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

Who's Carl This Time?

CARL KASELL, HOST:

From NPR and WBEZ-Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!, the NPR News quiz. I'm Carl Kasell, and here is your host, at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

Thank you, Carl.

(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Thank you everybody, great to see you. Thank you so much. Great show for you today, we've got comedian Bill Maher coming to join us and play Not My Job. Meanwhile, do you guys, any of you guys follow President Obama on Twitter? This week, he made history. He used it to announce the end of the Iraq war. That's true. What began with shock and awe ended with a tweet.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Now, really, who would have thought that such a historic moment would come between an update about the chicken wrap he ate for lunch and his shout out to last night's "Toddlers and Tiaras." It was amazing.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: We'll keep you entertained until the president updates again. So give us a call. The number is 1-888-Wait-Wait, that's 1-888-924-8924. Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!.

DAVE MORRILL: Hello there, this is Dave Morrill in Keene, New Hampshire.

SAGAL: Hey, how are things in Keene?

MORRILL: Just peachy.

SAGAL: I bet, now you're in New Hampshire, so...

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Peachy Keene, oh yeah, it took me a second.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: I'm from New Jersey, we're slow.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Dave, welcome to the show. Let me introduce you to our panel this week. First up, one of the founders of the Axis of Evil Comedy Tour, a comedian who will be performing at the San Jose Improv December 29th through the 31st, I'm talking about Maz Jobrani. He's here.

(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE)

MAZ JOBRANI: Hey.

MORRILL: Hi.

JOBRANI: How are you?

MORRILL: Good, how are you doing?

JOBRANI: Good, thanks.

SAGAL: Next, a comedienne who will be performing at the San Francisco Sketchfest January 20th and 21st, it's Jessi Klein. We welcome her back.

(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE)

JESSI KLEIN: Hello.

MORRILL: Hey, Jessi.

KLEIN: Hi.

SAGAL: And another comedienne, she'll be performing in Charlotte, North Carolina on January 21st at the Knight Theater. It's Paula Poundstone.

(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE)

PAULA POUNDSTONE: Hey Dave.

MORRILL: Hey Paula.

SAGAL: Well, welcome to the show, Dave. You're going to play Who's Carl This Time. Carl Kasell, of course, is going to read you three quotes from the week's news. And if you can correctly identify or explain just two of them, you will win our prize, Carl's voice on your voicemail. Ready to go?

MORRILL: Ready to go.

SAGAL: Here is your first quote.

KASELL: Rick, I'll tell you what, ten thousand bucks? Ten thousand dollar bet?

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: That was somebody casually offering to bet about a quarter of the average American annual income in a debate last Saturday night. Who was it?

MORRILL: These guys are really making your job a lot easier for you, aren't they?

SAGAL: I hope they never stop.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

MORRILL: That was Mitt Romney.

SAGAL: It was Mitt Romney. Very good, yes.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: So, on Saturday in the debate, Mitt got in an argument with Rick Perry, and he offered to be ten grand that Perry was wrong. And everybody was like, "oh man, he's so rich and out of touch." So Romney made up for the gaffe by addressing the seven million people who watched that debate and offering them each ten grand to forget all about it.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: And you know, you know that it happened like this. They're on stage and the moment comes up and Mitt says to himself, "well, I could bet him a million dollars, but what would the common man bet?"

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Ten thousand, that's what one of those lattes at Starbucks costs, right?

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

KLEIN: You know, the thing is I feel like even when Romney loses a bet, he never has to pay because no one has change for a hundred thousand dollar bill.

SAGAL: That's true.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

KLEIN: That's all he carries.

SAGAL: That was not even the worst thing that happened to the Romney campaign this week. Newt Gingrich continued to pummel him in national polls, despite the fact that an investigative report in the Wall Street Journal revealed that he is, in fact, that Newt Gingrich.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE)

KLEIN: It is kind of following the format of, like, a classic horror movie where, like, I think we all thought he was gone.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: You thought he...

KLEIN: And then at the last minute it's like "oh my god, he's back." Terrifying.

(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: And then, this is my favorite story from Mitt Romney's worst week ever. Mitt goes into a New Hampshire diner and he sees these two crusty old guys with veteran's caps on. He's like, oh man, he's like, oh this is great, this is like, this is my people. And he sits down with the cameras running.

And one of the guys says, well where do you stand on gay marriage? And Mitt says to himself "softball." And he's like, oh, of course, I'm against it. And the guy says, well my husband and I here disagree.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: And this happened. And poor Mitt, he doesn't know what to do. He's like, that can't be your husband, he's a man.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: And so are you.

