For example, over the past eight years, we have identified what is essentially a vast, submerged iceberg of overdiagnosed and overtreated medical conditions, with the worst examples being common forms of breast, prostate, thyroid, and ovarian cancer. It was not until 2013 that the issue broke wide open, when a National Cancer Institute commissioned expert panel acknowledged that early-stage or 'stage zero' breast (DCIS) and prostate (HGPIN) "cancers" are actually benign or indolent lesions of epithelial origin and should never have been, and should never be, termed "carcinomas."

Essentially, the NCI report revealed that millions have been wrongly diagnosed and treated for breast and prostate cancers over the past few decades that they never had. In the case of DCIS, about 1.3 million US women were subjected to some combination of either mastectomy, lumpectomy, radiation, and chemotherapy over the past 30 years, even though their screen-detected condition had no symptoms, and left untreated would likely never have caused them any harm.

And this does not even account for the radiobiological harms caused by x-ray mammography, which may have planted the seeds of malignancy into the healthy breasts of millions of women in the name of "prevention through early detection."

The overwhelming evidence points to the single largest common factor in all of these incidents is the fact that all of the perpetrators were either actively taking powerful psychotropic drugs or had been at some point in the immediate past before they committed their crimes.

Multiple credible scientific studies going back more than a decade, as well as internal documents from certain pharmaceutical companies that suppressed the information show that SSRI drugs (Selective Serotonin Re-Uptake Inhibitors) have well known, but unreported side effects, including but not limited to suicide and other violent behavior.

One need only Google relevant key words or phrases to see for themselves. www.ssristories.org is one popular site that has documented over 4500 "Mainstream Media" reported cases from around the world of aberrant or violent behavior by those taking these powerful drugs.

Some analysts accuse Western media of racism. Lebanese observers suggested that perhaps Arab lives mattered less. There is, indeed, probably bias in the coverage. People are more likely to be concerned about victims they can identify with. Research tells us that US media outlets are more likely to cover terrorist attacks with US victims. The news media are more likely to cover disasters in wealthier countries. And tragedies that are physically closer to the United States are more likely to appear in US news.

It’s important to keep two things in mind about how the news media sets its priorities:

First, “news” is generally considered to be something especially unusual. The journalism truism is that “dog bites man” is not a story, but “man bites dog” is. That’s not a judgment on whether dog bites matter; it’s a judgment about what’s surprising.

Second, news outlets are influenced by their consumers. Human beings are especially interested in events that might affect them personally. If the media outlet’s readers or viewers are likely to feel that an event has implications for them, that will be covered as a more important story than if the events are unlikely to touch the audience’s lives.

The Paris attack shocked the world for many reasons. It’s true that terrorism in less-developed countries is worth our attention as well. Crises, such as the Syrian civil war, deserve much more media coverage and policy focus. But the Paris attack continues to draw interest because of the relative rarity of terrorism in France, the fact that the country receives visitors from around the globe, the shocking nature of the attack, and the potential implications for the Islamic State’s future plans.

“With Paris in lockdown and France closing its borders, we can see all too clearly that what is at stake here is the very essence of our way of life in Europe,” said Davis Lewin, the deputy director of the Henry Jackson Society, a conservative think-tank. Designed to facilitate the free movement of goods and labour that is the economic life-blood of the continent, the Schengen system has also enabled the easy transfer of both weapons and, potentially jihadist fighters, across those same borders.

Following the attacks, Francois Hollande, the French President also re-imposed border controls in a bid to ensure that none of the Paris terrorists or their support network in France were able to escape, as occurred after the Charlie Hebdo atrocity. Even before the Paris attacks, Donald Tusk, the EU president, had warned that Europe faced a “race against time” to save the 20-year-old system, which is seen as one of the Union's most concrete achievements.

Continental Europe is reportedly awash with automatic firearms orginiating from the Balkan wars of the 1990s and the collapse of the former Soviet Union. Belgium, a country with a population of 11 million, has around 900,000 firearms in circulation.

The message to countries involved in what it called the "crusader campaign" was delivered by a man dressed in fatigues and a turban, and identified in subtitles as Al Ghareeb the Algerian. "We say to the states that take part in the crusader campaign that, by God, you will have a day, God willing, like France's and by God, as we struck France in the center of its abode in Paris, then we swear that we will strike America at its center in Washington," the man said.

Cruz continued to call for the United States not to take in Syrian refugees because he says intelligence agencies cannot determine which of them may be aligned with the Islamic State, the militant group that has claimed credit for the Paris attacks. “President Obama and Hillary Clinton’s idea that we should bring tens of thousands of Syrian Muslim refugees to America is nothing less than lunacy,” he said.

