Claim OwnershipBig Shiny Takes
Subscribed: 66Played: 1,486
Subscribe
© 2025 Big Shiny Takes
Description
The world's first and only anti-free speech podcast. Big Shiny Takes looks at the terrible columns written by the "thought-leaders" in Canada and goes through why some of these pieces should have never been published in a place where people can read them.
85 Episodes
Reverse
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! ...
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...
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 ...
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 - Portapiq...
Canadian media does a lot of things poorly. Its cowardice when it comes to talking about Palestine is right at the top of the list. We’re joined by our Palestinian friend Hammam Farah (@HumHum83) and our Israeli friend Eytan Tobin (@RabbiDieHardman) to talk about how Israel, like Canada, is a fake ass genocidal settler state. For those who haven’t been paying attention, Israel attacked Gaza recently, killing about 250 people, including dozens of children, after provoking violence at al-Aqs...
Abdul Malik (@socialistraptor) makes his triumphant return to the Big Shiny Takes Institute to talk about two simpletons writing in newspapers to let the public know that diversity is bad, actually. One columnist is Intellectual Dark Web C-lister, furry enthusiast and Jon Kay podcast co-host Dr. Debra Soh, who's writing in the Globe and Mail to warn us of white genocide, coming to a university campus near you. The other is Lawrie Macfarlane in the Victoria Times-Colonist. We're not s...
The Big Shiny Guests keep on coming. This time we’ve got famed musician, podcaster and poster Dan Boeckner, joining us to talk about a little country called China, specifically Canadian pundits’ obsession with it. First up is a piece in the Globe and Mail from Conservative foreign affairs critic Michael Chong, who’s very not mad about China sanctioning him. Next up is J. Cole, not that rapper, unfortunately, but a Macdonald-Laurier Institute spook who writes about China like it’s his ex-wif...
PULL THE EMERGENCY BRAKE, IT'S TIME FOR ANOTHER EPISODE OF BIG SHINY TAKES! Marino, Eric and Jeremy are joined by the great Nora Loreto to review columns by two incredibly talentless hacks: Konrad Yakabuski and Kelly McParland. Yakabuski covers Quebec in a completely addled column which is both infuriating and disorienting. He manages to jam in references to Mordecai Richler, Matt Green, Amir Attaran, The University of Ottawa, The Bosnian War, and a specific word that he seems parti...
Head to patreon.com/bigshinytakes to unlock this and all of our other bonus episodes for as little as $3 a month! We decided to unlock this bonus episode, because everyone deserves to celebrate Rush Limbaugh's death. Finally, a representative of a modern organization (the Catholic Church) we can trust to cover current events weighs in with a terrible, terrible column. Of course last week you may have heard that notable right-wing crank and tobacco enjoyer Rush Limbaugh died of lung c...
The boys are back with two trash columns. One is written by a pretentious hack desperately shoehorning disjointed allusions to ephemera rattling around his decaying brain in yet another unfocused rant ending with him shouting about climate change not being real. The other is written by an unpretentious hack who actually thinks that COVID quarantine hotels are an attack on civil liberties. Of course we are talking about Rex Murphy and Joe Warmington - truly two of the dimmest bulbs in the ma...
New year, new theme music, new BST! We've got a couple 2020 in review pieces that suggest maybe the hell year we're all traumatized from wasn't so bad after all. We start off with Never Trumper-turned-Trumper Hugh Hewitt's piece in the Washington Post, which contends that, sure, there was the whole pandemic thing, but there were also some bright spots, such as the amazing work Trump has done combatting the virus. We challenge you to name a U.S. president who has handled COVID-19 bett...
It's a Christmas miracle — a new BST episode right on schedule! We start off with a little apertif in the form of BST favourite Barbara Kay and her review of the Queen's Gambit. It turns out, a fictional show isn't entirely accurate. But Babs says this is because women can't play chess. Then, special guest Clinton Hallahan (@StoicRomance) of Alberta Advantage fame tells us about right-wing Canadian YouTuber and Washington Post columnist. J.J. McCullough, who happens to be a clo...
