Big Shiny Takes

We are back, and have an episode for you that we recorded in person!

Jeremy came back to the very nice and fun city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada for a visit, so instead of hanging out we recorded an all-timer episode. We were joined by the amazing Bronwen Tucker (@bronwentucker) from Climate Justice Edmonton and the incredible Stefan Hostetter (@Steho)_ of Green Majority Radio to talk about Canadian punditry's pathetic attempts to talk about the climate.

The first column we cover this week is one written by Jesse Kline. Kline desperately attempts to use the Liberal Party's new environment minister Steven Guilbeault as a way of framing the current government's environmental policies as radical.  Of course, this is pure fantasy. 

We then dive into a Rex Murphy climate change denial column, but that's in our bonus feed.  For as little as $3 a month, you can get access to that episode, and our entire back catalogue of Big Shiny Bonus Takes!

Plugs and Recs

Six hours of oil and gas CEOs getting owned in Congress

Morgan Campbell: If Edward Rogers referred to Masai Ujiri as 'arrogant,' he gave the game away

Dan Darrah: “Foreign Investors” Aren’t Causing Canada’s Housing Crisis. Capitalism Is.

Follow us on Twitch

Marino's inferior Twitch

Jeremy's Substack

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.

Future Alberta Senator Duncan Kinney (@duncankinney), whom you also may know from fellow Harbinger pod The Progress Report, joins us to talk about the hellish nightmare of Alberta's COVID response.

ICUs are overflowing, people are dying, but the Edmonton Journal's David Staples — always with his finger on the pulse — wants to know what this means for Premier Jason Kenney's political fortunes.

Staples has devised nine rules for political life, all of which he says Kenney has violated.

To hear part two, where we review a similarly-themed column in the Calgary Herald, sign up for our Patreon to have it in your feed next week.

Plugs and Recs

Arthur Manuel: Unsettling Canada

Melissa Mbarki: Out of the residential schools, into the prison and foster care systems

Clayton Thomas Muller: This National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, Canada should commit to a Just Transition for Indigenous Peoples

Brian Fauteux: Music in Range

Marino retro gaming Twitch

Big Shiny Takes Twitch

The Orchard (Jeremy's super cool 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.

In case you missed the 12 hour livestream telethon to raise money for Harbinger Media, here's the audio for our part of the event!

Big Shiny Takes (minus Eric, he was at a wedding lol) took part in this great event.  Our friends from PressProgress Stephen Magusiak and Emily Leedham joined us to read a column arguing for the platforming of fascists in mainstream media.

If you missed this insipid column by John Ibbitson (a "national treasure" according to Justin Ling) and the subsequent blowback on social media for even considering to write a piece like that, you should listen to this episode.

Keep in mind that this episode was recorded prior to the very important and necessary federal election we just had.

Plugs and Recs

Subscribe to the Orchard (Jeremy's substack) and Shift Work (Emily's newsletter)

And support us on Patreon! 

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.

It's our opinion at the Big Shiny Takes Institute that billionaires have it too hard. Yeah sure they have unlimited access to resources, are able to shape policy to benefit themselves and have the power of small nation-states – but have you considered how difficult it must be to have someone be mean to you on the internet?

Paris Marx (@parismarx), host of Tech Won't Save Us (@techwontsaveus) explains why there should be room for criticism of all billionaires while we read through one of the most tedious pieces of unfettered PR for Elon Musk that has ever been written. It's a piece in the Guardian by Canadian Gen X icon (lol) Douglas Coupland, so we're allowed to make fun of it. 

Plugs and Recs

Tech Won't Save Us

The Appel Orchard (Jeremy's Substack, everyone subscribe!)

Worst Columnist in Canada Contest (Final begins Monday!)

Rawan Abdelbaki: Erin O'Toole is no ally of labour - he's a con-man

Robert Hiltz - The Communist Party Benefits Us All

and of course, Spiderman 2

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.

Head to patreon.com/bigshinytakes to unlock this and all of our other bonus episodes for as little as $3 a month!

Rob Rousseau joins us to read one of the most fun columns we have had the pleasure of reading in this very grim timeline.

We go through Josh Freed's column in the Montreal Gazette on why customers should be paid by supermarkets for using self-checkouts. Now this isn't a typical Big Shiny Takes infuriating read. Josh actually has a bit of fun with the column. He also brushes up against a very strong point (that businesses use automation as an excuse to fire people in order to maximize their profit margins). Unfortunately, this seems to just be an accessory to the main point, which can be summed up as, "I'm old, minor inconveniences I experience are serious problems, and computers scare me".

