Episode 3097 (07/30/2007)

---

“If you can’t stand the heat, air condition your kitchen.  This is The Colbert Report!”

---

Guild Trip: “Tonight:  Unions adopt a new picketing strategy.  I’ve got a new strategy for them:  get back to work.”

• Stephen’s broken wrist
• Bleating hearts
• Unions

The WØRD: Solidarity

Red Hot Chili Pukers: “Then, botulism in our chili.  Beans, beans the musical fruit.  The more you eat, the more you die!”

• ThreatDown
• 5. Weak American bellies
• 4. The Bankrupt
• 3. Party Poopers
• 2. Scottish Surgeons
• 1. Badgers

Evan Unmighty: “Plus, my guest Evan Osnos says the U.S. is getting pollution from China.  It’s mostly bootleg versions of our own pollution.”

• Evan Osnos, “The Price We Pay For China’s Boom” (Chicago Tribune)

Guest Plug: Evan Osnos, Beijing Bureau Chief, The Chicago Tribune

In closing: Well, that’s it for the Report.  For those of you who don’t like to sleep alone, take the TV to bed with my image paused on the screen.  Remember, I don’t spoon.  Good night!

---

NOTABLE MOMENTS

• Nation, as you’ve probably heard and seen by now, I severely injured my wrist last week.  In lieu of flowers, I asked that donations be made to florists, who would then send me flowers. And you, the heroes, responded!
• Thank you, America.  Particularly, those of you who cookie-bombed me.  Makes this feel like a war injury
• Of course, there has been a lot of speculation about how I exactly broke my wrist, and I – I just want to take a moment here to dispel a ridiculous rumor. I did not hurt it punching out Korean strongman, Kim Jong Il.  Despite this expensive and time-consuming graphic.
• The fact is, I hurt it during my pre-show warm-up (see the clip he showed last week, with the “Whoo!  It’s gonna be a great show!” voiceover.)
• Thank you for applauding my pain.
• Anyway, I just wanted a quiet weekend; that’s all, maybe watch a movie.  And I thought, hey, how about last year’s Academy Award-winner, The Departed?
• Well, just as I was getting into the movie, my mind finally distracted from the months of painful physical therapy I know have ahead of me, I see this [clip of Jack Nicholson smashing Leonardo DiCaprio's injured wrist with a boot.
• Nation, I've never been a fan of Hollywood's President-bashing, gay-marrying, flag-burning agenda, but I just never realized how much they glorified wrist violence.  I had to watch three straight hours of QVC just to calm myself down.  I now own $1600 worth of Joan Rivers' hoop earrings.
• Folks, as you know, I've never had a problem with pollution.  If God didn't want smoke in the air, he wouldn't have told us to burn witches.
• But a recent article in The Wall Street Journal really opened my itching, burning eyes.
• Evidently, "almost a third of the air over Los Angeles and San Francisco can be traced directly to Asia."  Nation, this is a brand new immigration crisis.  These 'kung fu-mes' are taking away good emphysema-related deaths from hard-working American pollutants.  And as my bumper sticker says, "Die American".  That's why I am calling for the U.S. to build a border wall made out of box fans.
• Of course, these clouds aren't acting alone.  They're getting their marching orders from the real enemy -- say it with me:  Chinese cashmere goats!  Why didn't you say it with me?
• Now I'm not surprised that goats have teamed up with the Chinese government.  You can tell they're Communist sympathizers if you just take a close lickin' . . .
• Hahahahahaha!
• Wait a second!  Wait a second!  It is possible to take a "close lickin'" of a goat.  As longtime viewers will remember, my grandfather was a goat ball-licker, from the Old Country.
• HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
• What I meant to say was, you can tell goats are Communist sympathizers if you take a close listen to their Pinko bleating.  ["MAAAAOOO!  MAAAAOOO!"]  That – that was worth the wait.
• . . . I don’t care what he says, I’m not giving up my cashmere flag.
• I will talk more about these “bleating hearts”  with my guest later in the show.
• Nation, speaking of Communist goats, labor unions are destroying America, one mandatory bathroom break at a time.  With the unions, it’s all about them:  their wages, their benefits, their fatal industrial accidents.  Never a thought for the hopes and dreams of management.
