This podcast is supported by audible.com, the internet's leading provider of audiobooks,

with more than 100,000 downloadable titles across all types of literature.

For a free audiobook of your choice, go to audiblepodcast.com slash the dinner party.

Welcome to The Dinner Party. This is your icebreaker.

Here's a joke, and it's a joke of my invention. I invented this joke last week.

I've been thinking so much about confirmation bias lately. I've started seeing it everywhere.

You see, for psychologists, that's like the funniest joke ever.

I'm Rico Galliano.

I'm Brendan Francis Nuneum, and from APM American Public Media, this is The Dinner Party,

the culture show that gives you an edge in your weekend conversations.

You just got a joke from writer John Ronson.

That'll help break the ice at a

party full of psychologists. We will speak with John later about his new book Lost at Sea and will also be hearing from Monty Python's Eric Idle, who is here to answer your etiquette questions.

Also coming up, celebrated musician Iris Dement celebrates other musicians, and Adam Pally from the TV show Happy Endings

swings from the rafters.

But first, as at any dinner party, we start with Small Talk.

All week long, you've been hearing these headlines.

Northeaster bringing new misery to those in New York and New Jersey.

In three states, measures to approve same-sex marriage

were among the winners. President Obama has won a second term. Now, for something you might not have

heard, we are speaking with Richard Lawson. He is senior writer at Atlantic Wire. That is the

Atlantic's online news blog. Richard, what story are you going to be talking about at parties this weekend?

...