Podfather Andre Goulet (@andremarrgoulet) of Harbinger Media Network (@harbingertweets) returns to BST to talk about anti-China neo-McCarthyism, as exemplified by John Ivison, whom you may remember from an earlier episode when he wrote a column about how CERB recipients are lazy parasites, for which he was rightfully dubbed the "worst person on the internet". Ivison is mad that two Canadian MPs (Niki Ashton and Paul Manly) supported a rally calling for the release Huawei executive Meng Wanzh...
Senior Big Shiny Takes Institute legal analyst Alex (@NaomiDecline) from Haus of Decline — America's foremost Calvinist pod — joins us to take on two NPCs (National Post Columnists) who are lawyers. First off, we've got Howard Levitt, whom you may know as Jordan Peterson's libel lawyer and the guy who abandoned his Ferrari in a puddle. He's here to tell you that you're not working hard enough from home, you filthy time thief! Then we talk about another Jordan Peterson-affiliated lawye...
We're joined by Podcast High principal and Mount Royal University historian Roberta Lexier (@rlexier) to discuss Licia Corbella's postponed knee surgery and the only thing a Trudeau has done that she supports, invoking the War Measures Act to militarily occupy Quebec. While hospital workers went on a wildcat strike across Alberta, winning the hearts and minds of working people, Corbella writes in the Calgary Herald that she'd love to support them but was mildly inconvenienced, so alas she c...
We get a bit tankie in our latest installment, featuring a dearly-departed posting legend, Ray the Red, whom you might also know as the CEO of Antifa. He got banned from Twitter for saying mean things about J.K. Rowling. The National Post has been on a red-baiting tear recently, more so than usual. We've got two batshit insane op-eds arguing that Justin Trudeau is a socialist mastermind. Huge if true. It would also be a marked improvement from his milquetoast neoliberalism. First up...
In this episode, we discuss a guy so anti-imperialist that he unquestioningly supports U.S. imperialism. That's right, we're talking about Macleans contributing editor, National Post columnist and all-around neocon ghoul Terry Glavin (Gladio). The piece in question is a masterful work of concern trolling, where he suggests that if BLM activists want to win him over, they'll have to stop wearing clothes. It's essentially a hornier, unironic version of the classic Matt Bors cartoon. Gla...
We're joined by our dear j-school pal Mahnoor Yawar (@mahnoorie) to talk about a familiar theme for our listeners — the complete lack of accountability for columnists at Canada's major newspapers. The spark for this discussion was Toronto Star columnist Rosie DiManno's reply-all meltdown, in which she told the entire staff at the paper what she thought of the Star's new internal ombudsperson position, which was assumed by her far superior colleague, Shree Paradkar. (Hint: it's the name of t...
We need to talk about the sock. Stephen Magusiak (@magusiak) of PressProgress joins us to explain a guy named Steven Kerzner (@EdtheSock) to our American buddy, Stephen from the Haus of Decline podcast in light of Kerzner's recent racist remarks against NDP leader Jagmeet Singh. Was Kerzner ever actually funny, or are we just nostalgic for a simpler time? We listen to some classic Fromage clips to find out. (Hint: They have not aged well.) We also discuss Kerzner's recent foray into...
YouTuber Tristan Johnson of Step Back History joins us to talk about how incinerating tens of thousands of Japanese civillians at the close of the Second World War is actually bad. The impetus for this discussion is a chatacteristically long-winded Twitter thread from National Post opinion editor Matt Gurney, where he argues that dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which he concedes were not militarily necessary, were good. That's because it allowed his grandfather to return...
WE have returned to talk about the scandal that has rocked Canadian politics for the past few weeks. This is, of course, courtesy of a shady charity run by Canada's McPoyle twins. The prime minister wanted to hand them a $900-million contract to administer a government student summer jobs program, which some could interpret as payback for the paid speeches his mom and brother have given them. Eric read Marc and Craig Keilburger's book "ME to WE: Finding Meaning in a Material World," which WE...
