CARL KASELL: 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 Brian Babylon, Roxanne Roberts, and Charlie Pierce. And, here again is your host, at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Carl.
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SAGAL: In just a minute, Carl takes a swig of his rhyme and coke 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, panel, though, some more questions for you from the week's news.
Roxanne, on the official White House website, you can look up bios of all the past US Presidents. But last week, somebody cruising the site noticed something odd about many of those bios. What?
ROXANNE ROBERTS: Isn't President Obama somehow been inserted into almost all of the bios?
SAGAL: Yes, yes, indeed.
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SAGAL: President Obama shows up next to all of these bios. The official White House dot Gov biographies of almost every president since Calvin Coolidge now have references to President Obama in them.
You look up President Reagan, for example, and it says: Mr. Reagan called for a fairer tax code. Today, President Obama is calling for the same with the Buffett Rule, unquote. Or: Mr. Carter had been a peanut farmer before taking the Oval Office. Today, President Obama is nothing at all like President Carter. Seriously. Stop it, guys.
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BRIAN BABYLON: This is for real?
SAGAL: This is for real.
ROBERTS: Yeah.
SAGAL: It references Obama in every one except Gerald Ford for some reason. Some of them maybe go a little bit too far. For example, John F Kennedy was president from 1961 to 1963. Did you know President Obama once put on a tight white dress and sang Happy Birthday to him?
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ROBERTS: How did they work the President into, say, President Washington?
SAGAL: You mean like the first president, Washington?
ROBERTS: Yes, yes.
SAGAL: As a young man, George Washington was approached by Barack Obama, who told him to tell his father about the cherry tree.
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BABYLON: And then he hopped back into a Delorean and he drove off.
SAGAL: Exactly.
BABYLON: Wow, that is banana town.
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SAGAL: It is, it's crazy. Did you know President Taft once ate President Obama?
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SAGAL: Brian, optometrists have identified a new threat to our eyesight. It typically strikes young people and can leave them with a lazy eye. What is it?
BABYLON: Does it have to do with games they play?
SAGAL: No.
BABYLON: OK. All right, give me the hint then.
SAGAL: Well, it also causes you to sing Baby Baby Baby.
ROBERTS: Who's song is "Baby Baby Baby?
BABYLON: Justin Bieber.
SAGAL: Justin Bieber.
ROBERTS: OK, now picture him.
BABYLON: Beautiful young man.
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SAGAL: Come backwards, Brian. Don't get lost.
BABYLON: I know. I know.
SAGAL: Don't get lost in a Bieber reverie, man.
CHARLIE PIERCE: Come back to the pack, my friend.
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BABYLON: All right, I'm here. I'm here. I'm here.
ROBERTS: Now...
BABYLON: Oh, bangs.
SAGAL: Yeah, basically Justin Bieber hair is the answer.
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SAGAL: See, this is how it works. You know how Justin Bieber has got that sort of side bang on his hair, right?
BABYLON: Yeah.
PIERCE: It's a little humid up here, Peter, wait a minute.
SAGAL: Well, kids are getting that. And the problem is that it makes you look adorable, we all know that.
BABYLON: Yeah.
SAGAL: But according to at least some optometrists, those side bangs might be giving kids a lazy eye.
BABYLON: Because they're like, oh man, I don't even care.
SAGAL: No, yeah, well...
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SAGAL: Yeah.
BABYLON: OK, got it.
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SAGAL: The point is like with your hair covering up one eye, you only use the other eye, one eye to glare moodily at your parents, right?
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SAGAL: So, over time, the obscured eye just goes dormant and doesn't recover.
BABYLON: Hey, how about this, Pete? Everyone buy stock in monocles. Monocles are going to make a comeback.
SAGAL: That's true; they're going to come back.
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BABYLON: Yeah.
SAGAL: That could happen. What it really means, though, if this is true, if this optometrist who came up with this is right, that like fifty years from now, every senior citizen will be squinting at each other's backside saying "I can't make out your tramp stamp because of my Bieber eye."
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BABYLON: Wow, Bieber eye.
SAGAL: Bieber eye. Bieber eye. Brian, it's finals time, and to help students cope with the high stress, more and more colleges and grad schools allow students to check out what from the library?
BABYLON: OK. All right, give me a half of a hint.
SAGAL: The problem is they may cause you more stress if they eat your homework.
BABYLON: Oh, puppies.
SAGAL: Yes, puppies.
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ROBERTS: That's so cute.
SAGAL: Yes.
BABYLON: Let me just say something, man.
SAGAL: Please, Brian.
ROBERTS: And don't be cynical, because it's like so cute.
BABYLON: I know. No, no, no. No, no, honestly, one thing, I always look forward to Super Bowl Sunday for the puppy bowl.
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BABYLON: I know. And these guys better not tweet that. I have a street cred problem, I'm trying to...
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SAGAL: Dude, you have a crush on Justin Bieber, you have no street cred.
BABYLON: I know.
PIERCE: Yes.
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BABYLON: Because he looks like a puppy, man, with them bangs, man.
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SAGAL: Both Harvard Medical School and Yale Law School have dogs available for checkout from their library. This is true. Experts cite studies that show interacting with pets decreases stress. And also a number of studies indicate that puppies are adorable.
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SAGAL: The idea of this is great, but the students are doing what students do. They're taking the puppies out of the library. They're going home. They're forgetting about them. And then like the night before they have to give the puppies they're like, "oh my god, I got to stay up all night and play with the puppy."
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SAGAL: Pull a puppy all-nighter.
ROBERTS: These are temporary checkouts. They come in like a bushel of adorableness. And then it's kisses, kisses, kisses, kisses, and then you have to go back and take your test.
BABYLON: It's like my parent's divorce all over again.
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