>> jon: that's our show. join us tomorrow at 11. here it is your moment of zen. >> when you get the individual tax base -- i'm losing sound here, aren't i? i tell you these batteries were made by washington, d.c. >> stephen: tonight, the u.n. makes a surprising announcement-- those translating headphones-- they're playing lynard skynard. ( laughter ). and my guest, alan alda, has challenged scientists to explain fire to an 11-year-old. that's easy-- try explaining an 11-year-old to fire. laugh facebook stock continues to plummet. people started selling once they found out their mom bought it, too. ( laughter ) this is the colbert report. captioning sponsored by comedy central

( theme song playing ) ( cheers and applause ) applause ) stephen! stephen! stephen! stephen! stephen! stephen! stephen! ( cheers and applause ) >> stephen: welcome to the report. thank you, ladies and gentlemen. good dahave you with us. nation, we've got to come up with a commonsense solution to our poorest southern border. that's why i have long called

for a 200,000-mile-long border wall made out of 10-foot-tall rotating razor blades that will slice illegals up like deli meat. and we need it now more than ever, folks, to keep out mexico's infamous drug cartel. i am not a fan. i say if you're going to push drugs, you can do not do it with violence. you do it with a man throwing a football through a tire swing to show how rigid his penis has become. ( laughter ) ( applause ) folks, there is one mexican cartel i grudgingly respect. it is mexico's ninth templar, who draw inspiration from the medieval christian warriors of the same name who muled franken sense filled. but down in mexico, these knights of the "let's do coke off the roundtable" have gone

too far. >> doritos, cheetos, ruffles under attack by mexican drug cartels. >> the pepsico subsidiary distributes snack foods in mexico. >> stephen: mistakeo-grandy, mi harm manose. just because you run around rocket-propelled a.k., and leave coolers filled with severed heads outside the city hall but you just crossed bot wrong aisle of the supermarkets, muchachos. you are small patoit'ses compared to the snack cartels who fry our potatoes. you do not ( bleep ) with pepsico. ( cheers and applause ) in fact, may i remind you, may i remind you back in 1984, michael

jackson crossed them, and they set his head on fire. ( laughter ) nice temped lar. you have made anymores of the most powerful names in chip trafficking. of los fritos. and don pringle. make no mistake-- he will pop a cap in your asspositive. and once he pops, he cannot stop. ( applause ) and the products they push are far more addictive than mere heroine. billions are riding the kool ranch dragon and even the kids are getting baked. so watch your ass, cartels. you're soon to be giant ass. nation, you know me. i don't just give you my two

cents. i throw down a $20 bill and tell you to buy a shirt that doesn't make you look fat. this is tip of the hat, wag of the finger ( cheers and applause ) first up, folks, it's almost june, and that means wedding season! ( cheers ) if you listen closely, you can almost hear bridesmaids dress designers spooling out their crinkliest taffeta. you look great, ladies. you're totally going to wear that again. ( laughter ). but at the same time, the gays are spoolg out their lugliest attacks on traditional marriage. >> sorry, ladies, time to pack

up your costumes, your crazy hats and your cocktails and take that bachelorette monkey business to another bar. that is the message coming loud and clear from the owner of the abbey's gay bar in west hollywood. the owner has now put a ban on bachelorette parties. the reason? he says it's not fair for people to come in celebrating getting married in a room full of people who can't. >> it was hurt full to me being gay, as well as my clientele, that we could not have that same type of celebration. >> stephen: you don't need that type of celebration. being gay is that type of celebration. ( laughter ) and brook baldwin, in my opinion, the most attractist of the baldwin brothers, knows, this is not about watch lorets having parties. she knows what this really is. >> if you're banning the heterosexual, you know, pastime of bachelorette parties from happening in your club in west hollywood, i mean, on a level,

it is discrimination. >> stephen: discrimination. damn straight, pun intended. ( laughter ). so, wag of my finger at discriminating gays who are victimizing america's drunken, horny, shrieking bachelorettes. and, folks, unlike being gay, bachelorette partyying is not a choice. even if you don't want to go, you have to go. i mean-- ( cheers and applause ) you do. you kind of have to go. because you know janet's been planning it for months and if you don't go she's going to turn it into a whole thing. by the way, she says you're supposed to take in $75. and, sure, gays say it's insensitive to their lack of rights, to which i say yeah. that's the point. the most sacred part of getting smaerd taunting gay people that

