Latest / The Daily Sarcast / July 31st, 2026: The Government Doesn't Know Anything About Africa, Roombas Are Banned From The US And Working With My Grandmother

Transcript

July 31st, 2026: The Government Doesn't Know Anything About Africa, Roombas Are Banned From The US And Working With My Grandmother · The Daily Sarcast

• 0:00
  Do you keep clicking, I agree, without reading a single word?
• 0:04
  Now introducing Terms and Conditions, the app that reads them for you.
• 0:10
  It doesn't just summarize them.
• 0:12
  They'll interrupt you every five seconds while you're using that website with
• 0:16
  things like, heads up, they now own your browsing history, your shopping history,
• 0:22
  and any other thing that you do on the internet.
• 0:25
  Before downloading an app, they'll let you know if you're accidentally agreeing
• 0:29
  to arbitration in Delaware, emails until you die, or giving a robot vacuum permission
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  to map your entire apartment.
• 0:38
  Terms and conditions, because I agree, has become the most universal lie.
• 0:44
  Cher Horowitz has a lot figured out. She's successful in business and has mastered motherhood.
• 0:50
  That is until her daughter's high school years, and Cher finds that parenting
• 0:53
  a teenager makes her feel clueless all over again.
• 0:57
  Alicia Silverstone on playing Cher in the new sequel of Clueless that will be out in a few years.
• 1:03
  Insert theme song here. This is the Daily Starcast. I give you the news and me be a laugh.
• 1:09
  I'm Lindsay Vernick and today is July 31st, 2026.
• 1:13
  Good morning and happy Friday. Wow, it's been such an exciting week for the podcast.
• 1:19
  I'm so excited to have ads. So if you have any feedback on ads that you've been
• 1:25
  hearing, please let me know. I'm excited to hear about anything that's happened for you this past week.
• 1:31
  So in real news, do you guys remember that dad?
• 1:36
  Yeah, you know, that dad. The dad who gave his son a gun and ammunition for Christmas one year,
• 1:45
  and then later the son shot up the school and killed a couple This was back in 2024.
• 1:52
  Okay, so that father just got sentenced to 15 years.
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  The jury found him criminally responsible for helping create the circumstances that led to the attack.
• 2:03
  So because this 14-year-old kid killed two students and two teachers and hurt
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  nine other people, he was sentenced earlier this week to life in prison without parole.
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  And then his father just got sentenced to 15 years.
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  The DA showed that there was a lot of questionable things that this kid was
• 2:28
  doing leading up to the school shooting.
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  I mean, there wasn't enough evidence to arrest him at the time,
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  but it was seriously concerning.
• 2:37
  And the judge told the dad, like, we get that you didn't intend for your kid
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  to shoot up a school, but your negligence did have really bad consequences.
• 2:47
  So this is a huge shift from, like, this is my kid's choice and that's not on
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  me, but also it gets a little bit more, like, gray because, well,
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  you are the parent and your child did something really, really serious.
• 3:02
  So this is also turning more into a conversation of like whether the adults
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  have responsibility when the
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  warning signs have been flashing like a dashboard of a 2003 Honda Civic.
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  But I think that this is also to send a message to parents across the world.
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  And for people like me who will be parents soon, okay, I don't even have a boyfriend, so whatever.
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  But still like, you know, maybe hopefully one day when I do have kids,
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  it's like you are responsible for your kids don't give them guns when they're
• 3:33
  acting pretty weird and crazy duh.
• 3:38
  Okay, so the U.S. government just published a bunch of maps, right?
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  And, like, it's kind of like a middle school, like, group project.
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  Like, just label the countries correctly.
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  Pretty easy, you would think. You are very wrong.
• 3:53
  A map was just published by the U.S. government and incorrectly labeled several
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  African countries, which confused a lot of people and probably a few geography
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  teachers to spit out their coffees.
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  Like, we all make mistakes. Like, we all accidentally text our ex or say I love
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  you by accident at the end of the work call.
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  But this was an official government map.
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  It's one of those things that makes you really wonder, does anyone actually check anything?
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  Or was everyone just like, yeah, that definitely looks like Africa.
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  But luckily, the errors were figured out pretty quickly.
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  But it was also pointed out that getting the names and borders of these like
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  countries wrong isn't just a small typo geography isn't kind of like typing something incorrectly,
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  but honestly there's probably like a million seventh graders out there that
