John Powers

China has planted so many trees around the Taklamakan Desert that it's turned this 'biological void' into a carbon sink Huge-scale ecological engineering around the edges of one of the world's largest and driest deserts has turned it into a carbon sink that absorbs more CO2 than it emits, research suggests.

China has planted so many trees around the Taklamakan Desert, it's turned this 'biological void' into a carbon sink

buff.ly/6MycaRz

Huge-scale ecological engineering around the edges of 1 of the world's largest, driest deserts has turned it into a carbon sink that absorbs more CO2 than it emits

This illustrates nicely a point I've come back to a few times: Trump was unusually reliant, for a Republican, on lower income voters in 2024. They believed he would help them. He hasn't. And that's a big reason why his approval ratings are so bad.

🧵/ Our February European Political Monthly survey once again finds attitudes to the USA hitting new lows

Net favourability of the USA in...
🇩🇪 -56 (down 5 from Jan)
🇫🇷 -52 (down 18)
🇮🇹 -43 (down 5)
🇪🇸 -41 (down 4)
🇬🇧 -41 (down 7)
🇵🇱 -5 (new)

yougov.co.uk/internationa...

Trump administration fails to indict Democrats involved in 'illegal orders' video President Donald Trump had accused six Democratic lawmakers of "seditious behavior" after they urged members of the military and intelligence communities to refuse unlawful orders.

Trump tried to throw Members of Congress in jail for reminding servicemembers they don't have to follow illegal orders. He is weaponizing the DOJ to silence dissent & not one Republican has stepped up to stop him. Thankfully, a grand jury rejected it. We will not be intimidated.

Three House Republicans cross party lines to block effort to shield Trump from challenges to his tariffs | CNN Politics Speaker Mike Johnson failed to reinstate a ban on lawmakers' ability to challenge President Donald Trump's tariffs when three Republicans crossed party lines to vote with Democrats.

Speaker Mike Johnson failed to reinstate a ban on lawmakers’ ability to challenge President Donald Trump’s tariffs when three Republicans crossed party lines to vote with Democrats. https://cnn.it/4qnT3I9

Screenshot of Elon Musk post on Ex: “Elon Musk y X @elonmusk For those unaware, Space has already shifted focus to building a self-growing city on the Moon, as we can potentially achieve that in less than 10 years, whereas Mars would take 20+ years. The mission of SpaceX remains the same: extend consciousness and life as we know it to the stars. It is only possible to travel to Mars when the planets align every 26 months (six month trip time), whereas we can launch to the Moon every 10 days (2 day trip time). This means we can iterate much faster to complete a Moon city than a Mars city. That said, SpaceX will also strive to build a Mars city and begin doing so in about 5 to 7 years, but the overriding priority is securing the future of civilization and the Moon is faster.”

BREAKING: “in my 24th year of my quest to settle the planet Mars, I have just been informed of a basic fact of celestial mechanics.”

Perhaps he’s just confused and thinks Bath’s in Wales.

The United States is strong like never before. We are the envy of the world!!

The untold story that is told constantly and isn’t really true

Quite funny that Starmer's allies are waking up to this point now …

Cuts to Winter Fuel… not in the manifesto
Disability benefit cuts… not in there either
Cutting jury trials… also not there
Digital ID… no mention
Raising employers NI… nope
Freezing tax threholds… nah
Contracts with Palantir… no

Six Ways to Reform ICE and CBP And why congressional "reform" isn't actually the real problem....

The problem of ICE/CBP reform is we have a monster rampaging through our democracy and are trying to restrict *which* cities it can pillage and *how many* civilians it can eat. The problem isn’t the restrictions on the monster; the problem is the monster. www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/six-ways-t...

What USA thinks it's #1 in (and its actual rankings):
Life Expectancy: 46th
FreePress: 42nd
Healthcare: 30th
Education: 26th
Happiness: 23rd
Freedom: 17th
What the USA is #1 in:
Military Spending
Number of Billionaires
Incarceration
Bankruptcy filings
Medical debt
Gun deaths
Funding israel

I asked Claude. Twice. Got Wes Streeting, then Angela Rayner. Suspicious: it seemed to know why I was asking.

THERE’S NO NEED TO SHOUT.

What is interesting is how Waspi women (& I’m of that demographic), believe they should receive public money for not reading letters sent by DWP, not checking their pension B4 retiring and generally living in media isolation to claim they were not advised/knew nothing/knew insufficient.

A headline from Sophia Money-Coutts which reads I shit you not, 'Being posh should be a protected characteristic'

Fabulous 10/10 no notes

'I paid to see Melania to find out if it can possibly be as bad as people say' Many people have already made their choice, voted with their feet and made Melania one of the biggest flops of all time - so I needed to know whether they made the right decision

'I paid to see Melania to find out if it can possibly be as bad as people say'
www.mirror.co.uk/news/politic...

Immigration agents have become Donald Trump’s personal posse That is a liability for America and, increasingly, for him

"At least 32 people died in ICE custody last year, the highest number since 2004. An autopsy... showed that Geraldo Lunas Campos, a Cuban migrant held at Fort Bliss in Texas, was killed by his jailers. ICE had previously said he had committed suicide." www.economist.com/briefing/202...

Tesla bet big on Elon Musk. His politics continue to haunt it. Tesla struggles to regain its footing in the electric vehicle market, hindered by Elon Musk’s political activity, impacting its stock price and performance.

New: Tesla 4th quarter profit plunges 61% year-over-year; annual profit down 46%

the brand damage:
-1 million lost vehicle sales, per study
-Declining revenue, profits, deliveries in 1st half of '25
-Lower total production/deliveries than '24
-Lost crown as world's leading EV seller
wapo.st/3LYTef1

a man singing into a microphone with the words " because that " written below him ALT: a man singing into a microphone with the words " because that " written below him

Audience figures are in for the premier of the official documentary about Mrs Trump, "Melania" showing at Vue's flagship London cinema.

3 p.m. premier: 1 ticket
6 p.m. showing: 2 tickets

We are opening an investigation into Grok because we believe that X may have breached the DSA.

We have seen antisemitic content, non-consensual deepfakes of women, and child sexual abuse material.

In Europe, no company will make money by violating our fundamental rights.

link.europa.eu/Fh8h84

A cushion bearing the imprint of the person who last sat on him.

Republican senators join calls for fuller investigation into Minneapolis killing Trump says his administration is

GOP senators, governor call for full investigation into ICE murder www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c3...

Commission investigates Grok and X\'s recommender systems under the Digital Services Act The European Commission has launched a new formal investigation against X under the Digital Services Act (DSA).

Confirmed - EU Commission opens investigation into X as regards Grok nudifications - and also widens its earlier investigation into X to include recommender systems - ec.europa.eu/commission/p...

Background in context of the previous fine against X here: eulawanalysis.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-...

Seeing the US government flail in trying to frame these as anything but executions by incompetent trigger happy goons makes me feel like I owe an apology to the FSB morons I mocked for trying to stage an apartment as a Ukrainian terror plot but planting a copy of The Sims III instead of 3 SIM cards.

The same people who said that the mass murder of children in schools was a sad but necessary price to enable citizens to bear arms and oppose tyranny are now saying that if you carry a gun it’s your fault if you’re murdered.

The great thing about the RH photo is the caption explaining that it’s the figure on the right that is the piper.

The more you read this, the more confirmatory it becomes.

*Subsequent* Trump stance.

I've done My Week: Donald Trump (again) for tomorrow. My first draft genuinely had a joke about Trump thinking there were penguins in Greenland but I took it out because it seemed too stupid.