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's your host, at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, Host:
Thank you, Carl.
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SAGAL: Thank you everybody. It's great to be back with you. We've got a great show for you today, mainly because each and every one of us is incredibly excited to have Hall of Fame baseball player Cal Ripken, Jr., join us later to play Not My Job. Given his extraordinary grit and determination, and his refusal to quit, ever, we expect today's show will last at least until March.
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SAGAL: So make yourself comfortable, give us a call, 1-888-Wait-Wait, that's 1- 888-924-8924. It's time to welcome our first listener contestant. Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!
JULIE KREMER GREB: Hi, Peter. This is Julie Kremer Greb from Portland, Oregon.
SAGAL: Hey, how are things in Portland?
KREMER GREB: Remarkably dry.
SAGAL: Really? Which is rare for Portland.
KREMER GREB: Indeed.
SAGAL: Now, Portland has acquired a number of stereotypes over the last few years. Are you tattooed, pierced and unemployed?
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KREMER GREB: Yes, yes, no.
SAGAL: Oh.
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SAGAL: Well good for you. Well, welcome to the show, Julie. Let me introduce you to our panel this week. First, say hello to a contributor to CBS "Sunday Morning," Ms. Faith Salie is right here.
KREMER GREB: Hi, Faith.
FAITH SALIE: Hi, Julie.
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KREMER GREB: Hi, Faith.
SALIE: Julie, what does your tattoo say?
KREMER GREB: It says nothing, it's just a turtle.
SALIE: Oh, okay.
KREMER GREB: Sort of a: I'm 18, I can do whatever I want to, mom, tattoo.
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SALIE: So screw you, mom, here's this turtle.
KREMER GREB: Uh-huh.
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SAGAL: Next, it's a deputy editor and blogger for the Houston Chronicle, Ms. Kyrie O'Connor.
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KYRIE O: Hi, Julie.
KREMER GREB: Hi, Kyrie.
CONNOR: I'm sure it's a very nice turtle.
SAGAL: And making his debut on our show, it's a comedian and host of "The Morning Amp" on Vocalo.org, Mr. Brian Babylon.
BRIAN BABYLON: Hello, hello, hello. Hey, how are you?
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KREMER GREB: Hey, Brian.
SAGAL: Julie, welcome to the show. You are going to play Who's Carl This Time. Carl Kasell is going to read you three quotes from the week's news. Of course, your job, correctly identify or explain two of them. Do that; you'll win our prize: Carl's voice on your own home answering machine. You ready to play?
KREMER GREB: Oh yes.
SAGAL: All right, here is your first quote.
KASELL: Maybe we do need to do something that indicates that we are not afraid to sit next to each other, that there are no cooties.
SAGAL: That was Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. She was talking about the decision that everyone made to sit together at what event?
KREMER GREB: The State of the Union address.
SAGAL: Exactly right. Yes, the State of the Union, very good.
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SAGAL: The most interesting thing about the speech was, in fact, the seating arrangement with Democrats sitting with Republicans to show civility. But it was a one-time deal. Did you see this? As soon as the speech was over, they fled back to their respective sides, heads down, a kind of Congress-wide walk of shame.
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BABYLON: We've all been there.
SAGAL: Oh yeah.
BABYLON: We've all been there.
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SALIE: I was riveted by I think the prom king and queen were Kirsten Gillibrand and John Thune.
SAGAL: Kirsten Gillibrand. Oh yeah.
SALIE: They're so hot. They were the hottest couple
CONNOR: They are cute.
SAGAL: And of course...
SALIE: I totally want...
SAGAL: They sat next to each other.
SALIE: Yeah.
SAGAL: It was just in Congress like in high school, they seek each other out.
SALIE: Yeah.
BABYLON: You know what I want to say? I want to say what I got out of the speech was the - when I've been using this line at the bars is a "Sputnik" moment.
SAGAL: A "Sputnik" moment?
BABYLON: That was my line. You know, we are in a "Sputnik" moment.
SAGAL: When you say in the bars, what do you mean, Brian?
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BABYLON: Oh, no, that's my new come-on line to the ladies.
SAGAL: Really?
BABYLON: Yeah, yeah.
CONNOR: This is our "Sputnik" moment?
BABYLON: Yeah, well I say - well I talk like the President. Like, you and I could have a "Sputnik" moment.
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BABYLON: And hey, if you do it like that.
SAGAL: Yeah.
BABYLON: If you say it like that.
SALIE: She might just fire off your rocket, Brian.
SAGAL: Exactly.
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BABYLON: We're there.
SAGAL: We're there.
BABYLON: We're there.
SAGAL: You know, national security really depends on this, you say.
BABYLON: Yeah.
SAGAL: We could win the future at least, you know...
BABYLON: Tonight.
SAGAL: Exactly.
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BABYLON: I mean...
SAGAL: We'll settle for tonight.
BABYLON: There will be a walk of shame, but we will have a "Sputnik" moment.
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SAGAL: There was one moment that did get a lot of attention, when the President made John Boehner cry. Did you see this?
CONNOR: Yes.
SAGAL: He was talking, he was addressing, you know, the fact that John Boehner had grown up, started sweeping the floors of his father's bar. And you just know Obama did this on purpose.
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SAGAL: In fact, you could see him like turn to his staff and go, "watch this."
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SALIE: Joe Biden was so much fun to watch. It was like he had an earpiece in and someone was telling him jokes.
