Big Shiny Takes

The Big Shiny Takes Institute has returned! This episode, while Jeremy is in his self-imposed book-writing exile, Eric and Marino are joined by Kristen Pue and Kyla Hewson of the Pullback podcast to read a baffling column by Jesse Kline.

Jesse spends valuable column space concern-trolling about the Liberal's new luxury tax on vehicles, applicable to cars over $100k and boats over $250k. He admonishes the government for this reckless new tax, and claims that this will impact the working class much more than prospective boat owners. We examine these claims and come to some different conclusions.

Editors note:

Some names had to be removed from a story Eric shared early in the episode to protect their identities as nobody would ever trust them again after learning that they did not deliver on their cowboy boots promise. 

Plugs and Recs
Pullback Podcast
IPCC Report 2023
The Persuaders: Anand Giridharadas
Drinking up the Revolution: James Wilt

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts and give us a follow on Twitter and Instagram.

Our old pal Abdul (@MarxGasol) joins us for a public policy thought experiment courtesy of UBC business lecturer Adam Pankratz in the National Post: Should we destigmatize stigma? Maybe if drug users and unhoused people simply understood that what they were doing is bad and they should feel bad, we'd all be better off!

Kidding aside, this perverse serving of inhuman hogwash from a dude whose kids will surely grow to hate him was the worst thing we've read in a while. We're always saying that, aren't we folks?

Plugs and Recs

The Dead Center by Luke Savage

The Orchard cast: It's the End of This World As We Know It

Last Chance U on Netflix

Go play Metroid Prime: Remastered. I'm not linking to the eShop, figure it out.

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts and give us a follow on Twitter and Instagram.

The last Kino standing, Evan Macdonald, joins us to talk about Dr. Jordan Bernt Peterson's latest made up scandal. The College of Psychiatrists of Ontario is asking him to take social media training, because he sucks at posting. 

The National Post's opinion page says this the greatest injustice of our day, but do any real people actually care? Tune in to find out!

Plugs and Recs

Listen to Kino Lefter
Subscribe to The Orchard
Tove Lo - Dirt Femme
SZA - SOS
Needle Drop - Best Songs of 2022

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts and give us a follow on Twitter and Instagram.

Esteemed Twitter user and Dog Island alum Andrew Neville joins us to mock one of, and I'm not mincing words here, the worst pieces we have read. The culprit? None other than our old pal, Adam Zivo.

In this piece (published in the Daily Hive lol) Zivo tries to use statistics to argue that crime is out of control. The problem? It's based on an opinion poll. It gets so much worse. 

Plugs and Recs

The Myth Of Affordable Housing In Toronto

Dubious crime statistics: a disturbing trend of police and media misleading the public

PressProgress Short Circuit Podcast - Police across Canada are investing in “copaganda” reports that criticize the social safety net

Play Overwatch 2/Warzone, go see Avatar 2, listen to Metallica and do purple city in Edmonton

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts and give us a follow on Twitter and Instagram.

The Big Shiny Takes Institute is back! We're joined by political researcher and new Friend of the Institute Chuka Ejeckam to read a very anti-union piece by the one and only Jesse Kline.

Kline, the author of galaxy-brained takes about privatizing parks, is back and trying to frame striking workers as a malignant force threatening your children. To give you an idea of how emotionally damaging this column is, it starts by comparing unions to COVID-19.

This episode was recorded Monday November 12th, which was before CUPE let us know they were heading back to the picket line. Solidarity to the workers and we'll see you at Queens Park.

Plugs and Recs

Culture War By the Numbers - (FREE BIG SHINY TAKES NEWSLETTER)
Exterminate all the Brutes
TraumaZone
Toy Company Slammed For Getting Greedy With Magic: The Gathering

AND

Worried that Twitter's days are numbered? Looking to build a community with like-minded lefties? Head to our discord! People have been saying it's the new hot place for discourse and you should find out why. 

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts and give us a follow on Twitter and Instagram.

Environmental lawyer and former Liberal Party of Alberta leader David Khan joins the Institute to talk about the ongoing rehabilitation of Jason Kenney's image.