• According to The Washington Post, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America is manning its picket lines by, ” . . . hiring the homeless to get their message across.”
• Great idea.  After all, everyone stops to read what it says on a homeless guy’s sign ["Will Be Ignored For Food"].
• One union spokesman called it a ” . . . shift in the paradim of picketing.”  I, for one, can’t think when there’s been a bigger shift [Discovery Of "Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho!"]
• But, folks, believe it or not, other unions are resisting the change. . . But the carpenters had to do something.  They’re picketing as many as eight construction sites at once, and their own members can’t march because that would take all day; I mean, they would miss work!  [Building Monument To Irony].
• Using – using the homeless to picket on behalf of the fully-employed is a brilliant solution, and one deserving the greatest compliment I can bestow.  United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, you gentlemen are ‘management material’ [And Thus Ineligible For Overtime].
• Only management could get people to protest low wages with no benefits by paying them low wages with no benefits.  But as management, please remember, there are certain things you have got to keep an eye on.  For instance, those low wage, no benefit guys you’ve got out marching for you?  They’re spending a lot of time together; milling around, talking.  You know what that leads to:  [Domestic Partnerships?] A union.
• You have to crush them.  You don’t want your picketers organizing, because then you’d have to hire non-union replacement picketers, and the picketers union will send picketers to picket the picketers [Don't Picket, You'll Make It Worse].
• So, stay vigilant.  Stay vigilant, Carpenters’ Union.  Now that you’re management as well, you’ve got twice the responsibility.  You’re not just part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.  [Solidarity]
• *Helium-voiced Stephen is always a hoot!*.
• Now, my voice may seem playful, but there is nothing to feel frolicksome about:  This is the ThreatDown!
• Threat number five:  Weak American Bellies!  Last week, Castleberry’s food company announced a massive recall of more than 90 potentially contaminated products because they contained botulism.  Folks, this is just the FDA coddling our immune systems.  We are showing the rest of the world that we can’t handle a little food-borne neurotoxin.
• Personally, I don’t eat any canned meats unless they are *bulging* with flavor.
• This is also an opportunity for us to close the tainted food gap with China . . . They are girding their stomachs for war, while we’re barfing up the white flag.
• Well, I say it’s time to fight back, and we need to start young.  That’s why I’m introducing the “Stephen Colbert’s Crawl It Off” line of baby foods.  A bracing assortment of pureed vegetables mixed with industrial ingredients.  What baby wouldn’t benefit from being toughened up by a spoonful of summer squash with WD-40?
• Don’t actually do this.
• Threat number four:  The Bankrupt!  These ne’er-pay-bills are at it again.  Last week, the stock market had its worst week in five years, in part due to the collapse in the sub-prime mortgage market.  In fact, two hedge funds run by Bear Stearns lost 91% of their value.  Bear Stearns, don’t look at it as the glass half-empty.  Look at it as nine percent full.
• Moving on, folks, a Seattle dentist was in court recently for anesthetizing his assistant for a dental procedure, then, while she was out, putting fake boar tusks in her mouth and taking photographs.  HAHAHA, HAHA, she looked like a boar!  Of course, the assistant did not think this was funny and she sued him for $250,000.  You could say she didn’t laugh all the way to the bank.
• Which takes me to threat number three:  Party Poopers!  Why can’t employees take a joke any more?
• You know, I’m a bit of a prankster, myself.  Hey, Bobby, remember how I put bleach in your shampoo bottle? [crickets] Oh, that’s right.  Bobby is on medical leave.  Ummm . . . stay strong, Bobby; corneas can grow back!
