KORVA COLEMAN, Host:
From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!, the NPR News quiz. I'm Korva Coleman. We're playing this week with Mo Rocca, Amy Dickinson and Maz Jobrani. And here again is your host, at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, Host:
Thank you, Korva.
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SAGAL: Thank you everybody. In just a minute, Korva rubs her lamp until the genie comes out and grants her three rhymes in our Listener Limerick Challenge. If you'd like to play, give us a call at 1-888-Wait-Wait, that's 1-888-924- 8924. Right now, though, panel, some more questions for you from the week's news. Mo, for the first time ever, a real scientific journal will publish a paper suggesting evidence for ESP. In the study described, test subjects were able to predict where a picture would appear. But it only worked if the pictures were what?
MO ROCCA: Of themselves.
SAGAL: No, or I hope not.
ROCCA: Pictures of somebody they wanted to have sex with.
SAGAL: Well, I'll give it to you. They are, in fact, erotic pictures.
ROCCA: Right, sexy pictures.
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SAGAL: It only works with dirty pictures. Yeah, sexy pictures.
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SAGAL: Well, like I said, this study was conducted by a very respected psychologist. And like I said, the subjects were able to predict where the picture would appear more often than random chance would dictate, but only if the pictures were erotic. This study has drawn a lot of criticism. Some say it's unscientific. Some say its methods were wrong. Others say it does not take ESP to predict that if you turn on a computer screen, sooner or later a dirty picture will appear on it.
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SAGAL: The real question, though, about the study is if this is true, if this effect happened, isn't it kind of a let down? I mean we thought ESP would mean reading people's minds or moving objects with pure thought. It's like now, behold, as I predict where the naked picture will appear 53 percent of the time.
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MAZ JOBRANI: Are they predicting at that point or is it wishful thinking?
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SAGAL: Oh, I hope it's there, I hope it's there.
JOBRANI: Come on, be naked, be naked. Right there, be naked. I'll try again, next question, naked. Next picture, naked. Naked, got it.
AMY DICKINSON: And that just...
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DICKINSON: That just encourages you guys, yeah.
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SAGAL: Amy, the president's health care bill remains unpopular, despite many of its individual provisions being popular. And now the Republicans are going to try to repeal it. According to the Wall Street Journal though, the big problem with the bill is not anything it actually does but what?
DICKINSON: Is it something it doesn't cover?
SAGAL: No, it's nothing substantive. It's something else about it. I'll give you a hint. For example, the initials don't even spell anything cool. That's a problem.
DICKINSON: It's a bill without an acronym.
SAGAL: Yeah. It's a bill without a?
DICKINSON: A good nickname.
SAGAL: A good name. It doesn't have a good name.
DICKINSON: Yeah, right.
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SAGAL: This is exactly true.
ROCCA: The title.
DICKINSON: The title.
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DICKINSON: Okay. But wait, I mean what other bills have good names?
SAGAL: Well, no, legislators have gotten very good at giving bills attractive names. For example, who's going to vote against the Patriot Act?
DICKINSON: Oh, that's true.
SAGAL: Who wants to leave a child behind? Nobody, right?
DICKINSON: Right.
ROCCA: Or Star Wars.
SAGAL: Exactly.
DICKINSON: Star Wars. Oh, they needed a hook.
ROCCA: Yeah.
SAGAL: But according to Jess Bravin of the Wall Street Journal, the Democrats blew this with this thing. They compromised on all their ideas. They called the bill The Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act.
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JOBRANI: Oh boy.
SAGAL: Exactly. Wake up. You can wake up now, I'm done saying it. Really.
DICKINSON: Right.
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ROCCA: It needs a better title.
DICKINSON: No, you need...
ROCCA: Like Die Hard.
DICKINSON: Oh, Die Harder.
ROCCA: Die Hard with a Vengeance.
DICKINSON: Die Harder.
JOBRANI: Don't Die Harder.
ROCCA: Don't Die Hard, yeah.
JOBRANI: Don't Die Hard.
ROCCA: How about Staying Alive? Staying Alive.
JOBRANI: Staying Alive.
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DICKINSON: Perfect.
ROCCA: That would work.
DICKINSON: That's perfect.
SAGAL: The Republicans were good at this. They're calling their bill to repeal the health care act, they're calling it the Repealing the Job Killing Health Care Law Act. That replaced their first idea, the Aaargh Act.
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ROCCA: Yeah, that's it.
SAGAL: Just a growl, that's all you really need. Mo, this week's Britain's Telegraph newspaper reported on a warning of sorts from Pope Benedict. During a mass last weekend, the pontiff told Catholic parents to think carefully before giving their kids what?
ROCCA: Cell phones, televisions. You got to give me...
SAGAL: Well, it's something you give your child once.
ROCCA: A tattoo? No, no.
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ROCCA: Very unconventional parents. No, is it a circumcision?
SAGAL: No.
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ROCCA: It's something you only get once. A name?
SAGAL: Right.
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SAGAL: Thank you.
JOBRANI: Hilarious.
SAGAL: He doesn't want people to give their kids any more silly names. It's a Catholic tradition to name a child after a saint. Giuseppe, after St. Joseph, Silvio after the patron saint of underage blondes.
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SAGAL: But more and more Italians are following the lead of celebrities and are naming their kids after things like fruit or restaurants or hip New York boroughs. The former editor of the Catholic Herald warns, "to deprive our children of a protecting saint is to rob them of something significant." We think of a better solution, start naming new saints. Saint Kate Gosselin, Saint Beiber.
ROCCA: If they want...
DICKINSON: Saint Tiffany.
SAGAL: Saint Tiffany.
ROCCA: If they want the kids to have a boring name, just have Congress name them.
SAGAL: Have the Democrats in Congress name them.
DICKINSON: Right.
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JOBRANI: Yeah, they're all bills and then it just goes from there.
SAGAL: Yeah.
DICKINSON: So it'd be like...
ROCCA: TARP. Name your kid Tarp.
JOBRANI: But wait, his name is Benedict. That's not - I mean, he's named after an egg thing.
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ROCCA: He's named after a traitor.
DICKINSON: Wow.
SAGAL: Really? You think that his parents named Benedict after...
DICKINSON: After an egg?
JOBRANI: I'm sure they were having it. They're like hey, we should name our son...
DICKINSON: After this delicious...
JOBRANI: After this delicious egg, very good. It's either that or Scramble. It's either Benedict or Scramble, one of the two.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.