear Internet: Pursuant to yesterday's post at Jezebel, I feel I should clarify a few things.

Unlike seemingly everyone else in the universe, Taylor Swift is having an excellent year. 2009 has been remarkable for Swift, who has seen her career take off in a fairly astronomical fashion. But is she being set up to fail?

The Stupak-Pitts Amendment is the health-care straw that broke the camel's back. After close to two years of compromising and waiting, progressive, pro-choice women are outraged - but for completely different reasons. Amy Siskind and Kate Harding square off post-jump.

'Now I'm able to tell people, "Avoid the diets, because you will gain it back, most likely, and you're just going to live in a hellish world while doing it."' Preach it, formerly-starving-now-plus-size-model-memoirist Crystal Renn:

Another day, another amazing guest-blogger. Please welcome writer Kate Harding, proprietress of body-acceptance blog Shapely Prose, and author of/contributor to numerous books, including Lessons from the Fat-o-Sphere: Quit Dieting and Declare a Truce With Your Body and Yes Means Yes.

Kate Harding: "[The show] does does little to dispel the myth that fat people's lives are built around dessert and desperation." Marianne Kirby: "It's a one-two punch of acceptance followed by a knockout blow of shame." [Salon, The Daily Beast]

Today's New York Times "Thursday Styles" section has (another) article about how some people eschew dieting in favor of eating what they want — even if it doesn't make them thin.

The always awesome Kate Harding has put together a slideshow to debunk the Body Mass Index, a flawed method of measuring obesity levels based solely on weight vs. height ratio, with no attention paid to actual muscle vs. body fat.

Forever21's "plus sized" line, the God-awfully named Faith21, debuted in stores and online Friday. Noted "fat" writer Kate Harding writes, "I give it 3 months."