SAGAL: Yeah.
SALIE: He was laughing and having the best time and he was, like, winking at his friends in the audience.
CONNOR: I think Joe Biden has the best time wherever he is.
SAGAL: Wherever he is.
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SALIE: He does, he does.
SAGAL: We were talking about this. It was like he and Boehner were like the comedy and tragedy match behind him.
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SAGAL: He, he, he, haw, he, he, he, haw. All right, Julie, here is your next quote.
KREMER GREB: Okay.
KASELL: I want to thank the Tea Party Express for inviting me to speak this evening. I'm here at their request and not to compete with the official Republican remarks.
SAGAL: That was somebody who was not competing, no, no, no, no, no, with the official Republican remarks in her un-requested rebuttal. Who was it?
KREMER GREB: Michele Bachmann.
SAGAL: Yes, indeed.
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BABYLON: Good job, good job. But you know what, Peter?
SAGAL: What?
BABYLON: You know, the whole thing was that she couldn't, you know, keep her eyes on the camera.
SAGAL: Yeah.
BABYLON: She looked sort of like a broke Stepford Wife a little bit.
SAGAL: Really?
BABYLON: That had her optics - she needed to be rebooted. Do a little reboot.
SAGAL: The official Republican rebuttal to the State of the Union address was given by Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, who spoke of the need to - oh my god, what is wrong with Michele Bachmann's eyes?
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SAGAL: Because Bachmann followed the official GOP response with her own Tea Party response in which she talked about how Obama was bankrupting the country. But nobody listened, because, as Brian said, the entire time she was staring somewhere to the right of the camera. What was she looking at? Was she looking at cue cards? Was she looking at the angel that only she can see that tells her what to say?
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SAGAL: Interestingly, and this was online, almost every TV network refused to carry the speech. Finally answering the question: how crazy do you have to be these days to not get national TV coverage?
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SAGAL: So henceforth, the difference between colorfully opinionated and oh my God, we must protect our viewers from this madness, will be known as "The Bachmann Line."
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SALIE: This is what I don't understand. What's the difference between Tea Party and Tea Party Express? It sounds really low rent. Like when you're at the airport and you go to...
SAGAL: Oh I see. Yeah.
BABYLON: An outlet mall.
SALIE: Right. It's like the food court of parties.
SAGAL: Tea Party Express is actually a sort of political organization run by a Republican consultant to try to organize and raise money to do various things.
CONNOR: But I don't get it, because Holiday Inn Express is supposed to make you smarter.
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SAGAL: Thus the commercials. Here is your last quote, Julie.
KASELL: It isn't meat? Oh, the horror.
SAGAL: That was a writer in the San Francisco Chronicle talking about the big news this week that what fast food chain was serving beef that was really only 36 percent beef?
KREMER GREB: I have no idea.
SAGAL: I'll give you a hint.
KREMER GREB: Okay.
SAGAL: Put down the chalupa and back away from it.
KREMER GREB: Toxic Hell, Taco Bell.
SAGAL: Yes, indeed.
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BABYLON: Did she say Toxic Bell?
KREMER GREB: Yes, I did.
BABYLON: That's hilarious. I want to eat that.
SAGAL: Good news. Taco Bell is safe for you if you are a 64 percent vegetarian.
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SAGAL: A class action lawsuit filed this week claims that what Taco Bell calls seasoned beef is really a Mexican slurry of just 36 percent meat, with seasoning, soy oats, potassium phosphate, cornstarch and an anti-kicking agent.
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SAGAL: Which, let's be honest, is not nearly as bad as what we were all thinking was in there.
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SAGAL: The lawsuit, and this is true, does not ask for any money, just for the company that owns Taco Bell, called Yum Brands, to change its name to Yuck.
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SAGAL: Yum did not take this lying down. They responded forcefully. They argued it's all lies. They say that their seasoned beef is really 85 percent meat. This is their claim, their defense. The rest, they say, is spices and seasonings, "just like you would use with any recipe you cook at home." So here's their recipe for tacos at home. Two pounds ground beef and a quarter pound of whatever is in your kid's chemistry kit.
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BABYLON: You know what I don't like about that? In the commercials they sort of seem like they're grilling the beef in skillets.
SALIE: Sizzling.
BABYLON: And it comes out of a meat hose.
SAGAL: It does.
BABYLON: And no one wants to talk about it.
SAGAL: It's delivered in vast pressurized meat vats.
BABYLON: Yeah.
CONNOR: I want a meat hose.
SALIE: I've never had the...
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SALIE: I'm never going to be the person I was before hearing the phrase "meat hose."
BABYLON: Meat hose.
SALIE: I can't go back.
CONNOR: You can't get your innocence back.
BABYLON: But after a long night of boozing, Peter, you know.
SALIE: After your "Sputnik" or before?
BABYLON: Well...
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BABYLON: No, you don't do it before a "Sputnik" moment.
SAGAL: That's what we call splashdown.
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BABYLON: Yeah.
SAGAL: Carl, how did Julie do on our quiz?
KASELL: Very, very well, Peter. Julie, you had three correct answers, so I'll be doing the message on your voicemail. Congratulations.
SAGAL: Well done.
KREMER GREB: Thanks.
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CONNOR: Great, Julie.
SAGAL: Thank you, Julie.
SALIE: Bye, Julie.
KREMER GREB: Thanks guys. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.