• Threat number two: Scottish Surgeons!  After a suicide bomber crashed a burning jeep into Glasgow Airport last month, Scottish surgeons have given him skin grafts.  Skin grafts – from sharks!  This is leading to a nightmare future of shark-terrorist hybrids.
• One half hates us for our freedom, the other half craves our succulent man-flesh.  They’re like the Frosted Mini-Wheats of death!
• And finally, the number one threat:  Badgers!  According to Australia’s Daily Telegraph, “the Iraqi port city of Basra . . . has now been gripped by a scary rumour – giant badgers are stalking the streets by night, eating humans.”  But this isn’t new, folks.  According to the director of Basra’s veterinary hospital, “These animals appeared before the fall of the regime in 1986.”  So can we end the debate, please?  Saddam Hussein clearly had Badgers of Mass Destruction.  And we must fight them there so they don’t burrow over here.
• But you know what, just to be safe, as a pre-emptive measure, I say we carpet bomb the University of Wisconsin.  “Bucky” . . . “Bucky”, that sounds like an Arab name. [Editor's note:  As several of my siblings went to UW-Madison, I can only say . . . HAHAHAHAHA!!  "On Wisconsin, on Wisconsin . . ."]
• My guest tonight says that cashmere sweaters may be polluting the environment.  This is the worst fabric news since my silk pajamas shot that guy.  Please welcome Evan Osnos!
• Oh, okay.  Okay!  So it’s entirely *our* fault that they’re destroying *their* landscape.
• Who’s winning on this one?  Because we’re getting the cashmere, but they’re destroying their landscape.  Isn’t this a subtle form of warfare?
• Could I afford this, if they didn’t have a lot of cashmere out there?  Look at that.  Little cashmere cast cover.  [Osnos is speechless at that - HAHAHAHA!]
• Osnos:  Goats are basically born with stilletto heels.  They’ve got these pointy little hooves –
• Stephen:  Even the guys?
• Osnos:  Even the guys.  As you may know, of course.  Goats have this very specific thing, and so when there’s a lot of them and they walk around on the grasslands, it destroys the landscape, and that’s why –
• Stephen:  Why can’t they soften up the hooves?  Maybe with little, ahh, cashmere booties on the bottom? . . . ’Cause I understand cashmere’s really cheap right now.
• Osnos:  The fact is that all of this is really related to something bigger. This has to do with the effects of the things that we consume in the United States that comes from China –
• Stephen:  That’s anti-consumerism, what you’re saying.  You’re saying that I shouldn’t want anything I should be able to pay for; like, look at this, I have a cashmere toilet seat cover.  In the wintertime, up at the mountain house?  C’mon.  Oh!  Oh!  Fantastic!  You say I have to give this up; I have to give this up to save *goats*?  I’m not exactly sure what you’re saying here.
• Osnos:  If you think about it, we’re really saving ourselves.  The truth is — obviously, this gives you a lot of pleasure –
• Stephen:  Oh, it does.
• Osnos:  But the, but the bigger point is, what is the real cost of a cashmere toilet seat –
• Stephen:  This was $350.
• Osnos:  Well, then it was money well-spent.
• What’s the answer here; do we switch to mohair, or angora, or panda pelt?
• No, this [desk] was made in America.  Now you’re undermining my show!

---

Fangirl Suit Report: Black pinstripe, white shirt with French cuffs.  Tie with diagonal black, pale blue, and pale yellow stripes.  Red cashmere cast cover.

---

Commie Goats: No matter what tonight’s guest has to say, Stephen won’t give up his cashmere flag.

More Video Highlights, courtesy of Comedy Central’s Motherload

• Sonnet: Stephen recites a sonnet about his upcoming show.
• Guild Trip: Unions adopt a new picketing strategy — Stephen has a strategy for you — get back to work!
• Get Well Soon: Stephen thanks all the heroes who sent him flowers and cookies.
• Solidarity: Stay vigilant, Carpenters’ Union. You’re not only part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.
• ThreatDown — Bankrupt: This is class warfare!  Stephen calls for the reinstatement of debtor’s prisons.
• Evan Osnos: Evan Osnos tries to get Stephen to give up his cashmere toilet seat.