NPR News

Pages

Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!
11:00 am
Sat January 21, 2012

Limericks

Transcript

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

Coming up, it's Lightning Fill In The Blank, but first, it's the game where you have to listen for the rhyme. If you'd like to play on air, call or leave a message at 1-888-Wait-Wait, that's 1-888-924-8924.

You can click the contact us link on our website at waitwait.npr.org, and there you can find out about attending our weekly live shows at the Chase Bank Auditorium. You can also download the latest "How to do everything" podcast. This week: Mike and Ian tell you how to look like Crispin Glover.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

Read more
Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!
11:00 am
Sat January 21, 2012

Lightning Fill In The Blank

Transcript

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

Now, onto our final game, Lightning Fill In The Blank. Each of our players has sixty seconds in which to answer as many fill in the blank questions as they can. Each correct answer now worth two points. Carl, please give us the scores.

CARL KASELL, HOST:

Tom Bodett has the lead, Peter. He has four points. Faith Salie and Mo Rocca, they're tied or second. They both have two points.

Read more
Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!
11:00 am
Sat January 21, 2012

Prediction

Transcript

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

Now, panel, what will the cruise captain do next? Mo Rocca?

MO ROCCA: He'll find comfort and luxury in an open marriage with Silvio Berlusconi.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Faith Salie?

FAITH SALIE: With his perma-tan and Italian roots, he'll join another sinking ship, the cast of the "Jersey Shore."

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

SALIE: They already have "The Situation," and now they'll have "The Disembarkation."

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Tom Bodett?

Read more
NPR Story
8:57 am
Sat January 21, 2012

Wait Just A Second, And Other Things To Do With It

Credit Uwe Merkel / iStockphoto.com
Every few years, official clocks around the world repeat a second. It's not much, but in an age of atomic clocks, it's time enough to give the matter a second thought.

Originally published on Sat January 21, 2012 8:57 am

Let me take a second here.

Not very long, was it?

But a second tied up delegates to the UN's International Telecommunication Union, who postponed a decision this week on whether to abolish the extra second that's added to clocks every few years to compensate for the earth's natural doddering.

The earth slows down slightly as we spin through space. No one falls off, but earthquakes and tides routinely slow the earth by a fraction of a fraction of a second, which makes clocks minutely wrong. If not corrected, it could make a minute of difference a century.

Read more
It's All Politics
8:32 am
Sat January 21, 2012

South Carolina: Another Unpredictable Point In Campaign Full Of Them

The race for the 2012 Republican presidential campaign has been anything but predictable.

It's been the first contest in memory, for instance, with a candidate, Mitt Romney, who was reputedly the inevitable nominee but so suspect in many Republicans' eyes that they kept searching for an alternative. That has led to nearly every candidate in the crowded field, at one time or another, challenging for frontrunner status.

Read more

Pages