PETER SAGAL, HOST:
All right, panel, time for some more questions from this week's news. Charlie, Newt Gingrich did not win Florida's primary on Tuesday, but man did he try. In a last minute plea to voters, Newt's campaign released a robocall warning Floridians that as governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney did what?
CHARLIE PIERCE: Cut off kosher meals to residents of Jewish nursing homes.
SAGAL: Exactly. It was worse. The way they put it in the robocall was took kosher meals out of the mouths of Holocaust survivors.
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FAITH SALIE: No.
PJ O'ROURKE: Whoa.
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SAGAL: Hungry, hungry Holocaust survivors. With poll numbers showing him far behind Romney, Newt went with the "if you can't beat them, invoke the Holocaust strategy."
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SAGAL: The charge referred to a minor change that the Romney administration had made to reimbursement rules for nursing homes. But the calls, they didn't work anyway. After an hour and a half on the phone, the robot was like, "Look, Ms. Liebowitz, I got to go."
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SAGAL: No, really, I got a long list of Jews I need to frighten. I just need to get off. Yes, I'll call you back, Ms. Liebowitz, I promise.
PIERCE: It took six million dollars to make eight phone calls.
SAGAL: I know.
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SAGAL: Charlie, researchers have been translating an ancient cuneiform tablet that dates back to 3500 BC. And they finally announced that this text is a series of what?
PIERCE: John McCain position papers.
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O'ROURKE: You're one elected cycle late with that.
PIERCE: I know, but...
SAGAL: He was ready to go with it.
PIERCE: Anyway, it's a grocery list.
SAGAL: No, it's not a grocery list.
PIERCE: Well what else would you make a list of? It's a Christmas list? No, it can't be...
SAGAL: No, I'll give you a hint. I didn't say it's a list.
PIERCE: What the hell am I talking about?
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SAGAL: I didn't say it's a list. It's not necessarily a list, it's just a series of...
PIERCE: All right, give me a hint.
SAGAL: Take my ancient civilization please.
PIERCE: Jokes.
SAGAL: Yes.
PIERCE: One liners.
SAGAL: It's bad jokes.
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PIERCE: You could die for that in the...
SAGAL: It includes, I'm very pleased to say, history's first yo mamma joke.
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SAGAL: The translation took decades to finish. The text is damaged. And of course, there are huge cultural differences between now and ancient Mesopotamia. But basically, the joke was like: your momma is so fat, her round shape inspired the wheel.
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SAGAL: There are some riddles that make no sense to us now, although the answer to one of them is beer.
PIERCE: The answer to all of them is beer.
SAGAL: Yeah, I know. The answer to one of them is beer. The question is what do I hope we invent really soon?
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SAGAL: Interestingly, the translation was done from reproductions of the tablet, because, and this is true, the original one disappeared years ago. They have no idea what happened to this ancient tablet, until it was found just last week in Jay Leno's office.
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SAGAL: There are more Yo Mamma jokes. There's one: your mamma is so fat she needed a thousand slaves to build her food pyramid. That's one.
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O'ROURKE: We lost that civilization just in time, didn't we?
SAGAL: I think so.
O'ROURKE: Yeah, yeah.
SAGAL: Sacrificed her to the God, I hardly knew her.
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