The Daily Zeitgeist - Trend Roof Rusted 1/7: Stranger Things, PolyMarket, Google AI Overview, Hampton Inn vs. ICE, Venezuela

Episode Date: January 7, 2026

In this edition of Trend Roof Rusted, Jack and Miles discuss the finale of Stranger Things (or is it?), PolyMarket vs. Venezuela, Google's AI Overview STILL being inaccurate, Hampton Inn cancelling ICE?, anti-Venezuelan invasion protesters getting arrested and much more!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hello, the internet, and welcome to this episode of Randroof. Rust it. That one courtesy of vanadium silver. What's that? What's that? That's from Red Roof Rusted, the Love Shack song.

That's Love Shack? Oh, no, it's Tin Roof Rusted. Oh, what's Tin Roof Rusted? I don't know. It's just a random thing. The song stops down in the middle, and they say, tin roof rusted. Oh, okay, yep.

Oh, wow. Wow. Wow. Sorry about that, guys. I was just with Fred the other day, and he said he much he loves the show. I'm Zite Gang. I'm Zite Gang. That's another one I love doing the voice.

I was courtesy of Vanadium Silver, who also did the McTrendel yesterday, and I don't think I shout out. So shout out to Vanadium Silver. King of the short show titles. My name is Jack O'Brien. that over there's Miles Gray. This is the episode where we tell you what is trending this afternoon. It is Wednesday,

January 7th. And we already... Stranger things, baby. It's coming out, baby. We already have an update to us today we've covered this morning because everybody was on the edge of their seat. I mean, to see if the fan theories were right. Yeah, yeah,

was the ending a fake ending and they're about to drop the real ending on all of our asses today? That bad ending was fake. The bad, so you thought that that ending was bad by mistake. It was bad on purpose because you're in the Matrix.

Hell yeah. I still think they should have done that. I still think it would have been cool. Officially, no. It's officially... Has there been official word? I mean, at this point, no episodes are out, but can I can I hold on still? According to the creators of the show, if you want

to believe them, it's over. The duffer said on Happy Sad, confused that They don't intend to ever revisit the Stranger Things characters. Affirming the series finale is how they wanted to close the book. Which series finale, though? Aha. I'm still in.

There's still time, Jack. There's still time on the clock. Netflix made a post saying all episodes of Stranger Things are now playing. I feel like they're like leaving it a little open-ended. Yeah. You know, they're not saying, guys, your theory's fucking stupid. They're saying, we finish. at how we wanted to. They're not saying

there will be no whatever 47th, I don't know what would. Yeah, yeah, 43rd, 43rd. There will be no 43rd episode. They're just kind of teasing us. And honestly, who are we going to believe? We're going to believe the creators of the show or this shelf of cassette tape someone's screen grabbed, which Grok says is secretly

Morse code that says, you did not stop me. Fuck, yeah. potentially Vecna taunting? I mean... I just love that someone really looked at the order of the cassette tapes

and goes, that's Morse code. Right. I'm going to translate that. You did not stop me. Boom. Also, I have to assume that this is bullshit. Like,

that Grock is incorrect, but I think they missed an opportunity to do something cool and form breaking, which seems in keeping with Netflix. You think the Duffer brothers

would have been like, fuck we should have done that dude i do wonder i mean i'm sure they're like too hot committed to their own like this is actually the way it should have ended but i do wonder if there's ever i would love to hear an author or you know like that would have been created like damn that was actually a sick idea that's a sick idea should they have all sorts of reasons for not doing it the way that the people but like their reasons are bad yeah yeah got to tell you oh brian said they wanted to end it ended after season one.

Like, hey, I would have been fine with that. And then they were like, here, how about we write you this check? Remember that jack? When we told at the time, stuff media, we just wanted to do one show a week. And then they backed up the dump truck of coupons. Actually, the exact opposite. They were trying to save us from ourselves. They said, don't do it daily.

