If you try to dismiss any of this as Russian state propaganda, then here is something else you should be aware of. Did you hear of the spontaneously organized procession in which, after the official parade, half a million people marched through Moscow with portraits of their relatives who died in World War II? The event was called "The Eternal Regiment" (Бессмертный полк). Similar processions took place in many cities throughout Russia, and the total number of participants is estimated at around 4 million.Western press either panned it or billed it as an attempt by Putin to whip up anti-western sentiment. Now that sort of "press coverage," my fellow space travelers, is pure propaganda! No, it was an enthusiastic, spontaneous outpouring of genuine public sentiment. If you think about it just a tiny bit, nothing on this scale could be contrived artificially, and the thought that millions of people would prostitute their dead for propaganda purposes is, frankly, both cynical and insulting.

America's Achilles Heel and Russia's indomitable spirit

• ALEC - State by State: Ag-Gag Laws silence whistleblowers
• Film maker exposes US factory farms using a drone
• Flying pigsh*t! Drone catches Smithfield pork farms spraying animal waste into air
• CDC reveals disturbing truth about factory farms and superbugs

Hawai'i has become "ground zero" in the controversy over genetically modified (GMO) crops and pesticides. With the seed crop industry (including conventional as well as GMO crops) reaping $146.3 million a year in sales resulting from its activities in Hawai'i, the out-of-state pesticide and GMO firms Syngenta,Monsanto, DuPont Pioneer, Dow Chemical, BASF, and Bayer Crop Science have brought substantial sums of corporate cash into the state's relatively small political arena.

These "Big 6" pesticide and GMO firms are active on the islands in a big way, making use of the three to four annual growing seasons to develop new GMO seeds more quickly. The development of new GMOs by these pesticide and seed conglomerates goes hand-in-hand with heavy pesticide use in some of the islands' experimental crop fields, new data show.

Of the "Big 6" chemical and seed companies and their trade associations lobbying and/or contributing to political candidates in Hawai'i, Bayer, Dow,CropLife America (a pesticide and agricultural chemical trade association), and the American Chemistry Council have ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

ALEC approved a "model" bill in 2013 for states to override the ability of counties and cities to democratically determine how they will regulate GMOs at the local and regional level, as CMD has reported.

• The death and global extinction of honeybees
• Neurotoxic pesticides linked to honeybee decline are affecting other species, scientists say after four-year assessment