MORRILL: He should have just given them ten thousand dollars.

SAGAL: I know.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Dave, here is your next quote.

KASELL: I know what I don't want.

SAGAL: That was somebody quoted in Time magazine. She, and a lot of other people, are collectively Time magazine's Person of the Year. Who is it?

MORRILL: The protestor.

SAGAL: Yes, the protestor.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: It was an amazing year for protest. It all began with the Arab Spring, which until the protests in the Middle East this year, was simply the world's worst-selling brand of soap.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: And then all over the world, people stood up for what they believed in, be it the end of autocratic oppression in the Middle East or to rail against People magazine for not name Ryan Gosling the sexiest man alive.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Here in America, the Occupy protestors became a nationwide phenomenon. They spread from New York. There's an Occupy Miami, Occupy Denver, Occupy Los Angeles, Occupy Oakland. It's just like the Hard Rock Café, except the guys cooking tofu over flaming ash cans in the park, they have better food.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

POUNDSTONE: Did you get a bad meal at the Hard Rock Café?

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

POUNDSTONE: Geez, you don't just walk it off, man.

SAGAL: Oh no, I carry a grudge.

JOBRANI: You should protest.

SAGAL: I should. And then I'd be Time magazine's Man of the Year.

JOBRANI: Yeah.

SAGAL: It's all we need to do.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: All right, we have one more quote for you. Here it is.

MORRILL: Okay.

KASELL: Honestly, I've been far more distracted by skirmishes between the kids in the back seat. Are we going to ban them too?

SAGAL: That was one of the many Americans - this one was quoted on Michiganlive.com - reacting to the proposed national ban on what?

MORRILL: Cell phones in the car.

SAGAL: Exactly, cell phones while driving, very good.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: The National Transportation Safety Board, they looked over a decade's worth of accident data. They calmly tied their panties into bunches.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: And said we all have to stop using our phones when we're driving, all of us, for anything, right now. And that means you, Bluetooth headset guy, well especially you because, frankly, you look like an ass.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

POUNDSTONE: You know, do they ever calculate how many mailboxes have been driven into?

SAGAL: I don't know if they count mailboxes.

POUNDSTONE: Yeah, because it seems to me that just shows that the regular post is dangerous as well.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

POUNDSTONE: They're there and they can easily be crashed into.

SAGAL: I see your point.

POUNDSTONE: They're right at the edge of people's yards a lot of times, whereas you could easily go up on the yard and not do any harm at all. But with that mailbox there...

SAGAL: Are you guys prepared to give up using your phone while you're driving? Because you guys both live in LA, right?

POUNDSTONE: Yeah. I stopped driving while talking on the phone even before they made it a law.

SAGAL: Well it's not a law, as you may or may not know. This is just a recommendation from the...

POUNDSTONE: Oh no, but there is...

SAGAL: In California.

POUNDSTONE: In California, you can't talk...

JOBRANI: Hands-free.

SAGAL: Hands-free.

POUNDSTONE: Yeah, hands-free. And I've been driving hands-free.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: So, you stopped? You just...

POUNDSTONE: I stopped, yeah. I stopped using my hands at all in the car.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

POUNDSTONE: I was assuming that was the law.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Right.

JOBRANI: Because your car has Siri, right? The iPhone, you just go "go forward".

POUNDSTONE: Yeah, you just get in and shout at the car.

JOBRANI: Turn right.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

POUNDSTONE: No, you know what my car has that is the worst feature I've ever had in a car?

SAGAL: What?

POUNDSTONE: Is this damn thing where you don't - you put the key in.

SAGAL: You don't put the key in.

KLEIN: Oh, that's very weird.

POUNDSTONE: You have to have the keys with you and then you push a button to start the car.

SAGAL: Right. Right.

POUNDSTONE: Right.

SAGAL: Yeah, it's a radio thing.

POUNDSTONE: So you don't take the keys out.

SAGAL: No, you just step out of the car.

POUNDSTONE: Which, let me just tell you something, you look for my car and it's running.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

POUNDSTONE: It is so frustrating. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten back to the car, I'm "oh geez, I left it running again."

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

POUNDSTONE: You have no way of knowing that the car is running. You get out - it's not until I see it driving away that I realize it.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Carl, how did Dave do on our quiz?

KASELL: Well, you can't do better, Peter. Dave had three correct answers. Dave, you win our prize.

SAGAL: Well done. Thank you, Dave.

POUNDSTONE: Dave was unbelievable.

(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE)

MORRILL: Thanks so much, guys.

SAGAL: Thank you, Dave.

POUNDSTONE: Thanks, Dave.

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