thanksgiving when americans awake from their tryptophan-induced coma to trade gluttony for greed. and folks, this weekend with a category five consumeicane with americans spending over $52 billion. nation, this originally of christmas shopping-- orgy of christmas shopping proves america is back. we are once again-- (cheers and applause) >> stephen: yes, oh yes. we are once again spending money we don't have on things we don't need to give to people we don't like. (cheers and applause) yes, u.s.a., u.s.a., u.s.a., u.s.a.! >> stephen: oh, yes. that's loud enough for santa to hear you at the north pole. and folks, this christmas we are playing to win. jim? >> door buster sales turned violent across the country. an armed robber confronted a man and his family demanding their black friday purchases.

>> shoppers in a near riot. you hear the screaming, trying to get their hands on some $2 waffle irons. >> stephen: now that sounds outrageous but remember, a $2 waffle iron can be used to bludgeon others. when are you going for that $50 flat screen. but folks, if that's too violent for you, there are more peaceful methods. >> in l.a. a woman sprayed fellow shoppers with pepper spray to try and get her hands on an xbox. >> stephen: good for her! i say the xbox people should turn that into a game. call of duty, black friday off. (applause) >> stephen: the point is-- (cheers and applause) the point is you have got to get your gift by any means necessary. but it is the holiday season, celebrating jesus, the prince of peace. so please use nonlethal

force only. pepper spray, tear gas, bean bag bullets and tasers, all of which i believe are available at wal-mart. but folks-- but folks, they're going fast so, remember, bring your waffle iron. (laughter) nation, i don't just pass judgement, i lean on the horn and flip it the bird. this is tip of the hat, wag of the finger. (cheers and applause) first up, folks, this year thanksgiving was ruined. and this time it wasn't because of that horrible thing your grandmother said in front of your korean girlfriend. no, this year thanksgiving was ruined because in his thanksgiving day internet address barack obama did not thank god. come on! it is thanksgiving. who does he thinks we're

thankings, other than dr. heimlich. that's why tonight i'm giving a wag of my gravy stained finger to president obama. sir, have you forgotten the first thanksgiving when the pilgrims and the indians and the jesus sat down together. and the lord did turn the maize into corn. and lo, he gavette the indian small pox for not believing in him. (laughter) and so i am call on the president to recognize thanksgiving as a religious holiday. commemorating the miracle of when jesus rose from the couch for yet another slice of pie. (applause) >> stephen: of course, of course this year the thing i am most thankful for is mitt romney who gets a tip of my hat for his new ad which nailed barack obama using

obama's own words. (cheers and applause) >> i am confident that we can steer ourselves out of this. >> we need a rescue plan for the middle class. >> we need to provide relief for homeowners. if are you going to take a new direction f we keep talking about the economy, we're going to lose, lose, lose. >> stephen: busted! if he keeps talking about the economy, obama's going to lose. of course the democrats are claiming that obama is not talk about the economy, quote from 2008 was taken out of context on the technicality that it was. here's the original. >> senator mccain's campaign actually said, and i quote, if we keep talking about the economy, we're going to lose. >> stephen: now sure, hold on, hold on, that may look like an unfair edit by romney but later, i will

edit this so that it doesn't. and folks, i am happy to say that the author of no apology, mitt romney, is not going to apology. he explained this out of context edit in one sentence. >> what's sauce for the goose is now sauce for the gander. >> stephen: yes, sauce for the goose is now sauce for the gander. and it does not matter if the gander that the goose is talking about was quoting an old duck. (laughter) the point is-- (cheers and applause) >> stephen: the point is those words came out of obama's face. now they're his words. i mean just like some of my most famous quotes, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. now mine.

love thy neighbor as thy self. i own it. i don't think you're ready for this jelly, my body too bootylicious for you babe. i own all those words. folks, i own those words now, just as surely as i own all the words in my new audio book, no apology by stephen colbert. by the way-- what was royalties for the goose are now going to be royalties for the gander. and finally, folks, you know i've never been a fan of yoga. if i wanted to spend all day on the ground wedding in a contorted position i would eat another gas station hot dog. but worse, folks, worse, yoga has always been the exercise choice for liberals. but tonight i'm happy to say there is one conservative yogic mind out there i can

get behind. that's why i am giving a big tip of my hat to yoga clothing store lulu lemon which is now offering shopping bags with the quote who is john galt, a catch-phrase from the ayn rand novel atlas shrug which celebrates the pursuit of rational self-interest, free market domination and stanch opposition to big government misguided desire to aid the hopelessly parasitic masses. you know, yoga. and-- (applause) >> stephen: tying yoga with rational egoism makes perfect sense. i mean who can forget ayn rand's best selling workout video sweating away the empathy. (applause) nation, with lulu lemon's endorsement it won't be long until ayn rand's philosophy makes its way into yoga classes across the country and we start seeing new poses like looking downward on others dogs. government deregulating

cobra, and bend over and take it from the rich. (laughter) we'll be right back. (cheers and applause)

thank you very much.

