(cheers and applause) swrz that's our show. join us tomorrow night at 11 oing chro. here it is your moment of zen. >> lawmakers on capitol hill are also feeling the heat. >> it's hot in washington in more ways than one.

>> as debt talks get heated and come down to the wir captioning sponsored by comedy central captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org captioning spony comedy central [theme song playing] [cheering and applause] >> stephen: thank you, ladies and gentlemen. whoo, whoo!

welcome to "the report." thank you so much. [audience chanting "stephen"] [cheering and applause] >> stephen: thank you so much. welcome. good to have you with us. folks, sorry about the glasses. sorry about these. i'm just... oh, my god, my eyes are still adjusting. i have not seen daylight since friday because this weekend marked the beginning of legal gay marriage in new york. [laughter] and to escape the force-five gay-nado engulfing the city, i retreated to my underground hetero-bunker. now, i originally bought it for y2k, but i have recently adapted it to "y-too-gay." now, it is stocked with things that straight men love -- a ten-year supply of manwich, all

eight seasons of "magnum p.i.," and a dodge pickup -- ram tough! well, it turns out if you're enclosed in a poorly ventilated space, you should not leave your truck idling or eat nothing but manwich for three days. i don't know which fumes got me first, but evidently i passed out because the next thing i know, i'm above ground in the arms of a handsome fireman, new york's bravest. so i bought the 2011 fireman's calendar. [cheering and applause] i bought it as a thank you and for no other reason. [laughter] this is going to look great on the wall of my hetero-bunker. oh, my lord. i certainly hope my studio catches fire in october. [laughter] and it was a good thing i stayed

in my bunker all weekend, folks, because just look at the deviant freak show that was the first couple to be married in new york city. >> by the authority vested in me by the laws of the state of new york, i now pronounce you married. you may seal your vows with a kiss. [cheering and applause] >> stephen: that's right, a kiss on the cheek, or as they call it, "scissoring." [laughter] look at them. 77-year-old phyllis segal and her 85-year-old hus-bride connie kopelov. come on, girls, don't make this permanent. it's clearly just a phase. look, i get it, you're at an experimental age, but trust me, this will wear off the second you graduate from aqua-jogging class. [laughter] i don't know how you two are going to break this to your parents. it's going to kill them. [laughter]

of course, today here and all around the world, all our thoughts and prayers tonight are with the people of norway, who suffered an unspeakable tragedy on friday. the killer has been caught, has confessed and no punishment is too harsh for him. the horror he has wreaked is incomprehensible and words fail the civilized. but sometimes in a crisis, true heroes emerge, like the brave men and women of america's newsrooms, who identified the culprit long before the norwegian authorities did. [laughter] >> who is responsible for this blast? well, norway has been grappling with some home-grown terror plots linked to al qaeda. >> without all the facts in, the finger of suspicion would suggest that this is probably middle eastern in its origin. >> two deadly terror attacks in norway in what appears to be the work once again of muslim extremeists. >> stephen: and the print media did its part, like

jennifer rubin of the "washington post" who wrote, "there is a specific jihadist connection here. this is a sobering reminder for those who think it's too expensive to wage war against jihadists." and the "wall street journal" noted that al qaeda's ayman al-zawahiri has repeatedly singled out norway. and you know the "wall street journal" is accurate because as a murdoch paper, they've got proven ways to get inside information. [cheering and applause] it turns out on saturday we found out the attacks were carried out by anders breivik, a native norwegian christian with a 1,500-page manifesto railing against the muslimization of europe. now, some say these false reports of muslim involvement were a widespread failure of the media, but i say by going with their gut, these journalists were able to get the story they wanted and scoop reality. [laughter] and even if there was a rush to judgment, we must not repeat that mistake by rushing to accuracy. [laughter] just because... just because the

confessed murderer is a blonde, blue-eyed, norwegian-born anti-muslim crusader does not mean he's not a swarthy, ululating, middle eastern madman. [laughter] jim. >> what do you make of the fact that he looked nordic? >> in the first few hours after any such event, there's so much information or misinformation flying about that i wouldn't want to draw too many conclusions. maybe it was a good disguise. [audience reacts] >> stephen: yes. which is more plausible, that a non-muslim did this or al qaeda has developed poly-juice potion? [applause] now, fortunately cooler heads are covering their asses. in an editorial response to their editorial, the "wall street journal" calls breivik an al qaeda copycat and reminds us that if this does prove to be the work of islamists, it will be noted that neither norway's