they can't. ( laughter ) that's why bachelorette parties should go to gay bars. everyone upons you can only appreciate what you have by seeing other people who can't have it. ( laughter ) that's why i had my wedding banquet in a soup kitchen. ( laughter ) those people across the room eating the thin gruel just made my rosemary chicken that much more delicious. ( laughter ) ( applause ) next up, folks, mitt romney won the texas republican primary last night, crossing the crucial 1,144 delegate threshold. yes, what a story! he came from never being behind to clinch the republican nomination. they said it could be done. and against no odds, he achieved the possible. ( laughter ) ( applause ) and today-- it's going to be an

exciting election. and today, mitt turned his attention to the general election by unveiling an innovative iphone app called "with mitt." it invites users to send photographs of themselves across the internet with one of 14 pro-mitt slogans, such as, "i'm with mitt." or "i stand with mitt." or "we're with mitt." it's the most popular political app since the release of angry pauls. and, folks, it's a great app, not just for mitt supporters but for all your precious photo moments like weddings. baby's first steps. and friends passing out at a frat party. but all that is not why mitt's iphone app gets my next ticht hat. >> it's a feet where you are you

can use your iphone to take a picture and overlay a better america "i'm with mitt" across the picture. here's the transparency. i think you may be able to see the problem here. it says, "imertia. >> stephen: problem? that's not a problem. that's a brilliant strategy. now romney can become the president of the america or imertia. he's just doubled the odds. plus, the next time china comes around to collect our debt, we can suft say, sore, america moved out months ago. this is immeshia. no forwarding address. ( applause ). and you know it's going to please trump and his birther pals because we can debate whether obama was born in america, but there is no proof he was born in emerickia.

i heard he was born in kanye. now, folks we pluft not let the syntax and spend liberals stand in the way of a better, brighter, emercia, so let's join mitt and all our fellow emercians, please remain seated, remove your shoe, and place your hand over your appendix. ♪ beautiful for spaka skies for amber weaves of gerns ♪ for priewple moodens

magistries ♪ emercia, emercia, mat crown thy hood with father good ♪ romney twen 02. s.a.u.! is. u.a.! we'll be right back of we'll be right back.

( cheers and applause ) >> stephen: welcome back. nation, i trust we are all united in our disdain for the united nations. every time the members of this clown show babble get together on the upper east side, nothing happens. pie the time they finish translating "welcome everyone" into 193 languages, it's time to pack it up and go clog manhattan traffic like a turkey in a toilet bowl. ( laughter ). even i have to hand it to them every once in a while when they get something right, like back in 2003, when they appointed

libya head of the human right council. ( laughter ). now muammar was a pal and i called to congratulate him and everyone in the palace was screaming with joy-- well, somebody was screaming. and muammar wasical cling. the u.n. nailed that one. well, folks, the u.n. has done it again. yesterday the united nations world tourism organization named swim bawb wayan strong man, robert mugave,aise global leader for tourism. well done, u.n. mugabe is the perfect choice to get people to travel. his brutal regime has inspired thousands of his own people to get out of zimbabwe and see the world. often in the middle of the night without even packing. now, full discloser-- we coown a racing elephant. if you're looking for a winner at this year's derby, you cannot

go wrong with that's ir-elephant. anyway, that's-- anyway, boche, if you're watching, and i hope you are, i want to give your new tourism post the kickoff it and the u.n. deserves. jimmy, let's sell some plane tickets. >> come to mugabe's zimbabwe, where thanks to 95% unemployment, everyone is on vacation. enjoy sumptuous awl you can eat buffet. get exercise running from government security forces. be sure not to bring your cameras because thanks to mugabe's foreign press ban nobody can document anything that happens here. and of course's machete's machete's machete. with so much to do, there is no

zimbabwe you can resist. >> stephen: you're welcome, bobby. we'll be right back.

( cheers and applause ). >> stephen: welcome back, everybody. thank you. my guest tonight is an acclaimed actor, best known for playing hawkeye on "mash." i'll ask him why he didn't reprize his role in "the avengers." please with with with wit welco. hey, alan, nice to see you. thanks so much for coming on. i am a huge fan and deeply disturbed by your entire career. >> oh, is that what it it? oh, my gosh. >> stephen: yes. >> i'm sorry. >> stephen: you are a famous liberal. >> i think independently, and-- and thinking it through carefully and weighing everything, i come down on the democratic side.

