Big Shiny Takes

The boys are back with another terrible column!

This week they are joined by Alex from Haus of Decline to read another awful piece by Adam Zivo in which he makes the argument to let the police march in the Toronto Pride Parade. I say he makes the argument, but really what he does is list all the very valid reasons people don't want the police there and shrugs.

This episode was recorded in early July, so during Plugs and Recs Jeremy talks about a fundraiser for his substack. It's over now but that shouldn't stop you from supporting his journalism. The fundraiser was a success by the way, here's a link to the article the fundraiser was supporting.


Plugs and Recs

Invisible Institutions
Anthony Bourdain: Kitchen Confidential
Star Trek Deep Space Nine

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The Big Shiny Takes Institute has returned! Joined by Friend of the Institute Gordon Katic the boys read a particularly awful column by Vinay Menon about the aftermath of the horrific school shooting in Uvalde. Instead of having something useful to say, Vinay decided to write a column about Matthew McConaughey's moral obligation to run for president. We feel like he's sort of missing the point.

Plugs and Recs

Darts and Letters
Imperial News - Bad Books by Bad People
Tech Won't Save Us - Privatizing the internet was a mistake
The Hoser - Short Circuit
Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift
The Boys
The Dig - The New Democrats w/ Lily Geismer

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Jeremy’s Forgotten Corner co-host Scott Schmidt joins BST this week to talk about pensions and starving seniors to buy shitty fighter jets.

Plugs and Recs

Listen to The Forgotten Corner

Go see Peace by Chocolate

Jeremy - Canada’s Noxious Conservatives Are Duking It Out for Party Leadership

Jared Sexton - The World They Wish To Build

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If you read the latest IPCC report, you know it's time for the latest episode of Big Shiny Takes. This week, the Big Shiny Takes Institute is joined by columnist and writer David Moscrop to read an insufferably bad column from Conrad Black. Yes, we are aware that doesn't narrow it down.

This temper tantrum is directed at the federal NDP and Liberal parties for unparliamentary behaviour (acting like parties in a parliamentary system). Thankfully, Conrad breaks up the monotony by expressing dismay at Canada's slide towards socialist oblivion with promises of means-tested dental care and clean jobs training centres. He also manages to jam in some genocide denial and transphobia because, believe it or not, the Lord of Crossharbour is not a good person.

Plugs and Recs

The Jakarta Method - Vincent Bevins
Do Androids Dream of Electric Cars - James Wilt
Just Watch Us: RCMP Surveillance of the Women's Liberation Movement in Cold War Canada - Christabelle Sethna and Steve Hewitt
The NDP is run by a consultant class geared toward capitulation - Martin Lukacs
Justin Trudeau's F-35 Fighter Jet Acquisition is a Miserable Circus - David Moscrop
Formula 1 - Drive to Survive

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Good news everyone, the pandemic is over because the government said so! Everything is great! Of course, like all responsible adults, we know better than to let ourselves get tired of winning so much so we are punishing ourselves with another insipid Jon Kay column. This one was published in the Wall Street Journal.

In this latest instalment of Canadian pundits explaining Canadian politics poorly to an uninterested audience, Dog Shampoo Boy writes about Justin Trudeau being a "Woke Donald Trump".  It's stupid and our lives are worse for having read it.

We're joined this week by the great Mitchell Thompson of PressProgress, who has subjugated himself to reading a lot of Quillette. For those who don't know, Quillette is an awful website that pays Jon Kay to write for them. Quillette has a habit of talking about race science, and Jon has written about wokeness and frisbee golf for them.

Plugs and Recs

Science for the People
Pierre Poilievre - Harper but with fangs bared - by Mitchell Thompson
Why John Mearsheimer Blames the US for the Crisis in Ukraine
When Prophecy Fails
Imperial News
The Hoser Presents - Short Circuit

Join the Discord (but be nice there)

Jeen-Yuhs (Kanye doc)
Elden Ring

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Do you hear that horrible honking sound? No my friends, that is not the sound of freedom. It's the sound of another episode of Big Shiny Takes!

This week, Canadaland Commons host Arshy Mann joined us to talk about the dumbest political action in the entire world: the Trucker Convoy. This convoy, which is not astroturfed at all, is demanding that avowed Marxist-Leninist Justin Trudeau remove any vaccine mandates for truckers.  This conveniently ignores the fact that 90% of truckers that cross into the United States from Canada are fully vaccinated. It also ignores the fact 900,000 people in the United States are no longer alive because of the abysmal COVID response in the US.