opposition to the war in iraq nor its considerable financial and political support for the palestinians spared it from attack. and if that hypothetical day should come, that's an imaginary lesson they will not soon pretend to forget. [laughter] and as the "washington post's" jennifer rubin wrote in her retraction, yes, the jihadist links "did not bear up, but there are many more jihadists than blonde norwegians out to kill americans." right. so if you're pulling a news report completely out of your ass, it is safer to go with muslims. that's not prejudice. that's probability because the news business is all about guesstimating, just taking shots in the dark. it's friday. you're trying to beat the traffic for the weekend. you hear about a horrible attack, and you roll the bones and go muslim. same way when you see someone turn the wrong way up a one-way

street your journalistic instincts go, "asian." after all, by jennifer rubin's logic, there are many more asians than americans out there. the point is, this monster may not be muslim, but his heinous acts are indisputably mus-lish. and we must not let his islamesque atrocities divert our attention from the terrible people he reminds us of. now, i have a confession. sometimes there are feelings that cross my mind that i do not immediately report as news. well, i'm sorry for that. i let you down, and it will not happen again. so to my fellow journalistic gun-jumpers, i will now write all the headlines for the rest of the year. "bad thing happened someplace. muslims involved." okay. done. now we can put our journalistic energies where they're needed, writing the retractions.

we'll be right back. [cheering and applause]

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[cheering and applause] >> stephen: thank you very much. welcome back, everybody. nation, i've said it many, many times: there is nothing i love more than a good commercial. i recently got the blu-ray edition of the classic gillette m3 power nitro commercial. the director's cut features two additional seconds of glowing green nitro. i thought we'd reached the pinnacle of advertising excellence, but thanks to a new series of ads by the summer's eve corporation, i now realize i was being a douche. usually when a lady ad comes on, i respect its privacy by fast forwarding through it, but this one really spoke to me in that it featured a talking vagina. warning: what you are about to

see you cannot unsee. jim. >> hello from vagina land. i'm not asking for much, just a little attention in the shower with some ph balanced summer's eve cleansing wash and just a little love for your vertical smile. hail to the v. >> stephen: this is an amazing ad. but as i look out at my audience, i see a lot of horizontal frowns. some products are hard to market and summer's eve went about it in the most tasteful way, with vaginal puppeteering. [laughter] and this ad really makes you think things like, wow, i never knew vaginas had nails. now, not a lot of people know this, but even minorities have vaginas. [laughter] it's true. because one of the things

dr. king was fighting for. so summer's eve also made an ad targeted at african americans. >> so why you blowing me off? soap, please, you know how much that dries me out and irritates my bikini line. do you really want to be itchy down here? uh-huh. didn't think so. how about some dermatologist-tested summer's eve cleansing wash. bam, we are so lady wowza. summer's eve cleansing wash and cloth. that's right, baby, hail to the v. >> stephen: wow. that vagina really had an urban feel. [laughter] it's even more convincing than tyler perry's vagina. and this next ad reaches out to the latina va-geena. >> ay, ay, ay another layover? show me a little love with summer's eve cleanse and wash. that's all i ask, well, that and

you trash that tacky leopard thong. [speaking spanish] >> stephen: great ad. [laughter] my only quibble, this is america. our vaginas speak english. [cheering and applause] yes. these ads are effective. they're really going to move some product because after you view them, you have that not-so-fresh feeling. folks, i've got to tell you, i am really what the... oh, my god, i have a vagina! i have two vaginas! quick, jimmy, blur them. there you go. wow. you know what, folks, you know what, i don't think that it's fair that women have these commercials marketed to them, telling them that their bodies aren't good enough the way they are. this completely ignores men and

our deeply troubling genitals. why aren't we encouraged to purchase products to make our groins acceptable in polite company? well, that ends tonight. gentlemen, point your crotches at the tv because they're about to get empowered. jim. >> howdy. it's me, your below-the-belt buddy, your pants pal, the bouncer at ball mountain. listen, guys, we need to pay more attention to me. 97% of the time just isn't enough. [laughter] i mean, let's be honest, you're always beating up on me. why can't we be friends? you wash your hands after you touch me, why can't you wash me? introducing new autumnal afternoon pine fresh [bleeped] scrub. it's pinewood for your palmwood, or for guys on the go, try

autumnal afternoon cucumber balls with rejuvenating alpha hydroxy, it will take years off your scrotum. that's all i'm asking. i'm not saying to buy me a cashmere jock strap or to stop whipping me out on the subway. i'm just saying, let's look nice, you know, in case we have company coming over. >> hi there. >> whoa. what body part are you supposed to be? >> a foot. >> oh, oh. autumnal afternoon pine fresh [bleeped] scrub -- hail to the d. also available in sour cream and onion, mesquite and creamy chili. >> stephen: we'll be right back.