Cruz said that Muslim refugees should "be resettled in the Middle East, in majority Muslim countries." But he said Christians should be provided a safe haven in the United States because he said they are subject to "genocide." Cruz said Obama does not want to do this and has "antipathy" toward Christians.

The combat mission to root out terrorism propaganda and recruitment networks from the internet was announced via a YouTube video, where a spokesman wearing the group’s symbol – the iconic Guy Fawkes mask – promised to “launch the biggest operation ever” against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).

Pledging to use their skills to “unite humanity,” the group warned terrorists to “expect massive cyber attacks.” “Anonymous from all over the world will hunt you down,” the spokesman said. “You should know that we will find you and we will not let you go.” “War is declared. Get prepared,” the group said in the video post. “The French people are stronger than you and will come out of this atrocity even stronger.”

A loosely associated international network of hacktivists, known as the Anonymous group, have been defending French cyber-borders following the Charlie Hebdo massacre in January under the #OpISIS online campaign. Throughout the year, the group has tracked, hacked, unmasked, and reported thousands of Twitter accounts that were run by or associated with IS members.

The hactivists’ work this year resulted in the dismantling of some 149 IS-linked websites, according to a recent report in Foreign Policy. Anonymous also flagged roughly 101,000 Twitter accounts and 5,900 propaganda videos.

Most recently, researcher and author Marilyn Sams has advanced the argument that Fortress Antonia, represented by tradition as a monumental or castle-like structure located during Herodian times just north of the Second Temple on the periphery of the large rectangular temple precinct, was actually a much larger complex, more akin to the typical standard Roman fortress layout that existed during the time of 1st century Jerusalem, the time of Jesus.

Sam’s arguments have been built on the foundations of research by earlier scholars, most notably that of Dr Ernest L Martin, whose research and subsequently published book, The Temples that Jerusalem Forgot, also argued that Fortress Antonia actually encompassed the area traditionally ascribed to the Temple Mount and that the temple was more accurately located on the Ophel mound over the area of the Gihon Spring, in the old City of David to the immediate southeast of the traditional Temple Mount precinct.

“When Aristeas (the Greek writer) claims there was a natural spring under the temple, this can be compared with the lack of a known spring under the traditionalist ‘Temple Mount’,” states Sams in concurrence with Martin.

And “when Eusebius says the temple site became a garbage dump, this can be compared with the lack of such findings under the ‘Temple Mount,’ while many garbage sites have been uncovered on the southeastern hill [near to the Ophel],” continues Sams… and “when Josephus describes the foundations [of the temple] as starting in the Kidron Valley and ending as a four-furlong square 450 feet high, this can be compared with the 922 by 1596 by 1040 by 1556-foot measurements of the [traditionally accepted] ‘Temple Mount’ trapezoid, whose maximum height is 158 feet, upslope from the Kidron Valley.”

While the crude oil tanker backlog in Houston reaches an almost unprecedented 39 (with combined capacity of 28.4 million barrels), as The FT reports that from China to the Gulf of Mexico, the growing flotilla of stationary supertankers is evidence that the oil price crash may still have further to run, as more than 100 million barrels of crude oil and heavy fuels are being held on ships at sea (as the year-long supply glut fills up available storage on land).

The storage problems are so severe in fact, that traders are asking ships to go slow, and that is where we see something very strange occurring off the coast near Galveston, Texas. FT reports that "the amount of oil at sea is at least double the levels of earlier this year and is equivalent to more than a day of global oil supply. The numbers of vessels has been compiled by the Financial Times from satellite tracking data and industry sources."

The storage glut is unprecedented: JBC Energy, a consultancy, said in many regions onshore oil storage is approaching capacity, arguing oil prices may have to fall to allow more to be stored profitably at sea. As AP puts it, "a traffic jam of oil tankers is the latest sign of an unyielding global supply glut."

The TPP should be judged on whether it guarantees global economic well-being, not whether it gives advantages to the United States to the detriment of other countries. The ultimate goal of economic policy should be to raise the well-being of all parts of society, including the poor and middle class. Agreements that help the rich at the expense of the poor, capital at the expense of labor, or particular sectors at the expense of consumers should be viewed with skepticism.

The Obama administration surely negotiated the TPP in good faith, and the accord would likely add to global and US economic growth. This is not a pernicious accord, the fruits of a secret cabal as some have feared. Nor is globalization an evil to be fought tooth and nail. The sad truth, however, is that while the administration promised a 21st-century agreement, we have yet another late 20th-century agreement. And we already know the likely results: economic growth at the expense of widening income inequality; excessive power of big pharma, big finance and other sectors with strong lobbying power; and the growing threats of negative-sum trade conflict with China.