Big Shiny Takes is back with an episode on a columnist that is truly memorable for all the wrong reasons, Margaret Wente. But first we briefly discuss the WE scandal engulfing Canadian news, before launching into a discussion of tHe LetTeR and cAnCeL cUlTuRe to set the scene for Wente's woe-is-me shtick. If you haven't been keeping track, Wente was recently appointed to a meaningless college society/illuminati front called The Quadrangle Society. This was met with criticism due to several w...
After a quick catch up with some old favourites, we talk about the return of Dr. Jordan Bernt Peterson after an apparent benzo addiction scare. Is he alive? Dead? Transcended the astral realm? Mikhaila assumed his form? We discuss so you can decide! We also read through his comeback National Post column, which is about how cultural Marxism has infiltrated academia at the highest levels, including —gasps — the hard sciences. In other words, the exact same one note he's been hitting for the pa...
In a slight departure from our regular Postmedia dunking, we talk about the nation's second-largest newspaper chain, TorStar. It may not surprise you to learn that they own the Toronto Star, which is relatively good compared with the National Post, but still part of the same corporate media ecosystem, with all the structural problems that entails. TorStar was recently taken private and purchased by four fellas who are Conservative party donors. What does this mean for the future of Canada's...
We're joined by Stephen Magusiak (@magusiak) of PressProgress to talk about a real banner week for Postmedia sleaze. First, we discuss Rex Murphy's absolute dumpster fire on how racism isn't a major issue in our fake country that was built off ethnically cleansing Indigenous people, the response from some of his own National Post colleagues and the near-complete lack of accountability for Postmedia stalwarts. Next, we chat about People's Champ Joe Warmington's incoherent column on gang vi...
Another week, another terrible take that we read so you don't have to. This week the boys review some work done by Lord of Cross Harbour, former Order of Canada recipient, and ex-prison attendee Conrad Black. It's our opinion that Black is a terrible writer with terrible ideas. Typically we'd call this column a bad take, but in the spirit of the ostentatious blowhard we are talking about today, we'll refer to it as an abhorrent display of his lack of cogency and make special note that John ...
It's been an incredible run and we've read some truly terrible columns, but the time has come to say goodbye. After five years of covering the worst opinions Canadian media has to offer, Eric, Marino and Jeremy are moving on to greener pastures – hopefully there aren't any copies of the National Post lying around. Thanks to all of our guests, listeners and supporters. You made this show so much fun to do over the years. We're not going to read a column this episode, which makes t...
Are Canada's universities being feminized? It's a topic that's been consuming Leigh Revers – so much so that he wrote about it at length in the bad takes newspaper of record, the National Post Men are foregoing higher education and instead chopping wood in the forest and spending all their money on beard oil. This leads to an imbalance in education levels, which fuels the ongoing birth rate epidemic. Or something like that. Edmonton-based writer and educator Dani Paradis (@DaniParadis) joi...
At this time of increased antisemitism, who better to give Jews free advice than Dr. Order and Chaos himself, Jordan Peterson? The problem is his piece, published in the Spectator (London), is riddled with antisemitic tropes and basic misunderstandings of Jewish liturgy. Polite Conversations host Eiynah (@nicemangos) joins us to talk about why Peterson might want to sit this one out. Plugs and Recs Polite Conversations - “The Gaza Ghetto Uprising w/Rev and Reve” Polite Conversa...
1Jews are under attack on campuses! Actually, Zionism is, but that's good enough for Michael Geist to write about an apparent scourge of antisemitism at Canada's universities. We're joined by University of Alberta English and film professor Mike Litwack (@mikeylitwack) to take a look at a piece that purports that nobody who supports Israel can feel bad about things, ever. Plugs and Recs Rifqa by Mohammed El-Kurd Get Ghassan Kanafani: Selected political writings, OUT NOW! Keep an eye out fo...
