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CAPE FEAR MEMORIAL BRIDGE CLOSURE: UPDATES, RESOURCES, AND CONTEXT

Panel Round Two

CARL KASELL: From NPR and WBEZ-Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!, the NPR News quiz. I'm Carl Kasell. We're playing this week with Roy Blount Jr., Kyrie O'Connor, and Charlie Pierce. And, here again is your host, at the Leed Center in Lincoln, Nebraska, Peter Sagal.

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PETER SAGAL, HOST:

Thank you, Carl. In just a minute, Carl debates the virtues of a unirhymeral legislature...

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SAGAL: ...in our Listener Limerick Challenge.

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SAGAL: If you'd like to play, give us a call at 1-888-Wait-Wait. That's 1-888-924-8924. Right now, panel, some more questions for you from the week's news.

Roy, the Federal Government is once again cracking down on corruption in our home state of Illinois. And this time, they have filed a suit against a group of what?

ROY BLOUNT JR: People in Illinois.

SAGAL: I didn't say people.

JR: Oh-ho-ho-ho.

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JR: You slipped up then and gave me a hint, didn't you?

SAGAL: I did.

JR: Well, you can't sue - what kind of animals can you sue? Or plants?

SAGAL: Well, they're making a lot of hay out of nothing, the feds are.

JR: Horses.

SAGAL: Yes, they're suing horses in Illinois.

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JR: Suing horses.

SAGAL: This is what happened. That's right, he got it right.

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SAGAL: The financial comptroller of Dixon, Illinois is accused of embezzling 53 million dollars from the town, over the course of many years, with which she bought, among many other things, more than 300 race horses.

Now the government wants to seize her assets that she got with her ill begotten gains and that means, according to the law, they have to file a suit against the horses themselves. So the case is on the court docket, as United States of America versus Have Faith In Money, et al.

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SAGAL: All the horses are named in the suit. Have Faith In Money is only the first horse. And a lot of them suggest what their owner was up to. There's Potential Fortune, Packin' Jewels, Corrupt City Official.

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SAGAL: And a horse called, Seriously, How Have You Not Caught On Yet, I'm The Comptroller of Dixon, Illinois and I Own 310 Quarter Horses.

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JR: What if she had put all of her money into furs, would they have to sue dead animals?

SAGAL: I think you have to name the things you want to seize in the suit.

CHARLIE PIERCE: Do the horses have legal representation?

SAGAL: I believe, yes, they had Mr. Ed. He's the only horse that can talk.

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SAGAL: Now a horse in court doesn't really need a lawyer, it can just turn around.

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JR: Very nice.

SAGAL: Think, Dixon is a town of 15 thousand people in central Illinois and she stole 53 million dollars from it. What could Dixon be like? When people from Dixon go to other towns, are they like, what are those things between the buildings? Oh, streets.

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SAGAL: We don't have those in Dixon.

KYRIE O'CONNOR: This woman played it all wrong. If she'd been like Ann Romney, she could have bought 53,000 ugly shirts.

JR: Right.

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SAGAL: Charlie, you know what it's like to live in an apartment building. You get notices under the door that says things like: we're getting a new light in the mailroom, we're installing a new furnace. Well, residents of an apartment building in London got notices under their door that they're building was getting what?

PIERCE: I'm going to take kind of an educated guess and say their building is getting athletes and they have to leave.

SAGAL: No.

PIERCE: It has nothing to do with the Olympics?

SAGAL: It does have something to do wit the Olympics, but they're not getting athletes.

PIERCE: We're having the Olympics. Get out.

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SAGAL: No. They get to stay. It's actually a nice addition to the building. I'll give you a hint. It'll be useful if a rival apartment block ever launches an air raid.

PIERCE: Oh this is the - they're going to put air to air - of surface to air missiles on the roof of the building.

SAGAL: Exactly.

PIERCE: That's right.

SAGAL: They're getting a missile batter on their building.

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SAGAL: Life in the Tower Hamlets neighborhood is about to get a lot more missily.

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SAGAL: Thanks to the British Defense Ministry. According to leaflets slipped under their doors, resident's rooftops will soon be hosting munitions teams and surface to air missiles, to be used to protect the Olympic Games, and also making this the only apartment building eligible to join the UN Security Council.

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SAGAL: The flyer reassures residents that the missiles will not be dangerous.

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SAGAL: Which makes them, when you think about it, really bad missiles, you know.

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PIERCE: I just feel bad for the super who is going to have to go up to the, you know, roof and like polish the warhead, make sure that things are all shiny.

SAGAL: Like Pat Harrington from "One Day at a Time" going up there.

PIERCE: Yeah, exactly.

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SAGAL: With his tool belt, "I got to fix the missiles."

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SAGAL: Do you think that the building with the missiles will get all haughty about it and use it to threaten people? Like what do you mean my dry cleaning isn't ready? Don't you know where I live?

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PIERCE: How'd you like to be the apartment next door to the one with the missiles who's been playing his stereo too loud out the window?

SAGAL: Right.

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PIERCE: Please turn it down. No. Please turn it down before I lob this into your living room.

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SAGAL: Charlie, a terror scare this week at Newark International Airport. A busy terminal was evacuated and even shut down when it was learned what had snuck through security?

PIERCE: Huh. What would sneak through? Almost anything would sneak through security actually.

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PIERCE: I'm going to need a hint because I'm not anywhere close to having an answer.

SAGAL: Well it sent its pacifier through the x-ray.

PIERCE: Oh, the baby.

SAGAL: Yes, a baby.

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SAGAL: A baby.

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SAGAL: An unaccounted for, unscreened baby shut down the airport. The TSA takes no chances when it comes to harmless threats.

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SAGAL: So when a baby got into the terminal without being screened, they sprung into action, possibly because they mistook its diaper for a Butt Turban.

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SAGAL: The terminal was shut down, and then evacuated, and searched by baby-sniffing dogs. The problem, of course, is that the TSA, as you know, is not allowed to profile, so they had to ask everyone they found if they were, in fact, a baby.

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SAGAL: Excuse me sir, but are you 18 inches long and wearing a onesie?

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SAGAL: No sir? Thank you, appreciate your time.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.