0 america's next top angry little man. >> wow. would seeing a shrink bring them back from the brink? yes, feeling low makes them blow. terrorists, it seems, are driven by low self-esteem. at least that's what some florida high school students are being taught. in florida. the florida virtual school, an online public school, offers a course called invisible warfare in which students learn how religious fundamentalism can lead people to become terrorists. according to the lesson plan, common traits that psychologists have found in terrorists are that they are often risk takers and many suffer from low self-esteem. sometimes joining a terrorist group provides these individuals with a sense of belonging. yeah, just like going out for football. and if only daddy loved them more they wouldn't go out and bomb people. maybe some huggery could stop their thuggery. then again, not everyone responds well to affection. see? that's a terrorist just waiting to happen. nick. the lesson i'm getting from this story is if we just feel a little more instead of judge they'd stop trying to kill us. i think you'd agree with that. >> wholeheartedly. i love the fact that two characteristics, personality characteristics, risk taking and low self-esteem, which is what i used to look for in girls. you hear what i'm saying? >> i hear you. >> but is that the only choice? you know, they say they want to belong to something. you know, the cub scouts? eagle scouts? >> but that's a great point. there aren't a lot of groups for terrorists to join. perhaps that's our fault. >> they must have the equivalent of eagle scouts and -- >> they try to get you young. they want to blow up early because when you start to get an idea about the world then you don't want to blow yourself up. right? >> that's true. first thing you learn, though, in the boy scouts, how to tie a noose. >> really? >> no. i just made that up. >> i'm pretty sure you did. will, is this just psychobabble being used to excuse awful actions? that's what a bad person might say. but what about somebody like you, with tussled hair and -- >> just kind of rugged good looks? >> no. >> the rugged good looks that come from brooklyn. well, i think for one thing this explains i guess why so many terrorists also belong to sororities. just wanted to throw that one out there. is it working? >> it landed. all right. >> so yeah, probably a percentage of terrorists would have what we would call self-esteem. but is it any more than lawyers or doctors or television writers? i mean, there are a lot of people out there who have low self-esteem, sometimes with good reason. and they find a way not to blow themselves up. >> this is a great point. in fact, they find in studies that people with low self-esteem are actually more successful in things they do. they look at young teenage girls get better grades if they have low self-esteem than teenage boys, and people with high self-esteem are often in jail >> let's move on, then, shall we? >> i give strippers a lot of credit for being bold and comfortable in their -- >> we were talking about terrorists, and you've taken it into the boomba room. >> you were the one who made the segue from terrorists to strippers. >> and you're the mother of two daughters. >> who my only goal, i've said this, is to keep them off the pole. >> all right. give them a win. last sunday animal planet scored its biggest audience ever with a documentary on the existence of mermaids. "mermaids: the new evidence" which is the title featured footage of the alleged aquatic creature take then spring in the greenland sea. let's take a look. [ meowing ] >> aw. >> that must have been the wrong tape. because that's not a mermaid. that was a wet cat. can we play the right one, please? >> oh, my god. what is that? >> oh, my god. >> i was fooled. okay. but the half female half fish was all fake, i know. as was their exclusive interview with a former scientist, who turned out to be an actor. a quick disclaimer at the end described the program as science fiction and based on scientific theory. but clearly the 4 million viewers missed it based on twitter responses. tweeted white storm, whoever that is, "go ahead and tell me mermaids aren't real after watching that special." okay. i'd be angry too, mr. olbermann. all right. nick, you watched the documentary on sunday, and you were crushed when you found out it was a hoax. are you mad at animal planet or mad at yourself? >> i don't watch that crap. but look, if daryl hanna's performance in "splash" didn't make you disbelieve in mermaids, nothing's going to. the disclaimer, this could all be fixed with a disclaimer that's on the screen for like a minute and a half before, or are people in denial? is this a release for them away from reality? they really want to believe this exists? broads in the ocean. >> what's wrong with believing in broads in the ocean? that's what you would call mermaids. if nick was inventing the language. he'd call them ocean broads. hey, there's an ocean broad. that's what you would call it. >> the first one to offend a mermaid. ocean broad. over here. >> broads -- i have plenty of feminist friends, and broad's a term of strength. they like it. i might say half broad, half mackerel. >> you want every mermaid to stay pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen. i heard you say it. >> a broad mac as you'd call them. how much will this hurt animal planet's credibility? because you know they were widely respected among the animal kingdom. >> tremendously. next thing you know they're politico. my favorite part of the story is the quote from the e.p. when they were criticized for "we wanted people to approach this story with a sense of possibility and a sense of wonder. hopefully, that's what "mermaids" allowed viewers to do, allowed them to suspend their disbelief." see, they weren't just trying to make money off a bunch of credulous idiots. they wanted us to regain our child-like sense of wonder. it should be applauded. >> you're absolutely right. they were performing a service for a sad, sad society. lori, you claim to be a business journalist. no proof of that actually. is this a good business, to lie to americans about mermaids? >> i don't blame the network at all. it's a brilliant move by them to capitalize on all of your ridiculous fantasies that women fish, daryl hanna does exist -- >> women fish is not a great fantasy. >> it's not really -- it's not an exciting thing to take something home that's scaly. although bill has done it many times. you dated a merman for six years. turned out he was part of a circus. >> yeah, he worked in tampa. he's still there. i think we can't -- the mermaids don't exist. i know i'm going to get e-mails for that. but