welcome back, everybody. nation, i have always believed that a news organization 14ud be a lean organization. that's why i do this show single-handedly, isn't that right michael stipe. >> hey ho! >> stephen: and now-- good man. and now the layoff bug has bitten my colleagues over at cable news network, the cable news network. recently cnn laid off 50 staff members. nobody important, just editors and photo journalists. because new technology and desktop editing and user generated content and social media have made some editing and photo journalism positions redundant. you see cnn doesn't need as many editors and photo journalists because they have ireports. footage, commentary and articles that cnn viewers self-produce and then upload. it is a brilliant idea.

why buy the cow when you can have it shakily videotape its own milk for free. now last week cnn relaunched ireport as a social network, complete with an assignment desk where you can go to find out what stories cnn wants you to cover. i certainly hope some reports on that picket fence that is so fun to paint. best of all, ireporters do not get paid. they get something even better, badges. which i assume are redeemable for food and rent. plus you get nothing else. it's like an internship, if you work for free, put in your time and your work is good enough, maybe one day you could be laid off by cnn. now ireports cut through the media fill ster to report the news that people in the real world actually care about like what jo jogal made for dinner last night,

unnarrated vacation footage, late-breaking tortoise report, investigative coverage of computers showing youtube videos, photos without any explanations, the weather and a little girl's backyard and the mindless dronings of a homeless man. >> i was at guantanamo in the early 90s when the vice president dick cheney said to me the other day, the tropic, it is a lovely place. he has a point it is a lovely place. (laughter) >> stephen: folks, clearly clearly, this is the future of news. and daddy wants in. so tonight i am proud to announce stephen colbert's me-repor-- an army of m me-reporers covering the hottest stories from the day from an uncompensated workers point of view. for more let's head over to the me-report 6700.

welcome to the me-report 6 00 where field reporter means a handi cam duct taped to your dog. as you can see, right now we have got dozens and dozens of me-reporters all over america. let's check in on some of our top stories. right here we have-- i'm sorry, that is footage of my colonoscopy, okay. let's see, right up over here we have -- >> boo! boo! >> stephen: that appears to be a goat yelling the word bob. so that's happening. let's see, something else. that is a screensaver, okay. i tell you what, let's go out to me-reporter perry ward with a rundown of the headlines everyone will be talking about tomorrow in videos they make me for free. perry. >> hey, stephen, here are the stories we are following

in the situation bus stop. our top story, number 11 bus is late again. so let's take a look at the headlines. there they are. occupiers are not cut from the same cloth, i assume that's a metaphor otherwise there has been some horrific violence. in other breaking news, holiday retail sales top records. and those records are below the fold so we will have more details on that story as someone comes by with some quarters. where is that bus? (cheers and applause) >> stephen: thank you, for that absolutely free report which for the price was excellent. and bravo cnn for getting rid of all those pesky professionals. hopefully this bold move will help you get rid of your remaining viewers. we'll be right back. (cheers and applause)

>> welcome back, everybody. my guest tonight has written the em error of maladies, a biography of cancer. and it is said that at the end cancer gets hit by a bus. please welcome siddhartha mukherjee. (cheers and applause)

doctor, thank you so much for joining me. >> my pleasure. >> stephen: as i said your book is a pulitzer prize-winning, the em error of all maladies, a biography of cancer. i know is about cancer but let's keep it light, okay. when i said over there about cancer getting hit by a bus, why that makes sense to me is that cancer feels like an alien living thing in a body. it's doing what it wants. is it like another living thing in you? >> in some ways it is, but what's really, really tricky. and this was a realization that sent a real chill up the spines of all the biologists and scientists, what is really tricky is that the very genes that cause your normal sells to grow f you corrupt those genes that is what causes cancer to grow. the very genes that cause your embryo to grow, if you corrupt those genes, if those genes stop working properly that is what make cancer cells grows, it is

not completely outside your body, it comes from the genetic material that is part of your body. >> stephen: but every cancer cell is a living cell. >> it is a living cell. >> stephen: can cancer get sick? can cancer get a disease. >> if you give the right kind of treatment, for example, the proper kind of chemotherapy you can make cancer cells very sick and you can kill the cancer cells while sparing the normal cells. that's the dream. that is the goal of all cancer chemotherapy to try to kill cancer while sparing the normal. >> we have had a sort of war on car certificate-- cancer since 1971 in the united states. what are our weapons in the war. >> well, the major weapon in the war is prevention. if we could prevent cancers from even happening when we would be really turn this war around. >> stephen: how do we do that, what do i do to to the get-- what percentage of american-- american men what percentage get cancer. >> one in two men will be diagnosed with cancer in america. one in two men. >> stephen: that means one of the two of us. >> that could mean one of the two of us.

