The Dark Knight Rises – in fact, director Christopher Nolan’s entire Batman trilogy – is about the things that come to life in the darkness and icons born in the light.

The monsters of Nolan’s Batman trilogy are almost uniformly human monsters, for the most part. They are born of dark and troubled pasts. Depending upon how far you trust the character, the Dark Knight’s Joker (the late Heath Ledger) may have been born of a broken home and an abusive father. The lead villain of The Dark Knight Rises, Bane (Tom Hardy) spends most of the movie brooding and plodding about in what seems like an inhuman ruthlessness. At the root of the character, he turns out to be far more human than anyone could have imagined. (The less you know about this, the better.)

There are, however, also some more deeply inhuman monsters. Their ruthlessness is far more genuine. Ras Al Ghul (Liam Neeson) is one of them. Depending upon how much you distrust the character, The Joker may be one as well. Dr Jonathon Crane, also known as Scarecrow (Killian Murphy) may be one of them as well – he may...More >>

The Canadian left has a problem. A big one.

It’s actually the same problem that the global left has at this moment in time: their model for governance, the profligate welfare states of Europe, are on the verge of dragging Europe – and with it, the rest of the world – into another Great Depression. They’ve convinced themselves that Europe – and their dreams of an all-encompassing welfare nanny state – are too big to fail. They can’t afford to allow Europe to collapse, because it will undermine virtually every myth on which they’ve built their political house of cards.

Enter Dan Gardner. He’s a standard bearer for the consensus media who’s never seen an opportunity to snipe at Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government that he didn’t like. And he seems to think that he found one in Europe’s “sovereign debt crisis.”

Gardner doesn’t seem to think that the European welfare state is the problem in Europe, and he found himself an article in The Economist that contends precisely that. The Economist article, entitled “The Proper Diagnosis: Profligacy Is Not the Problem”, essentially plays a chicken-and-egg game with the Sovereign Debt Crisis, and essentially obfuscates the role that the welfare...More >>

I’ve long been reluctant to say it. But it just might be time for Canada to quit the UN.

Certainly, Canada has been a very important part of the UN since its very inception. But as the UN lurches ever-so-slowly away from its founding principles it’s become mired in cultural and political relativism that are slowly but surely leaving it unable to function as it was intended. Once upon a time, the UN was a place where things simply didn’t get done – usually because of conflicts of interest among the five permanent Security Council members, each of whom possesses a veto over anything passed by the General Assembly.

This was even before the UN became a convenient seat of international influence for demagogues. Before the UN was an organization where countries like Saudi Arabia, China or Cuba – among other flagrant and frequent human rights violators – could sit, in all places, on the United Nations Human Rights Committee. Before Zimbabwe dictator Robert Mugabe was named, of all things, the UN’s tourism ambassador. Before Iran could be elected to the UN’s Commission on Women’s Rights.

The atrocity of these things needs little explanation. But even as the UN actually...More >>

A Middle Eastern state has invaded a neighbouring territory with ground troops and airstrikes, retaliating against attacks by militants who are angry that their people live under what they claim to be persecution by that state.

Sound familiar? Of course it does. If the state involved is Israel, this is what the far-left, Palestinian solidarity movement reacts angrily to every time that state stirs to defend itself against terrorism by Hamas.

Those who keep watch over the Palestinian solidarity movement may be surprised to learn that a very similar scenario has been unfolding in the Middle East over the past week. They may not have noticed it because the so-called “peace” activists who align themselves with the Palestine solidarity movement seem to have not taken notice of it.

It’s a short description of what’s been taking place in Turkey and Iraq over the past week, as Turkish forces have been launching incursions into Iraq in response to attacks by Kurdish militants.

They’re attacking camps occupied by the Kurdistan Workers Party (also known as the PKK).

This has been happening periodically since at least 2007. As recently as August 2011, civilian casualties have been reported....More >>