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book it. major wow factor! where you book matters. expedia. everybody. my guest tonight is a particle physicist here to talk about his new tv series "wonders of the universe." i already know three wonders -- stevie, bread and woman. please welcome brian cox. [cheering and applause] hey, nice to see you again, brian. all right. you are a smarty pants. >> thank you. >> stephen: tell the people out there just how smart your pants are. you're a particle physicist, royal society university research fellow at the university of manchester where you hold a chair in particle physics. you're about to present the second installment of your peabody award-winning series "wonders of the universe" july 27th, 9:00 p.m. on the science channel.

and it has a companion book called "wonders of the universe." >> yes. i'll settle for that introduction. thank you. >> stephen: what kind of wonders of the universe are you talking about? is this like the sequence describing the shape of a sunflower and the shape of a galaxy or like ufos painted the mona lisa? what kind? >> neither of those. >> stephen: this is basic cable we're talking about. >> it's a history of the universe really, so a history of what we know of the universe. >> stephen: a short book. just one volume? it must be in sonnet form. >> it's only been around for 13.73 plus or minus 0.12 billion years. >> stephen: who's counting. >> that tiny bit. but also the future of the universe as we think it will unfold. >> stephen: how can you write the future?

>> well, we know roughly how the universe has evolved to this point. you can send that off into the future and you can predict how it's going to go, but the number in the series, which is the oldest thing we can imagine, which is a point in the universe when all the black holes, the collapsed stars evaporate away to nothingness, and the number is ten to the power of 100 years. that's one with 100 noughts. just to illustrated how big that number is, if i took an atom, one, two, three, and started counting, then i'd run out of atoms on the earth very quickly. there are 100 billion stars in the milky way galaxy, 300 billion galaxy in the universe. there are not enough atoms in the entire observable universe to count up to that number, which is the age of the oldest thing we can imagine in science. so it's quite a big story, as you say, in a small book. you're right there. >> stephen: brian cox, will you lie on a hillside with me at night? [laughter]

stare up at the sky? [cheering and applause] i got a chill, and i don't know what you're talking about. that was really beautiful. >> i saw you begin earlier with the fireman calendar. it seems to have gotten to you. >> stephen: they can come too. now, the last time you were here, we were talking about you also were concerned in geneva. it's a big particle accelerator there. and we were talking about something called the hagues bozon particle. >> yes. >> stephen: explain to the good people what the hagues bozon. is >> it's a theoretical thing that we think is responsible for mass in the universe. >> stephen: subatomic? >> subatomic parliament. so why does this table have mass? it's a theory. >> stephen: because it's wood. it's made of wood. go ahead. next question, physics man. >> we need not bother building this thing. so it's a particle that we thing is responsible for that,

generating mass in the universe. >> stephen: it gives mass to things. >> to everything. and last time i was on we were talking about it, and there were theories about people coming back from the future. it was all nonsense. i think bollox was the word i used. as of last week, we might see hints of it for the first time. >> stephen: hints of? >> of this thing, this theoretical particle that may exist. >> stephen: what does it mean to find this? >> it's a fundamental part of our theory of everything in the universe other than gravity. so every phenomenon, electricity, magnetism, the way nuclities stick together. the heart of the theory is this thing we've been looking for for decades. >> stephen: are there other things we looking for that we can't find at that level? >> no, this is it.

>> stephen: so you did the 500-piece jigsaw puzzle of the coral reef. you can't find that last piece. >> and there are hints also in chicago. there are also hints in roughly the same kind of place. so it may be a very exciting time of... >> stephen: are you confident? you're a physicist. are you confident that what you know you know? because let's just say that people could travel in time and that i'm from 500 years in the future. okay. and i'm just stephen from 500 years in the future and i'm coming back the take his place. if i said to you, "your physics are so wrong, they're so primitive, they're like the way you look at the idea that the sky is a series of, you know, concentric spheres, you know, upon which the stars are pinned, like that's how primitive your physics are," could you conceive of that being true? >> yeah. physics, throughout history, science is a series... it's a snapshot of our best understanding of nature as it is now. the key to it, the difference between it and every other belief system is there is no

sense in which it's right. there are no axioms there which are unshakable. >> so we spend billions to find this, it could snap in there, everything would works, we'd call it the theory of everything. >> it would be on the way to that. >> stephen: and then something else could happen and you go, you know what, chuck it all. >> yes. >> stephen: turn over the chessboard. >> and that's the power. i can see where this is going, but that's the power. >> stephen:, no only you can see where it's going because you can predict the future. where is it going? >> well, i mean... >> stephen: you're about to admit something, aren't you? you people are just making this [bleeped] up as you go along. >> let's move along. it's wonderful. the universe is... >> stephen: the universe is a wonder, and his book "wonders of the universe" is out now. brian cox's program, the wonders of the universe, begins wednesday on science. check it out. it's as wonderful as the universe. we'll be right back. thank you so much. [cheering and applause][cheerin]

>> stcaptioning sponsored by comedy central captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org.