What about the weeklies, like guys? That will live, ring out in my head forever. We got from our CEO. How about the weeklies like guys? And here we are, baby. This seems like too much. I'm worried about you guys. Spread razor thin, teetering on the edge of...

Four thousand episodes later. All right. Big news right now is polymarket. Yeah, yeah. So this is something that I've seen kind of trickling up through the news lately. We're going to talk on tomorrow's episode about how integrated it got into the news. But a big story that people are talking about, not just that the U.S. staged an unprecedented incursion into Venezuela.

and kidnapped the sovereign leader and openly admitted that they were doing it because they're the bad guys and they just want their oil and because they can who's going to stop us? Well, he's not a good guy either

so it kind of cancels it out, right? People are like, nah, the precedent you're setting, especially for the president is frightening, but yes. They looked back at Iraq where like the only thing, the only lesson we're taking from that

is that we shouldn't have wasted all that time lying to people. we should have just been like, we're going to do it because they got, they got oil. Well, there's speed running. Oil countries, they're on there. How quickly it went from, it's the drugs to it's the oil. It's the oil, man. You fucking got us.

They're speed running the whole Iraq war in like five weeks. Yeah. They're like, that was a lot of work to lie and they get caught in the lie and everybody would be like, it was a big scandal. We're just going to tell you why we're doing this. Anyways, as a little. side quest in this story. Yeah.

There was a new polymarket account created. Polymarket is the gambling site that allows you to gamble on real-world events, the apocalypse. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there was a new polymarket account created at the end of last year that suddenly invested heavily around $13,000 on Maduro being, quote, out by January 31st. Okay. so okay people are like that so that that ended up paying out at 410,000 that bet uh which people are like hmm that's yeah interesting yeah usually what what uh gambling sites and casinos would define

as a suspicious bet yeah it would probably be oiling up their uh head vices and you know getting ready to crack some fingers sideways. Uh-huh. Uh, but because Polymarket is explicitly designed to be a crypto market that like you, or, you know, you, people use crypto, so it's

impossible to trace. Right. It, like, everything in this administration is just a, a way to make grifting and cheating easier to get away with. Yeah. Opacity set to 100%. Yes. Um, so,

So online betting on U.S. military invasions isn't totally new back in 2003 online gambling sites began offering odds on whether there will be war between the U.S. and Iraq. Taipei from my college. But it's just the fact that it's completely crypto and therefore tailor-made for insider trading. It seems like it was designed by people to make it possible to insider trade. Every level you zoom out on the story gets darker and darker. Because so one version's like, someone made a bet for $13,000. It may have 400K on like Maduro being out by the 31st.

And then you're like, okay, what is this, Polly Market? And you're like, what else has been going on Polly Market? Other weird things that feel like someone has an inside track. Then you zoom out further. And you're like, Donald Trump Jr. Is an advisor? An advisor to the company. His venture capital firm invested in the company and he's become a major advisor.

Dad, dad, you guys are going to take Maduro by, I don't know, the 31st or what, dude, what do you thinking, dad? Oh, God, okay, I won't be shady this time, dad. I'll bet like 13 grand. I'll bet like 13 grand. And it'll pay for three weeks worth of cocaine. The other red flag bets, Maduro's opponent, Maria Carina,

Machado won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize. But her odds began to spike on Polly Market right ahead of the announcement, despite a highly secretive selection process. The bets even prompted the Nobel Institute to launch an investigation into potential leaks. Similarly, a user made more than $1 million betting on Google's year-in-search results by betting on the top searches with uncanny accuracy.

I wonder who on the Google year-in-search team made a bet on Polly Market. So maybe pay your year-in-search team better. I'm going to bet on what the next Daily zeitgeist icons episode is going to be of and with who. the nobel institute has said that it may have been a victim of espionage so it's not just like idle speculation they're like yeah we don't know what the fuck happened but we really pulled that one that pick out of our ass and someone was betting on it which doesn't make any sense so on monday house democrat richie torres introduced a bill that would make it illegal for government officials to use online prediction markets to make bets on political events based on privileged information oh wow mr aback The Democrats aren't stepping up, man. Democrats are... The thing that's making... It feels like everything,

every reaction from them has just been, like, mad that they're missing out. Yeah, yeah. You didn't tell us? Dude, we would have fucking signed off. I mean, Nancy, but Nancy would never share her stock tips with me.