we could make a mermaid. the science is there. it will involve a lot of horrific surgery. it would go against every ethical clause in science and medicine -- >> no. >> -- and they would only probably live for maybe 20, 30 agonizing minutes. but we could do it. but i want to bring up one more point. we were in the green room, and i thought this was really offensive and i want to call nick out on this. he said he doesn't believe mermaids should be in the workforce. >> unbelievable. >> it's 291st centthe 21st cent. >> what about the navy? >> what about the navy? >> could they be in the navy? >> they'd be saving the navy. >> you know who's in the navy. >> you know what's next? >> you know what's next? >> i want to point out, the next thing animal planet's going to do, unicorns. and they'd better not screw that up because that is real. we all know it's real. someone on the westside highway. you saw that guy too. >> that was a fat chick with a traffic cone on her head. >> ladies and gentlemen, he really is enlightened. from mermaids to motors, are we not far from a robot car? the federal government has weighed in on self-driving sedans, and they're on board. sort of. on thursday the transportation department recommended that autonomous autos should not be allowed yet, but testing will continue. google and other companies like google have made serious strides in driverless rides, and supporters said these vehicles can increase safety because they're not subject to human error. but a few concerns remain. as one law professor noted, the first too many a driverless vehicle swerves to avoid a shopping cart and then hits a stroller someone's going to write "robot car kills baby to save groceries." unless it's grocery monthly, then it will say "robot car saves groceries." meanwhile, other technological advances are past the testing phase. ♪ ♪ whopper >> see, i don't care about the driverless car. you can have it. hands-free whopper. which is by the way probably not true because that was a silly commercial. where is the hands-free -- >> we just saw it. that is true. mermaids live. >> you certainly are the demo for animal planet. well, let's talk about the car. they may in fact be safer because they remove human error. but they're robots. and we know robots cannot be trusted because they hate human beings, because we all hate our fathers. >> whoa. that got dark. >> yes, it did. >> yeah. i mean, good. so let's have our robot cars. but you know, safer -- we're a lazy society. it's obviously the next step. yeah, they'll turn against us. >> they will turn against us. they'll drive us places we don't want to go. or at least that's what we'll tell our wives. the car made me go to juggly jane's. >> juggly jane's? >> is that place still open? >> it's a juggling stripper. >> they can't all be winners. or even losers. lori, is it going to bother you that even robot cars are better drivers than you, being a woman? i saw that question off nick's notes. >> no. i don't believe that at all. >> so my big issue with this, i think it's a bad idea because advancing technology is fine to a certain degree but pretty soon we're not going to have any skills to do anything. >> good point. >> thank you. >> good point. >> so the gps -- i drive a lot. i live in the suburbs. >> what's your address? >> just check that gun map from the westchester newspaper, you'll see us on there. but anyway, you -- i don't know where i am half the time. no, because i'm so dependent on gps driving. so i think technology overkill is the risk here. >> so you're saying that because driverless cars -- well, people will no longer learn to drive. which is an interesting point except people love cars. i love cars. >> right. >> nick, i will enjoy driving even more knowing that people aren't. isn't that weird? >> i love to drive. >> so do i. >> i love to drive. >> would you like to go driving sometime? >> with you? >> yes. you and i. >> yes. >> i can pack a bag and we could just go off somewhere, maybe -- i don't know. a couple of miles. >> i changed my mind on that answer. but i actually love the physical act of driving. they're going to take -- but then thinking about it, now we can do a lot of stuff if we don't have to drive. >> that's true. >> stuff i'm doing now. texting, drinking, having sex. so it's kind of a wash. >> i would do my nails. that's what i would do. >> you would do your mail? >> i would do my mail. >> what does that mean? >> computerized -- it's like the tram -- the tram at the airport. it's going to get you from point a to point b. there's no guy driving that tram. it's computerized. >> that is true. >> so is that what the highway's going to become? >> whatever happened to -- we were expecting the monorail. this is the monorail but it's an individual monorail. it's fantastic. >> it's what you meant by i made it sound better, nick. >> come on. >> bill, as a homeless degenerate, do you think sleeping in a driverless car will be any more plush than the other cars you slept in? >> i really feel like we started off on the wrong foot with every show this week. there was an inflection at the end and i believe there was a question in there somewhere. of course. two words. one acronym. no duis. that's what i'm thinking. that's what i like. it's never going to happen. you're going to have to go through a bunch of red tape and legislation for that to actually work. but i'm very much for that. i'm a little perplexed that lori rothman is blaming the gps for the fact that she never knows where she is. >> have you ever owned a car in your entire life? >> no. but i've seen your paxil bottles. that's the problem. >> my favorite movie, we've got to move on but my favorite movie growing up was "love bug." and once you combine a driverless car with kind of a computer personality, which we will design for our cars, everyone can have a love bug. you can have a car you that drive around and it's going to be just like your pet and you're going to be talking about it, it's going to have a name. that's what's going to happen in ten years. everyone's going to have their own pet car. i predicted the 3-d pizza. didn't i? and i predicted that 37 years ago. >> i hope instead of herbie you get carrie. >> i thought you were going to say something else. funny. coming up, does being a mom and a business journalist mean you have to give up shoplifting? loriirothman discusses your new book "paying is for suckers and i'll cut you if you tell the cops: the lori rothman story." lori rothman. it's a bad message and a long title. >> i am a clepto. >> i know. should smoking be banned outside starbucks? better question, should smoking be banned outside starbucks in same question, greg. you're the same question, jerk. screw you.