This week we read a column in the Edmonton Journal from a newcomer to the shitty takes game, Nathan Steinke. Steinke, a noted political loser, spends a few hundred words fetishizing truckers as a symbol of working class purity. He also compares the convoy to Woodstock (the festival, not Woodstock Ontario).

It should be noted that this episode was originally recorded on Friday February 5, 2022 - the night before the counter protests in Toronto. If anything changes in convoy news and it's missing, please keep that in mind before you yell at us for not talking about it.

 
Plugs and Recs

Canadaland Commons

Vincent Bevins - The Jakarta Method

Mayor Gondek's chief of staff Stephen Carter out, sources allege bullying in city hall

CJN - What is the future of Progressive Zionism (ft. Jeremy Appel)

CAHN - The Freedom Convoy is nothing but a vehicle for the far-right

The Breach - What the Left can learn from the “Freedom Convoy”

It Could Happen Here - Canada Convoy Update

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It's 2022 and things are bad!

We're kicking off a new year of reading bad takes with Shama Rangwala. Shama is an Assistant Professor at York University and co-host of Replay, a new podcast on the Harbinger Media Network.

The column we read this week is one of the dimmer takes in the National Post's year-end series called The Capitalist Manifesto, and was written by Joanna Baron. Baron runs the Canadian Constitution Foundation, a group of idiots pushing for important things like no mask/vaccine mandates, choice in health care (privatization) and free speech (lol).

Plugs and Recs

Replay

Mitchell Thompson - The Secret to the Weston Family’s Wealth Is Exploitation, Not Hard Work

The Witcher III: Wild Hunt

Vincent Bevins - The Jakarta Method

Big Shiny Takes is a proud part of the Harbinger Media Network. Theme music is by Jack Dump.

If you like our show, give us a follow on social media, @bigshinytakes, leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts, or give us some money at Patreon to unlock bonus content!

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.

Nora Loreto makes her triumphant return to BST and she's got a new book! As the title suggests, Spin Doctors: How  Media and Politicians Misdiagnosed the COVID-19 Pandemic deals with how the media created a sea of confusion that obscured the major fault lines of the pandemic.

To illustrate Nora's case, we brought an absolutely reprehensible column from Matt Gurney at the website Ontario's public broadcaster, TVO. He wants you to know that he cares about COVID deaths, he really does, but at the end of the day people die of all sorts of causes, and that's a-OK.

We then read a Rupa Subramanya piece about how vaccine hoarding is cool and good, but that'll be in our bonus feed.  For just $3 a month, you can access that episode and our entire back catalogue of Bonus Shiny Takes!

Plugs and Recs

Buy Nora's book

The academic report Nora co-authored on excess deaths

V.S. Wells: Independent Canadian Media Directory

PressProgress: An Angry Mob of Anti-Vaccine Extremists Swarmed a Children's Toy Store in West Edmonton Mall

Jeremy: The Powerful Oil and Gas Executives Opposing Canada's Climate Commitments

Jeremy's Orchard newsletter

Big Shiny Takes is a proud part of the Harbinger Media Network. Theme music is by Jack Dump.

If you like our show, give us a follow on social media, @bigshinytakes, leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts, or give us some money at Patreon to unlock bonus content!

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.

That is the question asked by a column written by Diane Francis in the Financial Post that talks about the risks Covid-19 and one Vladimir Putin both pose to our beloved economy.

Yes that is a stupid question. But this is a very stupid column. 

Marino, Jeremy and Eric read this column on Russia's involvement in Ukraine written by the impartial observer Diane Francis, who just so happens to have helped found the Canadian-Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce and also is a senior fellow on the Atlantic Council. 

Weird. 

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The Big Shiny Takes Institute is back with a great episode with the incredible Aaron Giovannone. We read a lot of terrible columns, but we rarely get to take a deep dive into the psyche of one of the country's more established columnists.

Aaron brought an essay Rosie Dimanno wrote in the late 90's about growing up in Little Italy in Toronto. We go into it, and talk about the points she fixates on, and the points she may have missed.

This is a super fun episode and you shouldn't miss it!

Plugs and Recs

The Breach - Aaron Giovannone - Leonard Cohen, Cold War Troubadour

Green Majority Radio - The Substance and Spectacle of Climate Talks

CBC - WE Charity misled donors about building schools in Kenya, records show

Kino Lefter - Mayor Pete: Liberal ASMR with Alex from Haus of Decline

Big Shiny Takes is a proud part of the Harbinger Media Network. Theme music is by Jack Dump.

If you like our show, give us a follow on social media, @bigshinytakes, leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts, or give us some money at Patreon to unlock bonus content!

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.