>> stephen: i'll flip you for it. so what can i do to not get cancer. >> well, you could begin by not smoking. >> stephen: i don't. >> you domain taken a healthy lifestyle, including a diet that-- . >> stephen: bacon does that include smoked meats. >> in great moderation. >> stephen: okay. >> and you know we now know that there are certain behaviors, like exposure to certain viruses in certain populations will cause cancer. so for instance, papillomavirus is a cancer that causes cervical cancer, a sexually transmitted virus so again there's a-- . >> stephen: i thought rick perry cured that. i'm pretty sure he cured that one. >> you could get vax-- certain people can get vaccinated against that form of cancer. >> stephen: how old is our knowledge of cancer? >> well, it's surprising. you think that-- one thinks cancer is a modern disease but it isn't. >> stephen: i do. >> but it isn't.

in fact what is interesting, it is one of the very oldest medical man you cripps we have, 2,500 bc contains a case that resembles breast cancer, an egyptian manuscript so it is not only one of the old diseases, it's one of the oldest diseases that we ever knew about. >> stephen: do we know whether he with get it more, i think we think of it as a modern disease because it feels like more and more things give us cancer. that is sort of in my-- that is what it feels like to me and what it feels like is more important than whatever are you going to say, so-- do we have good records before the industrial revolution of people getting cancer. >> we had records. they're not great but we have some records. here is the major driver is aging. cancer in many cancers are age-related. for instance breast cancer, very, very deeply age-related. prostate cancer deeply age-related. >> stephen: so the fact we live longer now mean we are more likely to get cancer. >> that is right. we killed off other killers. >> stephen: wow. so medicine is our own worst

enemy. >> in a manner of speaking, yes. >> stephen: yes, i have just spoke in that manner. are we going to cure this thing? are we on the road to curing cancer. >> absolutely. again we'll prevent some. we'll be able to treat some. we'll be able to cure some and it will be a big spectrum. not every cancer will be the same. so for instance childhood leukemia was 100 percent lethal in the 19 '50s. we now cure about 80% of those children with-- test particular lar cancer was 100% cancer, we cure many of those patients, lymphoma even breast cancer, so it is a spectrum. some we prevent, some we'll treat, some we'll cure. >> stephen: thank you for everything you do to try to put an ending to this book. >> i will try to write the ending. >> stephen: thank you so much. siddhartha mukherjee, the book is the em per rohr of all maladies. we'll

>> stephen: that's it for the report, everybody. captioning sponsored by comedy central captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org now, robot, kick 'em in the knees. bears have weak knees. and you should vibrate, 'cause the robot's full of radiation. yeah, that's it. frank. how many bears did i say you could have? one. and how many do you see here? um, four? save a little money for the rest of us, frank.

you can't spend a bunch of money on bear suits that are only gonna be seen for, like, 25 seconds. liz, nobody's gonna believe that a killer robot can get his ass kicked by one bear. it doesn't make any sense. you're trying to bring logic to the robot-bear sketch? you can't have four bears. well, how many can i keep? one! sorry, guys. uh, who did my sudoku puzzle? i have been looking forward to this puzzle all morning. hey, liz, could you come up to my office when you have a free moment? i never have a free moment, jack. never, ever. really punch him. like karate. are you familiar with the japanese art of reiki? no. it is the laying-on of hands in order to improve one's life. hm, how does your life improve? do the hands have money in them? human contact is important, lemon. i can tell from your stress level that you have not been touched in any way in quite some time. not caressed. not massaged. not even groped on the subway. where are you headed with this? your mood affects

the quality of your work, which, in turn, affects me. i would like to become a resource to you for improving your personal life. do you agree that you need someone in your life, lemon? no, i have bigger things to worry about than my personal life. i would think that a single woman's biggest worry would be choking to death alone in her apartment. i have a friend in town i'd like to set you up with. no, thank you. thomas is very bright, has a wonderful sense of humor. i think it's a good match. are you free on thursday? no, thursday is poker night. and by the way, it is completely inappropriate for you to be questioning me about my private life, and then trying to set me up with someone when you don't even know anything about me. poker night? who plays? really? that's all you got out of that? i enjoy poker, and i'd be interested in seeing my new employees under that kind of pressure. you're not gonna come to our crappy poker game, are you? no, i'm not. good. i bluffed. yes, i am coming. (liz) three can't go here. three can't go here.