EPISODE NUMBER: 9150 (Sept 17, 2013)
GUEST: Arne Duncan
SEGMENTS: Intro - 9/17/13 | The People’s Republic of Obamastan & Forbes 400 Losers | Colbert Platinum - Luxury Ice & Hot Dic-Tip | Soul-Rending Cheerios Ad | Sign Off - Goodnight
SUIT REPORT: Dark Suit | White Shirt | Light Blue Tie
VIDEOS: Tuesday, September 17, 2013

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Intro - 9/17/13

Tonight, do the rich have it better than you? Yes. Then, innovations in the cereal industry. Lucky Charms are now scientifically delicious. And my guest is US Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan. Pay attention, my interview will be on the test. A new study says 85% of users don’t become addicted to meth. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for viewers of ‘Breaking Bad.

The People’s Republic of Obamastan & Forbes 400 Losers

“The trends that have taken over the past few decades of a winner-take-all economy … Those trends have been made worse by the recession. The top 1% of Americans took home 20% of the nation’s income last year. Most of the gains have gone to the top one-tenth of 1%” - President Obama.

• That’s class warfare, folks. The top tenth of 1%? He’s pitting the unattainably rich against the unimaginable rich.

• It’s bad enough that billionaires are forced to go to separate schools. And to fly their own planes. And often end up behind bars.

• I don’t know who to feel worse for. Those poor billionaires or Forbes magazine who just lost sixty-one of its four hundred subscribers.

• It’s a sad day to be a billionaire. You toil your whole life to build a meaningful legacy for your family, only to find out that billion dollars you earned was worthless. Except for the money part. That part’s worth $1 billion.

Colbert Platinum - Luxury Ice & Hot Dic-Tip

• If you’re not drinking an 1886 bottle of Absinth from Oscar Wildes personal collection, you may as well be drinking the sweat out of a hobo’s arse crack.

• How exclusive is your snifter of Louis XIII if you allow it to be cooled by cubes of frozen tap water aka poverty punch?

• Luckily, the high-end grocers at Dean & DeLuca have the answer. It’s called ‘Gläce’ luxury ice at the luxury price of $75 for just 10 cubes - technically orbs that have been individually carved from a 300lb block to ensure flawless quality. Using techniques derived from famed Austrian sculptor Eis-Küb-Trei.

• And you can be sure that this ice wont contaminate your premium hooch, because ‘Gläce’ has a zero-taste profile. I believe it. When you spend $75 for a bag of hand carved ice, that is totally tasteless.

• It is the height of conspicuous consumption, because an hour later you are literally pissing your money away.

“Kanye West cashed in on what some say is blood money. He pocketed some $3 million performing for a controversial dictator. The rapper flew all the way to Kazakhstan to play at the president’s grandson’s wedding. During the Kazakhstan leader’s 23-year rule, he’s been accused of stealing the country’s oil for himself and violating human rights, including murder.”

• Now, I know what you’re thinking. “What is this power-hungry megalomaniac doing hanging out with the president of Kazakhstan?” Its simple folks. One reason: money talks and celebrities have excellent hearing.

“At a glitzy concert organised by China’s state-owned oil company, Jennifer Lopez sang happy birthday to Turkmenistan’s ruler. It is a country so repressive it once banned circuses and operas and where the state department says arbitrary arrests, torture and disregarded for civil liberties happen frequently.”

• How could she have known about Turkmenistan’s appalling human rights record? Google?

Soul-Rending Cheerios Ad

• If you watch this show, and I certainly hope you do, you know that Stephen Colbert has always been a huge fan of advertising. I only wish commercials weren’t constantly interrupted by long stretches of character and story. Who cares who murdered who. I just want to see two different paper towels absorb things.

• I used to eat cereal without considering the long line of loved ones who’ve shuffled off this mortal coil leaving me to face my own march to oblivion alone, weighed down by the invisible chains of the past.

• But now thanks to this Cheerios ad I can’t walk down a cereal aisle without entering a haunted house of loss and regret.

• Apparently, Cheerios are haunted by the spirits of the dead. I mean, you heard that kid. When you eat breakfast, the departed roam your breakfast nook.

• These nefarious demon loops are a portal between our world and the purgatory of the damned. Be gone from my milky bowl, you devil grain!!

• The warning signs were always there. How did never noticed that a bowl of Cheerios spells ‘Oooooooo’?

• Cheerios now joins the ranks of undead endorsed cereals like, ‘Count Chocula’, ‘Boo Berry’, ‘Fiberatu: A Roughage of Horror’ and ‘Cthuloops’. Cthuloops, the fruit flavors are too horrifying for the human mind to contemplate.

Interview - Arne Duncan

Stephen: I heard that the Obama administration wants to get rid of printed text books and go all digital. Is that true?
Arne: I think we need to move from print to digital as fast as we can. Each year we spend 7 to 9 billion dollars on text books, and those text books are obsolete the day we buy them.
Stephen: When I was in high school the only thing that kept me from being stuffed in my locked on a daily basis … was that is was full of books.