Fancying himself some sort of Judge Dredd of protecting Canadian culture, Christopher Dummitt writes in a special to the National Post how such actions as land acknowledgments or taking a plaque down in an art gallery are giving China an edge. Canadian patriot Nora Loreto joins us to explain why having a deep-seated sense of national pride probably doesn't matter that much. Plugs and Recs Nora Loreto | Substack A political podcast. Just Listen. | Sandy & Nora Talk Politics (sandyandn...
"Are all these bisexuals for real? Or is this 'el gee bee tee cue' stuff just a fashionable trend? I'm just asking questions." That is about the extent of the analysis in this week's column from the Phoebe Maltz Bovy in Globe and Mail. Nevertheless, we torture ourselves and writer/pal Sarah Rieger by unpacking it. Join us for yet another incoherent boomer moment. Plugs and Recs Listen to Expats & Allies | A Podcast on Nazi Refugees The Hoser | Taking On a Grocery Empire: Understanding...
Oakville Town Hall is under siege from a red scourge and Sun journalist Joe Warmington is on the case after a hot tip. Can the People's Champion make sense of the situation? Will anyone talk some sense into these misguided youngsters? Freelance journalist Scott Martin (@YouCaughtScott) helps us unpack what really went on that day, since Joe failed to notice that he was actually just at the Fightback table at a pro-Palestine rally. Plugs and Recs Scott Martin - The Catch (readthecatch.ca)...
Stop being mean to grocer oligarchs. Stop it! We're warning you. You should be thanking them, they stock your treats and only gouge you a to a moderate degree. Everybody's gotta make a living, and besides, they're probably creating your job anyway. Toronto-based writer Luke Savage (@LukewSavage) joins us to take in the view from the National Post and be properly tut-tutted as we learn about the success story that is Galen Weston being born at the right time. Plugs & Recs (The Rinse) Bu...
American icon Noah Kulwin (@nkulw) joins the pod to talk about one of the most obnoxious Twitter personalities of the past several months, Joe Roberts. Roberts, co-founder of the Democratic Socialists of America - Canada and former co-host of New Left Radio, has gone full neocon since Oct. 7. So much so that he wrote a column for the National Post, where he's now a regular contributor, waxing nostalgic about George W. Bush, the guy everyone famously loves. Oh, and Sarah Palin too, because h...
We love whinging about the fertility rate, don't we folks? The implications are grave, lowered birth rates could mean fewer DoorDash employees to bring columnists treats. BST Institute fellow Stephen @Magusiak of @pressprogress returns to pick apart a Globe and Mail opinion piece by John Ibbitson. According to Ibby, the ever-dwindling number of babies Canada produces threatens to tear the country apart. Scary stuff! Plugs & Recs (The Rinse) Get news coverage from PressProgress: Sign u...
Executive Director of @Wisdom2Action and @QueerMomentum and unstoppable dynamo @FaeJohnstone joins us to discuss how Sydney Sweeney's breasts fortell the death of wokeness – according to the National Post. In a column that reads like a horny Looney Tunes cartoon, Amy Hamm, who is a nurse apparently, brings the bizarre discourse around the young actress to a crescendo. Plugs & Recs (The Rinse) Read The new generation of gay Conservative sellouts by Fae Johnstone Go to +972 Magazin...
The Big Shiny Takes Institute has returned to read a real stinker of a column by Rick Bell. Rick, a traditional dumb guy with a column, seems a little upset about how mean people are being to Calgary Chief of Police Mark Neufeld. We dig into this column (a glorified vanity piece about how the police are good, homeless people are super-criminals and everyone needs to shut up) with friend of the Institute, Drug Data Decoded's Euan Thomson. Plugs and Recs Kenneyism - Jeremy App...