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  are probably more qualified than these guys working for the government right now.
• 4:57
  Robot vacuums officially entered the geopolitical chat.
• 5:02
  So there was this new proposal made in Washington that could have restrictions
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  on these Chinese-made devices.
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  And yes, that includes some of the robot vacuums happily bumping into your coffee table every day.
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  This concern isn't that your vacuum is like plotting world domination.
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  Is that these devices are packed with cameras, sensors, and microphones on some
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  of these models with the Wi-Fi connections and have like detailed maps of your home.
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  People in D.C. are worried that all that information could be potentially accessed
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  by companies with ties to the Chinese government.
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  I mean, that's not too far-fetched, is it? Your Roomba knows your house better than your friends do.
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  And unlike my therapist, or maybe yours, it never forgets.
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  The government doesn't want to try to take away every robot vacuum.
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  It's just a part of this bigger effort to get rid of technology that people
• 5:59
  believe could have national security risks of where it's made and who has access to the data.
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  Okay, well, there actually is no evidence that your vacuum is secretly sending
• 6:09
  videos of your living room to a spy headquarter somewhere.
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  I mean, why are they interested in that, right? I mean, unless they're under my bed.
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  I don't even know what goes on under there. But who had vacuum cleaner become
• 6:23
  a national security issue on their 2026 bingo card?
• 6:27
  In Lindsay life. So I'm down the shore for the weekend, and I'm with my grandmother.
• 6:33
  There I'm literally just like trying to call and book locations for my show
• 6:38
  and she's literally on the phone screaming behind me like constantly
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  to the point where like I have to apologize to her and a woman on the phone
• 6:47
  who I was talking to yesterday was like just let your grandmother go like she's
• 6:50
  your grandmother let her do her thing so embarrassing,
• 6:54
  MVP of this week goes to LinkedIn's new AI rewrite button.
• 7:00
  So the biggest problem, I guess, that LinkedIn is facing right now is people
• 7:05
  sounding too much like a real person.
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  So LinkedIn is testing this new feature that rewrites your post to make them
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  sound more professional.
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  But people have already nicknamed it the AI slot button because it has a habit
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  of turning perfectly normal sentences into corporate alphabet soup.
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  For example, you write, I got promoted today. And LinkedIn AI will write,
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  I'm incredibly humbled and excited to leverage this transformative opportunity
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  as I embark on the next chapter of my professional journey.
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  Or maybe you post, I had a great meeting, and LinkedIn will say,
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  grateful for the opportunity to engage in meaningful cross-functional collaboration
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  that will drive impactful stakeholder outcomes.
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  Like, no one knows what that means, and also, nobody cares.
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  It's a little bit ironic because LinkedIn has spent the past couple of years
• 7:56
  becoming the social media where every post already sounds AI-generated.
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  Like, every week somebody's posting about, this five-year-old taught me the
• 8:05
  true meaning of leadership, or I was rejected from 8,400,000 jobs,
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  but here's why that's actually a blessing.
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  And now we have AI helping people write posts that already sounded like AI wrote them.
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  It's like putting a wig on a mannequin.
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  I mean, when enough people write the words delighted and thrilled and excited
• 8:24
  to announce and honored to share and couldn't be more excited to announce,
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  like we all know that you're not that excited about it.
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  You can just say, started a new job. Wish me luck.
• 8:36
  So congrats, LinkedIn AI. You are this week's MVP because you can make absolutely
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  nothing turn into three beautifully formatted paragraphs.
• 8:47
  Today's cooking tip is brought to you by my cousin Lily. Don't cook.
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  Feedback, comments, questions, a nice Jewish by looking for a date,
• 8:56
  email me at lindsay at thedailystarcast.com.
• 8:59
  Thank you so much for listening. And don't forget, if you haven't signed up
• 9:02
  for the summer residency and are interested in hosting an episode,
• 9:06
  make sure you do that. The link is down below.
• 9:09
  Thanks so much. Have a great weekend. I'll talk to you guys tomorrow.