It's fucked up, dude. That's fucked up. And Ritchie Torres, my God. Like, the guy owned by A-PAC being like, here's a thing I'll be outraged about the betting. Like, dude, go find your soul. Also, Paulie Marcus, seems kind of fucked up like i mean so let's say you are prone to gamble on on these sorts of things

on people's lives and no it's terrible because it's like if you're taking action on fucking everything yeah i mean it's like truly what degenerate gamblers do like when they're like hey man what do you think like you think this kid's gonna put up 20 they're like this is a under 13 kids basketball game i know man he's got five he's on the bench right now i think all right i've talked before about how my friends from college would wager on we were like sitting at a table killing time and they were like, all right, which of these four people is going to get up first? And like they had a lively action going. And like as the person would like move a little bit, they'd be like, oh. Yeah, just all that for a little bit. But hey, you got polymarket now. So now you can bet on things

like the nuclear apocalypse. Yes, exactly. They also announced that they wouldn't be paying out millions of dollars worth of bets on a U.S. invasion of Venezuela because they argued that President Trump's statement that they will run Venezuela while referencing ongoing talks with the Venezuelan government does not alone qualify the kidnapping to capture Maduro as an invasion. Oh. That's the fucked up thing. It's like, it's very easy to, like, when you're taking bets on everything, it's very easy to be like, well, we're still holding out on who, actually, you know, the thing with

sports is that there is a definitive winner and loser, and that's why it makes sense is the thing. But when you can just like dig down. What is an invasion, truly? And who is Venezuela after all?

What is a government? That's right. So, I don't know. It seems like a weird trend that the news media is using in a weird way that we'll get into tomorrow. Oh, also whether or not Trump will invade

Greenland. There's a lot of new action on that. And what is Greenland? And what is an invasion? Any land that's green? And Donald Trump himself getting into the prediction market game with a polymarketesque expansion of truth social dubbed

TruthPredict, which was announced last fall. So you know it's good. So the, okay, yeah. You can bet on the president's war. Yeah. It is, again, like, Like we were saying with Venezuela and just being like a speed running without the all the difficult lying and fake photographs and misinterpretations of photographs that they had to do to justify that invasion. Like this is a thing that's been happening forever.

We've talked before about politicians have it like making suspicious trades on the stock market. Yeah. And like with the stock market, it only, we only find out about it when there's like an investigation. but with this, it's just like completely, it just takes all the breaks off. There's even a, back in 1789, Alexander Hamilton moved into, quote, shore up the investments in state-backed Revolutionary War bonds by investing a bunch of the country's money in it. And like a bunch of Congress people secretly scooped up thousands of bonds from farmers and farmers and war veterans paying pennies on the dollar. So it's been happening. Guys, it's in our DNA.

What do you want from us? Come on. I mean, evil grifting. Yeah, I mean, it's... Kind of our thing. It's in the DNA. Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. Hey, everyone. It's Ed Helms. And I'm Cal Penn, and we are the hosts of Earsay, the Audible and I-Heart Audio Book Club. This week on the podcast, I am talking to film and TV critic, radio and podcast host,

and Harry Potter superfan Rihanna Dillon to discuss Audible's full cast adaptation of Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone. What moments in this audiobook capture the feeling of the magical world best for you or just stood out the most? I always loved reading about the Quidditch matches and I think the audio really gets it

because it just plunges you right into the stands. You have the crowd sounds. like all around you, it is surround sound, especially if you're listening in headphones. Listen to EIRSA, the Audible and IHeart Audio Club on the IHeart Radio app, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. So let's talk about Google's AI overview, because we've discovered it's good for, uh, Finding out information, my nephews Googled me over the break and discovered that I was a award-winning theater director who also hosts the Daily Zykeist. Oh.