Worse still, the advice changes continually. As TV-cook Nigella Lawson recently put it: “You can guarantee that what people think will be good for you this year, they won’t next year.” This may be somewhat inevitable: evidence-based health advice should be constantly updated as new studies explore the nuances of what we eat and the effects the meals have on our bodies.

But when the media (and ill-informed health gurus) exaggerate the results of a study without providing the context, it can lead to unnecessary fears that may, ironically, push you towards less healthy choices.

The husband and wife — co-presidents of the Freedom From Religion Foundation — proceeded to direct Ryan D Jayne, a fellow at their activist organization, to send a letter to the director of the Holmes Student Center, explaining why they believe that the Bibles are inappropriate inside accommodations at a public university.

The American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative legal firm, has pushed back against these claims, accusing the Freedom From Religion Foundation of being on faulty legal ground, calling Gaylor’s arguments “absurd.” “No one is making any guest open the Bible. No one is making them read it. In fact, the university is not ‘providing bibles;’ it is allowing a Christian group to place literature, the Bible, in hotel rooms much like a pizzeria may leave coupons,” American Center for Law and Justice head Jay Sekulow said in a statement.

As TheBlaze previously reported, this isn’t the first time that Bibles have been under fire by the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

As you will see below, it takes a ridiculous amount of blind faith to believe that the theory of evolution is true, and the cold, hard evidence clearly points to a Creator. Unfortunately, to be a respected member of the scientific establishment today one must fully embrace an evolutionary model for the origin of life, and at this point Stephen Hawking has left no doubt as to where he stands.

Somehow most of us have become convinced that it is not “intellectual” to believe that God created all things. And a big reason for this is due to the public pronouncements of big name scientists such as Hawking. In the end, Hawking can believe whatever he wants to believe, but he should at least be honest about the fact that he is making a faith choice as well. You see, the truth is that the theory of evolution is not backed up by hard science.

In fact, when you choose to “believe” in evolution, you are doing so in spite of the evidence. So why would anyone do this? Why would anyone believe something as ridiculous as the theory of evolution? Well, in my experience most people believe exactly what they want to believe. And what Stephen Hawking apparently wants to believe is that there is no God and that our existence is some sort of great cosmic accident.

Recently someone asked Coach Dave Daubenmire if he “believed” in evolution, and after reflecting on that question for a while he wrote an entire article in which he shared his thoughts on the matter. The following excerpt is the part that I enjoyed the most…

“We are taught that it takes faith to ‘believe’ in God, or angels, or your spouse. But the truth is; faith is required in order to ‘believe’ anything. Christianity is a religion that requires faith to believe. So are Hinduism, Buddhism, Wicca, Islam, and Santa Claus. But evolution and climate change are religions as well. Macro-evolution is a faith-based belief system regarding the origins of the species. Global warming is a faith-based system regarding the ebb and flow of the climate. Macro-evolution and climate change are far less fact-based than a belief in Jesus.”

Twelve French aircraft, including ten fighter jets, dropped 20 bombs on a command and control center, a jihadi recruitment center, munitions depot and ISIS training camp in the Syrian city of Raqqa, France's Defense Ministry said in a statement. Raqqa is the de facto capital of ISIS' "caliphate."

The "massive" raid was launched from the United Arab Emirates and Jordan and was carried out in coordination with US forces. A Pentagon source told Fox News, "these were French strikes but they were conducted within the coalition. We helped with [the] target list." The US has conducted the vast majority of coalition attacks on ISIS territory up to this point, and has been almost solely responsible for all coalition bombings of ISIS inside Syria. However, the nature of Friday's attacks, which devastated France and shocked the world, changed the calculus.

Meanwhile, AFP reported that Turkish authorities had foiled a plot to stage an attack in Instanbul on the same day as the assault on Paris. The official said five people had been detained, including an associate of "Jihadi John", the notorious ISIS terrorist believed to have been killed by a US airstrike Thursday. "The initial investigation shows we foiled a major attack," the official said. The arrest came ahead of the G20 summit at the resort at Antalya, in southern Turkey.

"They are terrorists, who in the name of Islamist fundamentalism are fighting against democracy, against universal values and also against Muslims who refuse to follow their barbaric ideology," said the president at Germany's Memorial Day commemorating the victims of World War I and II.

Gauck, a former Lutheran pastor, said however that "those who perpetrate or condone these acts must know that the community of democracy is stronger than international hatred.” We bow our heads before the dead, but never will we bow down before terror," he said.