Polite Conversations host and leading Intellectual Dark Web scholar Eiynah, a/k/a @NiceMangos, joins us to scrape the bottom of the IDW barrel. Gad Saad, who is now a National Post columnist, is a marketing professor who fashions himself as an expert in the defence of Western Civilization. He wrote a piece in the Post about how happy conservatives are, in which he informs the reader that he is very much not mad about the woke left. Plugs & Recs (The Rinse) Listen to Jeremy on Polite...
Mount Royal University academic, Al Jazeera columnist and Al Shabaka fellow Muhannad Ayyash joins us to discuss how Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek cancelled Hanukkah. Calgary pundits lost their goddam minds over Gondek's decision to back out of at a totally apolitical menorah lighting ceremony that was billed as an opportunity to demonstrate "SUPPORT FOR ISRAEL." And according to reporting from Aryn Toombs at LiveWire Calgary, it didn't disappoint. Calgary Herald columnist Don Braid, who join...
Chuka Ejeckam joins us again, this time to discuss the ongoing horror in Gaza and how Canadian pundits have assumed the role of IDF spokespeople. There’s no better example of this trend than Andrew Coyne, who wrote a column boasting of how little he’s learned since 9/11. Plugs and Recs UN Director for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Resignation Letter The Hoser Grocery Tracker Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy Tech Won't Save Us - Elon Musk Unmasked, Ep. 1 If you en...
The Big Shiny Takes Institute has returned after the editor (Eric) spent the last month traveling the world in search of the shiniest takes. It turns out they were all right here in Canada. This week we return to an old favourite, the people's champion Joe Warmington, for a column about remembering police officers who passed away this year. Before you ask, yes Don Cherry is featured in the column for some reason. This episode was recorded in late September and is a classic example of the N...
Jeremy and Marino are joined by The Breach co-ordinating editor Emma Paling (@emmapaling) to discuss a column from Carson Jerema, the National Post's comment editor, who in accordance with Post traditions doesn't seem to do much editing. According to Jerema, Pierre Poilievre's shrieking about the globalistsat the World Economic Forum isn't a conspiracy theory at all. In fact, it's exactly like Chrystia Freeland's tepid criticisms of the WEF in her book Plutocrats, which Jerema adds is a Mar...
Things are so good in Canadian media. There's layoffs nearly every week. There's talk of the Toronto Star merging with Postmedia. The Online News Act was passed and as a result Google and Facebook are pulling Canadian news content from their platforms. (The Act isn't great and doesn't help independent media that much to begin with, but Google and Facebook pulling this move is baaaad). To celebrate the robust and healthy nature of our industry, Marino and Eric are joined by old j-school budd...
What do opinion columnists in this country think about strikes? Nothing worth reading on your own. In this episode the Big Shiny Takes Institute takes a look at an awful column on the PSAC strike that took place near the end of April and extended into May. The conventional wisdom of punditry was that the public would not support a public sector strike, but in hindsight (and at the time) we could very clearly see how incorrect that opinion was. Globe and Mail columnist Andrew Coyne had som...
The unthinkable has happened in Canada. A public body has offered new health recommendations and people are overreacting. How will society even function on two drinks a week? According to some, not at all. This week we are joined by author James Wilt (Drinking Up the Revolution, Do Androids Dream of Electric Cars) and co-founder of The Hoser Kevin Taghabon to read an abysmal column from Peter Shawn Taylor in the Financial Post. In this column Taylor accuses the Canadian Centre for Substance...
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 clas...
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...
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 2...
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 p...
Comments
Top Podcasts
The Best New Mark Levin Podcast Right Now - March 2025The Best New VINCE Podcast Right Now - March 2025The Best New Joe Rogan Experience Podcast Right Now - March 2025The Best New Sports Podcast Right Now - March 2025The Best New Business Podcast Right Now - March 2025The Best New News Podcast Right Now - March 2025The Best New Comedy Podcast Right Now - March 2025The Best New True Crime Podcast Right Now - March 2025
Download from Google Play
Download from App Store
United States