Yeah. My person and the person of like the more famous Jack O'Brien have been merged. Oh, yeah. This guy's got a hell of a resume, man. I got to say. Yeah. I mean, a contemporary London. based sculptor as well. Yeah, I know. We're killing it. Who could forget when you were the heavyweight boxing champion of 1905, Philadelphia Jack O'Brien? Yeah. That's a guy. They truly believe they just merged it all. They're like, man, the fuck. Yeah. That guy's killing it. Um, anyways, if you're willing to trust it with medical information, uh, you might want to take another look. Why? So they're actually rolling Google AI overview out.

in 100 more countries with one executive bragging that the feature can, quote, actually do better than what's on your search page, which is funny because the Guardian just concluded an investigation and AI overview and found that it put people's lives at risk with, quote, false and misleading health information. Okay. Like what? Okay. Wrongly advised people with pancreatic cancer to avoid high fat foods, which in reality,

if patients followed that advice, they would not be taking it enough calories, struggle to put on weight, be unable to tolerate chemotherapy or potentially life-saving surgery. So it's like, it's basically one of the first pieces of advice that you get on Google AI overview

is the exact opposite. Of what experts would tell you. For medical people, yeah, right. They're like, that's really dangerous. I was just, uh, yeah, I just remember, I was looking up stuff about liver,

function. Yeah, so. And it also gave you some good advice. Yeah. So some of the signs of liver disease that you should consult a doctor about were deemed normal by Google, Google AI overview. But also falsely claimed that a PAP test, a test for vaginal cancer, it does not. In both cases, the AI's answers are potentially dissuading users from seeking out the

advice of actual health care professionals by just being like, you're good. Like, it's one thing if it's saying, like, this is something to be alarmed about. But when it's just being like, oh, you're actually just, yeah, you're right. You're right. You're all right. Just like, like, try to eat a little bit healthier and, like, clean up that diet. You don't want to be eating too much fat. You don't want to gain weight while you're going through chemo.

Come on, dude. Don't, you don't want to look sloppy. You got to keep that six pack. When is, like, the first, like, mass accident going to happen where a bunch of people, get the same bunk advice and end up harming themselves inadvertently. You know what I mean? It's probably just happening on a much smaller scale

over time. I think it's just happening constantly. Like I think they are probably guarding against doing something like that. And instead, you know, everything is tested through like liability and they figure out what they can get away with. Right. And what they get afford to get away with.

How can we make this as bad as possible without facing legal liability and gaining maximum. Yeah, the real CD dark way would be like you get a bunch of people to find like the same bad misinformation. Like, all right, guys, we're going to kind of have to fuck ourselves up lightly.

And then we're going to do a class action lawsuit and we're going to own Google. Yeah. But don't worry because just days after the Guardian article was published, Google quietly put up a job posting for an, quote, AI answers quality software engineer, which is the first time Google

has indirectly acknowledged that it's, AI overviews, need some attention. Some QC issues, huh? Okay. And in the biggest news story to come out of A. Hampton and since Jay Leno was nearly murdered by the mafia, I don't know if you remember that. Dude, that was my favorite story. It was like, I was just going down to get something to eat and you're like, did you throw yourself down a fucking hill? Like, remember the forensic analysis? People were doing like.

Showed up with his ass kicked and was like, this is actually a Chili's related injury or trying to get to a sports bar. This was walking down a very steep hill from my Hampton Inn to the restaurant they directed me to and I didn't notice that

the line that I was, the line between the hotel and the restaurant was sent me over a cliff. Right, right. Oh, Jesus. But anyways, a Minnesota location reportedly canceled reservations for ICE agents who are visiting as part of the Trump administration's

efforts to vilify the Somali community in Minnesota. Good for them. And the official Department of Homeland Security account is just rage tweeting screen grabs of their hotel reservation while comparing themselves to Jesus' parents. This tweet says no room at the inn. Yeah. Wow. Wow. Wow. You got baby Jesse on the way and they won't let you stay in the Hampton Inn, dude, while you're out here trying to fucking harass people in fucking Minnesota. Cool, man.