National Post pundit John Ivison writes that the reason Kenney failed as Alberta premier wasn't because he was a total slimeball who pandered to the far-right but was too much of a coward to go all the way, but because he was just too great a guy.

It was a real Shakespearean tragedy, as Ivison says without irony. 

Plugs and Recs

Palestine advocates face 'organized, funded intimidation,' finds new report

This Is Life in the Metaverse

Why Google's Toronto Smart City Failed

Our old episode stunting on Adam Zivo

Son of Elsewhere

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts and give us a follow on Twitter and Instagram.

Luke Savage, author of the new book The Dead Center: Reflections on Liberalism and co-host of the Michael and Us podcast , joins us to read a column from ur-smug centrist and National Observer "lead columnist" Max Fawcett.

In this piece, Fawcett outlines how he thinks Pierre Poilievre is attempting to appeal to the far-right (true) and far-left (lol) by opposing vaccine mandates and talking about "elites". Naturally, it's his beloved Liberal party which has found the perfect balance in all things.

Plugs and Recs

The Dead Center

Just how bad will Pierre Poilievre be for the climate?

Conspiracy Theorist Danielle Smith Is Leading in Alberta's Conservative Party Race

In Hasidic Enclaves, Failing Private Schools Flush With Public Money

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts and give us a follow on Twitter and Instagram.

The gang invites Megan Linton of the Harbinger Media Network podcast Invisible Institutions to slog through an incredibly lazy piece by Brian Lilley. It's a column that contains much hand-wringing about masks and requirements to have them. It's also basically the same as the column he wrote the week before.

Also, a discussion about a certain monarch's death, its dominance of the news cycle and why that does Canadians a disservice – especially on a week that saw another mass killing event mishandled by the RCMP.

Plugs and Recs

Invisible Institutions

Briarpatch Sept./Oct. 2022 – The Disability Justice Issue

• Fighting for the right to fuck
• “We are fed the same way caged animals are”

Canadian mining companies rejoice as Chileans reject new constitution

Education fraud experts raise alarm about Calgary police ties to unaccredited college

The Queen Represented Racist Violence As Much As She Did Glamour

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts and give us a follow on Twitter and Instagram.

The Big Shiny Takes Institute has returned! This week, Eric, Marino and Jeremy are joined by Fae Johnstone (Executive Director of Wisdom2Action, writer and activist) to read some absolutely horrendous transphobia published in the National Post.

The National Post, seemingly taking their cues from the transphobes down in the US and UK (TERF Island) are now pushing "gender critical" talking points as a way of limiting access to care. It's bullshit and whoever wrote it should have rotten produce thrown at their head.

Unfortunately for us, this column doesn't have a name in its byline. The bigot who felt compelled to write this pseudoscientific trash was too shy to include their name in the byline. Listen to the episode and find out why.

Despite the fact that all of us are well accustomed to the low standard for what passes as a column in the National Post, this column pissed us off.

NOTE
Less than an hour after recording this episode, failed actor and hack fraud journalist Sue-Ann Levy released a hatchet job piece on Fae for the True North Centre. The piece is stupid and pretends that Fae calling people TERFS is bad.

We're not going to link to that piece. Instead, read this piece from Fae that she wrote for the Star on the optics-based approach of the Liberal Party in regards to 2SLGBTQI+ issues:

Fae Johnstone - Six years in, Trudeau government's work on  2SLGBTQI+ issues is still underwhelming

Plugs and Recs
Maelys McArdle - Transphobia in the National Post
Dragon Age (every single one but especially Origins)
The Orchard
Kino Lefter
Breath of the Wild

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts and give us a follow on Twitter and Instagram.

The Big Shiny Takes Institute is reporting live from the frontlines of the climate war (Eric's living room). This episode we are joined by Mitchell Thompson from PressProgress to take apart an incoherent screed written by a senior fellow of the Macdonald Laurier Institute - Jamil Jivani. 

The column suggests Trudeau's cultish fixation on saving the environment is causing real world suffering. We, as readers and people who exist in reality, are left to try and figure out what on earth he is talking about. 

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts and give us a follow on Twitter and Instagram.