Just a question, social media prevents war, byebye US Dollar and some happiness

Lots has happened in the world since my last blog. And not much of it is good.
MH17 went down, Gaza is under attack, Libya becomes more unstable by the day, Syria goes from bad to worse,  Argentina was pushed into bankruptcy by a US court. I could write pages and pages about every single catasptophy but the net is already overflowing with propaganda and other nonsense so I won't.

Just 2 things before we move to another subject that maybe brings a smile on your face. If only people would smile more, we wouldn't be in such a mess.
First the serious stuff:
1. Just a question no mass media journalist seems to ask: if MH17 was shot down by a rocket, why is there shrapnell damage to various sections of the airplane? With all propoaganda (from all sides) that started flowing minutes after MH17 went down, I found social media (twitter, youtube) to be very useful as it quickly uncovered lies and misinformation that was (purpously or not) reported in mass media. With the 100 year commemoration of WWI it makes me think: if social media would hae been around in 1914, would the people have been able to prevent war from errupting? And the other way around, if social media would not have been around today, would MH17 and the mass media reports have pushed us helplessly into another period of cold war (at best) or war (at worst)?

2. On July 15, something happened that did not hit the mass media in our Western world and it should have as it will fundamentally change the world as we know it today. The BRICS set up their own "IMF", providing it with capital and undertaking to trade beteen them not in US dollars but through currency swaps. You can not overestimate the importance of BRICS telling the world "scr#w the US Dollar". The US will not take this lightly and if BRICS is succesful it will mark the beginning of the end of US (Dollar) world dominance. Here's an excerpt from the press release:
"We are pleased to announce the signing of the Treaty for the establishment of the BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) with an initial size of US$ 100 billion. This arrangement will have a positive precautionary effect, help countries forestall short-term liquidity pressures, promote further BRICS cooperation, strengthen the global financial safety net and complement existing international arrangements.... The Agreement is a framework for the provision of liquidity through currency swaps in response to actual or potential short-term balance of payments pressures."

That were the serious bits, now for the smiles:

With my change of job I upgraded from an old cell phone (the boring stuff that can only make phone calls and send a text messages), to a smartphone. I'm still struggling to make the smartphone do what I want it to, making me wonder why on earth they call it a 'smart'-phone. And then I came across this:

And my new job brought me to Farnborough for business! First time I went was back in 1990 and 1992. As I said during a speech I had to give during a reception: in those days the stars of the show were a big twin engined airliner from across the Atlantic and some fighter aircraft from a country that had just opened its borders. Since then the world has changed a lot. In those days I could spend 2 full days taking pictures at the threshold of runway 24. This time, although being there for a week, I could only sneek out once to get some quick shots. But hey, I'm not complaining!