We also tell the story about how a National Post idiot messaged us very late at night to sarcastically applaud us for making fun of his weak attempts at writing.

Stick around to the end for some talk about the election. I know this is a controversial opinion, but I think maybe a pandemic is a bad time for an election. 

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.

This week we've got Rob Rousseau (@robrousseau) on the show to talk about the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan after taking a detour through volunteer scabs, Calgary Herald ace Licia Corbella and who Rob thinks will take home the gold in our Worst Pundit contest.

Former British soldier David Mack writes in the Globe and Mail that the U.S. must stay in Afghanistan for at least another 20-30 years, crying crocodile tears for all the Afghans who will now be under Taliban rule.

We've let down Afghans, he says, ignoring completely everything that's happened in the past 50 years that contributed to the Taliban's rise.

If you'd like to hear part two, where we discuss automation by way of a piece in Rob's hometown paper and decide which is worse, sign up for our Patreon to have it in your feed next week.

Plugs and Recs

Marino joins Haus of Decline

The Rob Rousseau Show

Eduardo Galeano: Open Veins of Latin America

Jeremy: Can Systemic Racism In Policing Be Fixed?

Kim Stanley Robinson: a climate plan for a world in flames

Imperial Newz on Twitch

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.

Aliya Pabani of the Encampment Support Network, and host of We Are Not the Virus, joins us to talk about Toronto Mayor John Tory's "reasonable, firm, but compassionate" war on homeless encampments in the city.

We come by this through a column from newly-minted National Post ghoul Adam Zivo, who writes that the violent displacement of unhoused people from the city's encampments, like the one at Lamport Stadium, were in fact a victory for the working class, as if no working people are unhoused.

In case you're wondering what kinda guy Zivo is, he describes himself as an LGBTQ activist, "with a focus on incremental change and private sector sponsorships." 

Plugs and Recs

Support the Encampment Support Network!

Follow our Canada's Worst Columnist contest!

We Are Not the Virus

Brett Story: How Does It End? Story and the Property Form

Vincent Bevins: The Jakarta Method

Danielle Paradis: The UCP Knew the Inequitable Impacts of COVID-19 All Along

The Bottlemen: Victims of Victims of Communism

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.

Head to patreon.com/bigshinytakes to unlock this and all of our other bonus episodes for as little as $3 a month!

Jeremy, Marino and Eric continue their conversation with Erica Ifill for a hilarious read of Jon Kay's latest anti-diversity screed. Dog Shampoo Boy scolds Sobeys for its "Woke Initiatives," then he gets distracted and starts rambling about churches burning.

For just a few dollars a month you can get double the Big Shiny Takes content, and we would really appreciate it. We love making this show, and we hope you enjoy it too. 

ALSO! Keep your eyes on our twitter feed to help us determine the worst columnist in Canada. 

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.

Erica Ifill (@wickdchiq) of the Bad + Bitchy podcast joins us to talk about ex-CBC host Wendy Mesley's woe-is-me shtick in the Globe and Mail after she got canned for getting caught saying the n-word repeatedly over two years. How many times over her 40-year career did she say it without getting caught?

Melsey argues that firing her alone won't solve systemic racism at our state broadcaster. True, but it's not like it would it would hurt either. 

To hear part two, where we talk about dog shampoo enthusiast Jon Kay, sign up for our Patreon to have it in your feed next week. 

Plugs and Recs

Bad + Bitchy

Barney Ronay: England the country — not the football team — needs to take a look at itself

Erin Anderssen: Can racism cause schizophrenia?

Jeremy interviews the PM

Jaclynn Ashly: The Canadian Mining Company Dominicans Call 'Worse Than Columbus'

Kevin Metcalf: I Was Fired For Criticizing Israel. Now I Dig Holes For A Living

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.

We're back for hopefully the last time reading one of Rex Murphy's ramblings. Literally the day after a Muslim family was murdered by a white supremacist, Rex is here to tell us about the real scourge of our time — anti-white racism.  While he denied last year that there was systemic racism in Canada, he appears to have changed his mind.

We also talk about Postmedia's role in fomenting the hatred that continuously leads to Islamophobic murder.

Plugs and Recs

Frank Magazine - Portapique 911 calls reveal what RCMP knew

Robert Hiltz - Frank Magazine Was Right To Publish Portapique 911 Calls

Abeer Khan - Racist jokes, fear of my hijab being ripped: As a young Muslim, I know Islamophobia in Canada is nothing new

Jeremy - Are Calgary police favouring some protests over others?
 
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.