CARL KASELL, HOST:
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 Adam Felber, Faith Salie and Roy Blount, Jr. And here again is your host, at the Straz Center in Tampa, Florida, Peter Sagal.
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PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Carl. Thank you everybody. Thank you so much. In just a minute, Carl says brother can you spare a rhyme. It is our Listener Limerick Challenge.
ADAM FELBER: Have we never done that one?
SAGAL: We have.
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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. Faith, one of the characteristics of the Occupy Wall Street movement, of course, is that they refuse to elect leaders. But the Occupy Denver protestors went ahead and elected who to be their leader this week?
FAITH SALIE: I'm trying to think of something or somebody who's connected with Denver. Can I have a hint please?
SAGAL: Yes. This leader thinks condition for 99 percent are ruff.
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SALIE: OK, it's a dog.
SAGAL: It's a dog.
SALIE: Oh, it's a dog.
SAGAL: The elected leader of the Occupy Denver movement is Shelby.
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SAGAL: She's a dog. She was elected to the post when she ran into the middle of a general assembly meeting at Occupy Denver and barked a moving speech about the influence of lobbyists.
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SAGAL: And also did that cute sideways head thing puppies do.
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SALIE: And then she played the bongo with her paws.
SAGAL: Yeah. She's taken over, the formal leader of this group. She's changed the protest focus from income inequality more towards sniffing crotches and rolling around in garbage.
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SAGAL: And it was great because...
FELBER: There's a Zuccotti Park joke in there.
SAGAL: I think they were trying to make a statement about the fact they wanted to remain leaderless by electing this dog as their leader. But it turned out to be sort of their downfall because when the police moved in, as they did in many cities across the country this week, to shut down the protests and clean out the parks, instead of having to use armed force like they did in New York, all they had to do in Denver was throw a stick outside the park.
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SAGAL: And their leader took off after it and everybody went with her and that was it.
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FELBER: Everybody was like, yeah, we're not just going to roll over. Oh wait, apparently we are.
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SAGAL: Adam, Congress has a 9 percent approval rating, less than that of some major diseases. So...
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FELBER: Coming in right behind Lupus.
SAGAL: Exactly.
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SAGAL: So anyway, this might be, we don't know, it might be a desperate attempt to turn that around. Congress decided to pass a law this week as part of a bill concerning school lunches. This law declares what?
FELBER: Pizza a vegetable.
SAGAL: Yes, the law says that pizza from now on is a vegetable.
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FELBER: I can really tell if the audience was like oh, or hey, pizza.
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SAGAL: As you can imagine, pizza-related legislation, Herman Cain was all over this idea, like it was a female subordinate, OK.
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SAGAL: No, the Department of Agriculture issued new guidelines for school lunches. They insisted that our children be fed less junk food and more fresh fruits and vegetables. Fine, said Congress, then pizza counts as a vegetable. This shows the influence of - and I am not kidding here - the powerful Frozen Food Lobby.
FELBER: Yes.
SAGAL: Big Bird's Eye, I guess. Imagine guys dressed like Mr. Freeze from Batman, but with expensive loafers.
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SAGAL: So in addition, you know, to that rule, Coke is now fresh cocaine juice.
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SAGAL: French fries are fruit from the French fry tree, and having a milkshake counts as exercise.
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SALIE: Now, this is part of the No Child Left Without A Big Huge Behind.
SAGAL: Right, exactly.
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SAGAL: Faith, you may know that Vladimir Putin is running for president of Russia again.
SALIE: I wonder if he'll win.
SAGAL: I don't know. It's exciting.
FELBER: Fingers crossed.
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SAGAL: He's also leading the Republican nomination. Isn't that weird?
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FELBER: Yes, it is, and nyet-nyet-nyet plan.
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SAGAL: So, in order to make the case for supporting Putin to young people, his new campaign ad, which you can see online, suggests voting for Putin is just like what?
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SALIE: Gosh. We say as American as apple pie.
SAGAL: Right.
SALIE: Is it just like downing some vodka?
SAGAL: No, it's sort of as fun and as enjoyable and as rewarding an experience as doing what?
SALIE: Hint please.
SAGAL: Well, you know, Faith, when a man and woman love democracy very much...
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SALIE: Yes, they have a special hug and produce...
SAGAL: Yes, the special hug part.
SALIE: It's as fun as having sex.
SAGAL: That's what the ad implies.
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SAGAL: You have to see this to believe it.
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SAGAL: It takes place at a voting precinct. And this gorgeous young woman comes in to vote, presumably for Putin, and she grabs this young man sort of by the neck and drags him into the voting booth with her where they kind of closed the curtains and it starts to shake. And we presume that inside there he asks her to take a poll.
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SAGAL: Or something.
FELBER: He asks her to pull a lever.
SAGAL: As it were.
FELBER: Yes.
SALIE: Or punches the right hole.
SAGAL: Exactly.
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ROY BLOUNT: I have a...
SAGAL: Hang a chad, as they say here in Florida.
FELBER: Something about stuffing a ballot box.
BLOUNT: I have always...
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SAGAL: In the ad, the two emerge from the booth, all tousled, as it were, while two elderly stiffs look on in disapproval, either because the kids obviously just voted for the cool, hip candidate or because they just had sex in the voting booth.
FELBER: Maybe I've grown old, but I sympathize with that older couple, thinking like they've got to go in there and vote afterwards.
SAGAL: Exactly.
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