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Panel Questions

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

Right now, panel, some more questions for you from the week's news. Tom, it's always exciting when a new emoji comes out. Sadly, this one we're very excited about is only available in Iran. It doesn't communicate laughing or crying or shrugging. It communicates what sentiment? Iran is a clue.

TOM BODETT: You know, I was sent my first broccoli emoji by a friend this week.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Wait a minute. I know what eggplant means. I know what peach means. What does a broccoli mean?

BODETT: I don't know. And he won't say what he meant by it. It's a very - mystery. It's coming between our friendship a little bit at the moment. But anyway, I digress. Iran - emoji - so I'm going to - you know, falafel is really racist, so I'm not going to say that. It's...

(LAUGHTER)

BODETT: It's got to be...

SAGAL: It is something they like to say in Iran. They said it a lot back in 1979.

BODETT: Oh, death to America.

SAGAL: That's exactly right.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: It's a Death to America emoji. Iran, where the eggplant emoji means eggplant and nothing else...

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: ...Has this new emoji, death to America. It has a little cartoon woman holding up a sign that says Death to America in Arabic. That'll really stick it to us Americans who can definitely read Arabic. But honestly, wouldn't you use this emoji all the time if we had it here? Starbucks screwed up my order again - death to America.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: This week's "SNL" was lame - death to America.

(LAUGHTER)

BODETT: I want that on my phone now.

SAGAL: I really do.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: And she's really cute. She's like a little female jihadi. And she seems adorable because she's an emoji. Of course, she is. She's great.

BODETT: But what does broccoli mean?

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Tom, the biggest problem facing American restaurant goers isn't to eat E. coli-infested lettuce. No, no, no. According to The Wall Street Journal - that daily diary of white people's problems...

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: ...The problem with going out to eat is what?

BODETT: So is it health related? Is it Ebola?

SAGAL: No. It's a problem with going out - apparently, a lot of people who are having a lot of difficulty with this at a lot of the popular restaurants of the day, especially the chains.

BODETT: The size of the meals is...

SAGAL: Not the size of the meals but the size of something that you have to deal with before you order your meal.

BODETT: Size of the menus.

SAGAL: Exactly. The menus are too complicated.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

BODETT: That is so true.

SAGAL: Customers are dealing, according to The Wall Street Journal, with decision paralysis. So some avoid eating out because they don't want to answer so many questions - white or wheat, ham or turkey, Laurel or Yanny?

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: One California-based salad chain has no less than 55 options. It's hard to imagine that many salad options unless you're picking which pieces of lettuce to put in your salad, individual pieces of lettuce. No, no, no. That one, the really green one. Just...

BODETT: That's why Five Guys is killing it. They got, like, five things on the menu. Like, the choice is cheese, no cheese, one patty, two patties. That's it.

ROXANNE ROBERTS: One pound of grease or two pounds of grease (laughter)?

TARA CLANCY: And there's one more item on the menu at Burger King. Did you hear this one?

SAGAL: No. What's this?

CLANCY: With the Prince Harry wedding - this is their homage. They've made a chicken sandwich with two onion rings, you know, linked, to, like - for holy matrimony.

(LAUGHTER)

CLANCY: This is their high honor...

SAGAL: Really? That's their tribute to the royal wedding?

CLANCY: ...To the royal wedding...

SAGAL: They're actually having little - wow.

CLANCY: ...Burger King - chicken sandwich.

ROBERTS: But that's a lie because they've been putting onion rings on that for a long time. You know, they're just calling them, like, wedding rings.

BODETT: Well, they're getting them to stick together though.

CLANCY: The lie is that it's not an honor to have a chicken sandwich from Burger King.

(LAUGHTER)

CLANCY: That's the lie.

SAGAL: I wonder when they told Prince Charles about it, he was like, can I be that king?

(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: They gave him one of those Burger King paper crowns and a tear came to his eye.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Roxanne, Congressman Mo Brooks of Alabama is a proud member of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee. This week, he argued that instead of global warming, sea levels might be rising because of what?

ROBERTS: Oh, all those icebergs falling into the water, making it rise.

SAGAL: You're actually close - not icebergs.

ROBERTS: Rocks.

SAGAL: Just rocks.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: Rocks falling into the ocean.

ROBERTS: What? Wait. He's on the Committee for Science?

SAGAL: He's on the Committee for Science.

ROBERTS: OK. All right.

SAGAL: The Republican congressman pointed out, when you put stuff in containers of water, the water level goes up. If it's true in his bathtub, why wouldn't be true in the ocean? Tell me that, Mr. Smart Guy.

BODETT: Well, technically, he's right.

SAGAL: Yeah.

BODETT: But...

SAGAL: But the - it makes sense, like, how the volcanic eruptions in Hawaii right now could have been caused because the Earth ate some bad chili, you know?

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: The climate scientist who was testifying at that moment was not persuaded by the congressman's argument saying, quote, "I'm pretty sure that on human timescales, those are minuscule effects" while thinking, quote, "what a moron."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TWO FEET HIGH AND RISING")

JOHNNY CASH: (Singing) How high's the water, mama? Two feet high and rising. How high's the water, papa? She said it's two feet high and rising. Well, we can make it to the road in a homemade boat because that's the only thing... Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.