They're nailing it. they're on yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i mean a way amazing way to place yourself as the victims here to be like if they canceled a reservation well i'll tell you who's buying into that the media and hilton a hilton claim that their hotels are welcoming places for all and suggested that the owners of the hampton and have apologized for the actions of their team our properties are open to everyone and we do not tolerate any form of discrimination hold on yeah you don't tolerate any form of discrimination. The only type of discrimination

that's currently being policed by the media is discrimination against the Gestapo. Yeah, yeah. That's a full fascism, baby. Yeah, you're there. You're there, honey. When you're like, dude,

don't fucking hate on the fucking evil haters, dude? Oh, you guys. You do not discriminate against the evil. Do not discriminate against those who would discriminate against us and lead us not into a Hampton Inn, but deliver us from evil.

Yeah, okay. Which is why, like, the right is so frequently rallying around businesses the refuse service to LGBTQ plus customers. We can't expect any kind of consistency with thought. Less protected from discrimination. People protesting the invasion of Venezuela, a 22-year-old preschool teacher,

was arrested after conducting an interview at a protest, voicing her opposition to the Trump administration. and um they they so they they were like waited till the end of her interview and then came up and they kind of like she's on camera kind of wrapping it up they're like all right come on come on and they it was for like obstructing or it was like the dumbish shit they're like you're obstructing a roadway blah blah blah blah but then just pressing her because she's saying things that she's speaking out against this our hour our regime here in the united states through her to the back of a car drove her off a little bit and then like sort of being like

all right, who's this guy? Tell us who this person is. She was like, I, not, what? I'm not going to do that. Oh, they had her, they're like asking her to ID people. Asking her to ID people and then asked her whether she was Venezuelan and what her connection to Venezuela was because they can't conceive of any non-self-interested reason that someone would be opposing the illegal and wildly unpopular invasion of another country that killed 80 people or 40 to 80 people.

Yeah. What's it? What do you, what do you, Venice? uelan or something? What? Like, that is like the most superficial understanding of humanity you have to go, what do you what are you Palestinian or something?

Right. Like, what? No, I'm, I'm... Check his genealogy. Yeah. Yeah. What's your connection to this? I don't know. I'm just a concerned citizen of the earth who feels like this shouldn't be happening to people. Uh-huh, uh-huh. So what you're born in... Were you born in Caracas or something, bro? All right.

Those are some of the things that are trending on this. Wednesday, January 7th, we are back tomorrow with the whole last episode of the show. Until then, be kind to each other. Be kind to yourselves. Get your vaccines where you still can. Get your flu shots. Don't do nothing about white supremacy. And we will talk to you all tomorrow. Bye. Bye. The Daily Zykeyes is executive produced by Catherine Law. Co-produced by Bay Wang. Co-produced by Victor Wright. Co-written by J.M. McNabb. And edited and engineered by Brian Jeffries.

Hey, everyone, it's Ed Helms. And I'm Cal Penn, and we are the hosts of Earsay, the Audible and I Heart Audiobook Club. This week on the podcast, I am talking to film and TV critic, radio and podcast host, and Harry Potter superfan, Rihanna Dillon, to discuss Audible's full cast adaptation of Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone. What moments in this audiobook capture the feeling of the magical world best for you or just stood out the most? I always loved reading about the Quiddish matches and I think the audio really gets it because it just plunges you right into the stands. You have the crowd sounds like all around you. It is surround sound, especially if you're listening in headphones.

Listen to Earsay, the Audible and IHeart Audio Book Club on the IHeart Radio app, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an I-Heart podcast, Guaranteed Human.