I find this notion of "the blob" very useful for understanding world events and predicting how they will unfold. If the world were being consumed by an organism like in the 1958 movie The Blob, growing larger and stronger every time it eats someone, it would make sense for it to focus on consuming weaker prey first before turning its gaze onto bigger game. This is why the US-centralized empire is seen aggressively targeting weaker noncompliant governments like Iraq, Libya, North Korea and Syria while being far less directly confrontational with more powerful rivals like Russia and China. The idea is to absorb smaller rivals into the blob, strengthening the US-centralized empire and weakening its rivals, before the final boss fight against China.
The problem with this, of course, is that it's being piloted by oligarchs who are so depraved and sociopathic that they think it's normal to do things like call for the US to drop a nuclear bomb on Iran. Wars are being started and new cold war escalations inflamed between nuclear superpowers under the instruction of deeply evil, profoundly unwise people for whom the possibility of world war and nuclear holocaust is nothing more than a possible outcome in a mildly interesting game. They are gambling with all of our lives in order to secure global dominance for no other reason than their own moronic egotism.
"Having personally helped to launch Bollgard cotton in India & knowing how it has benefited farmers ... it's sad to see the country go down an anti-science/anti-IP/anti-innovation path..."
"Since the Skripals were found stricken on a park bench, Downing Street has stuck to one version of events. Theresa May says it is 'highly likely' Moscow carried out the attack using a Soviet-made nerve agent. Only the Kremlin had the motive to kill its former officer, she argues."The funny part, in case you didn't spot it, was his claim that Downing Street has stuck to one version of events. He is of course correct, but what he doesn't tell his readers is that this one version of events has had a plethora of sub-narratives attached to it, none of which have been able to remotely support the main thesis. Sticking to one version of events is reasonable only inasmuch as that version can be supported by facts. On the other hand, if the version of events being stuck to is not supported by the facts, or if the "facts" constantly change, or if the "facts" are contradictory, then sticking to it is a measure not of reasonableness, as Mr Harding implies, but rather of absurdity, folly and irrationality.
Comment: See also: