BILL KURTIS: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT ...DON'T TELL ME, the NPR news quiz. I'm Bill Kurtis, and we are playing this week with Neko Case, Roy Blount, Jr. and Luke Burbank.
And here again is your host at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Bill. In just a minute, Bill celebrates the Jewish festival of limericks known as Rhyme-ukkah (ph).
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: It's the 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, some more questions for you from the week's news. Neko, last week, a young couple walking with their baby in a stroller in a park outside of London were shocked and a little scared when an old woman just sped up right behind them in a car right on the walking path, swerved onto the grass to go around them and sped off. Who was that crazy old lady?
NEKO CASE: I hope it was Maggie Smith. But...
(LAUGHTER)
CASE: ...I'm thinking that it was perhaps the queen of England.
SAGAL: It was the queen of England, Neko.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
LUKE BURBANK: Oh, wow.
CASE: Whoa.
SAGAL: Even better than Maggie Smith in this case.
(APPLAUSE)
CASE: She's my queen of England.
SAGAL: Maggie Smith is, for many of us, the better queen. But no, this was the actual one.
The couple were walking in Windsor Great Park, near the queen's home, and they turned in shock to look at the driver and presumably say seriously, lady, who do you think you are, the queen of England? Oh, well, then yes, OK, go right ahead.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: It was the queen, Queen Elizabeth, driving herself to church of a Sunday through a public park, as only she can. I mean, literally, only she can drive through this park. She smiled, stepped on the gas and gave the couple the finger, which, of course, in her case, is the pinky.
(LAUGHTER)
BURBANK: She wasn't driving the car, right?
SAGAL: She was.
BURBANK: What?
SAGAL: She was actually driving the car. She loves to drive. I mean - all right, first of all, we normally think of the queen traveling through Britain the traditional way, in a dog sled pulled by 12 corgis.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: And - but, you know, so the couple were surprised to see the queen driving a car, even more surprised when she went by and they saw that her car had truck nuts.
(LAUGHTER)
CASE: She's just - she's just like an expensive pets.
SAGAL: She is?
CASE: Yeah.
SAGAL: The queen is an expensive pet?
CASE: She's a very expensive pet, I think.
SAGAL: Oh, god, it's time to walk the queen again. What do you mean?
CASE: Well, I always just think about those programs about how people would come and check the king or queen's poo. And I wonder if she still has a poo checker.
SAGAL: Well, they do have those titles that are, you know, handed down from antiquity, like royal footman or master of the bath.
CASE: Yes, the stool checker.
SAGAL: The stool checker.
CASE: You're healthy. You may drive to church.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Don't ask me how I know.
(LAUGHTER)
BURBANK: That does make her exactly like my pet, though, Neko, in that most of what my wife and I talk about is what was in the dog's number two.
(LAUGHTER)
CASE: Yeah.
BURBANK: Most of that tennis ball is out now.
(LAUGHTER)
CASE: Yep.
SAGAL: That'd be terrible if the royal footman had to say that.
(LAUGHTER)
CASE: Yeah.
SAGAL: Luke, a new study published in the Guardian suggests that what might be the key to finally defeating ISIS?
BURBANK: Is it ban them from the Internet?
SAGAL: No.
BURBANK: Or is out-tweet them?
SAGAL: Well, the honor is, Luke, is that we need fewer bomb makers and more honors theses on the technique of comedic caesura in the novel "Tristram Shandy."
(LAUGHTER)
BURBANK: We need them to have a lot of student loan debt?
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Come on, man. We're going to go on jihad. I can't man. I have to go to Starbucks. I have loans to pay off.
That could work, too.
BURBANK: Try to get them into college? Try to get them...
SAGAL: Into college and do what?
BURBANK: Study the classic, study English, study literature?
SAGAL: The key to defeating ISIS is liberal arts majors.
(LAUGHTER)
BURBANK: Ah.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Let me explain. According to the Guardian, ISIS thrives by recruiting scientists and engineers. They're not only useful to them because of their skills, but they also have a technical mindset that's susceptible to indoctrination. They see things in black and white, right. So one way to defeat ISIS is to stop training scientists and engineers and instead pump out liberal arts majors...
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: ...Because not only are the liberal arts majors completely useless...
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: ...They can't make up their minds about anything.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Wait a minute. Should I join the global jihad? I don't know. Let me journal about it for six months.
(LAUGHTER)
BURBANK: There's only so much explosive you can fit under a beret.
SAGAL: I know. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.