>> stephen: really? why don't you stop thinking and start feeling. >> well, that would be a good way to do it. >> stephen: are you against feeling? you're an actor. actor's feel. >> that's true. many times we do. ( laughter ). >> stephen: people-- people want to feel so badly they go, like, to the theater or they go to the movies and they pay money to see people like you feel something at them. >> it would be so much easier if they just hit themselves in the fing wer a hammer. why did they pay all that money? q. that's not a bad businessmod. >> and i know you're into business models. >> stephen: i'm into all kinds of models. >> really. >> stephen: now, alan-- could i call you alan. >> no, would you mind calling me your highness. >> stephen: hawkeye, you're not just an actor, a writer, and a director. you're also a science guy. >> well, i'm very interested in science. >> stephen: yeah, yeah, you've been helping a friend of the show, brian green. >> yes. >> stephen: put on the new

york science festival. >> the world science festival. it's on right now. it's on tonight, through sunday. we will have had almost one million people come to that since we began five years ago. ( applause ) >> stephen: sell me on science. >> selle on science? is there. >> stephen: science suspect is a lot of it hype? i hear science is really good. what has science ever done for, you know, the general public, other than, like, tv remotes and electric blankets. those i get. >> it's so interesting, basic science is so important. 100 years ago when they were just figuring out about what was inside the atom, that wasn't really clearly understood by many people. they said four people could understand relativity. and now, that runs our economy. >> stephen: why do we need to

know? is it better to know? i mean, there are some things we weren't meant to know, like where babies came from. >> yes, i agree with that. >> stephen: after i ownd found that out i just-- it's a dirty business. >> it cut down on a lot of sex. >> stephen: right, because we know what it leads to. >> it's very distressing. i agree with you. >> stephen: you agree with me? >> yes. >> stephen: thank you. >> don't let me interrupt. >> stephen: i hope you won't. won't ( cheers and applause ) i wish-- i wish more guests were polite the way you are. your last two years, you put a challenge out to scientists. >> yes. >> stephen: to say can you explain a flame to an 11-year-old? >> yawz because when i was 11 i was fascinated with a flame and i didn't-- i didn't know what it was. i went to a teacher and said, "what's a flame? what's going on in there?" and she said, rs it's oxidation." and that's all she said. and i had never heard that word before so that was like calling it by another name.

so i thought a couple of months ago it would be really fun to ask scientists if they could explain a flame to an 11-year-old, and then these-- it's a contest. and these entries would be judged by real 11-year-olds. >> stephen: so you've got a panel at the world science festival? >> at the world science festival we're going to announce the winner. >> stephen: you have a panel of 11-year-olds? >> 6,000 11-year-olds all over the world judge the 500 entries. >> stephen: what are some of the answers? >> you can go claimchallenge.org, and see the finalist. >> stephen: do you have any big names? >> i don't think so. there was a wide range of scientists, and some of them worked really, really hard on it. it was very touching to see that. you know what was one of the most interesting things was the kids when they were judging it, weren't judging it on the base of what's the most entertaining answer, but what would they honor from.

they wanted to get information. sometimes they said this is funny but i want more information. and i thought that was encouraging. >> stephen: i can try? >> what is it. >> stephen: a flame is a little bit of fire you break off from a bigger fire. ( laughter ). >> okay, yeah. >> stephen: and that fire. >> yes. >> stephen: comes from a match. >> yes. >> stephen: okay, and a match comes from an even bigger fire at a factory. >> yes. >> stephen: that they freeze dry like folger's coffee, and they grind it up into a powder and glue it on to a stick, and they sell it in a box of box of matches like that. >> i see. >> stephen: and then you get the fire back out by threatening it with a rough surface. ( laughter ) >> uh-huh, uh-huh. >> stephen: and them you have your flame. that and it is the devil crying. ln laugh

( applause ) >> i think it's a good business model. ( laughter ). >> stephen: thank you, alan alda. thank you so much for joining me. alan alda, the world science festival going on right now in new york

( cheers and applause ) >> stephen: that's if for the report. good night! ( cheers and applause )