'The Colbert Report' Recap 2/13/2012

In Monday's episode, Steven Colbert talked about government regulations on woodworking, his ice cream war with Jimmy Fallon, and his guest Bill McKibben. But he started things off by talking about the New York Giants and their recent Super Bowl victory. He talked about a report that spoke out against the parade for the football team, questioning why the team was more deserving than the war heroes who did not get a parade in their honor. He went on to talk about the exciting new stories out of the NBA, mainly the stories about overnight superstar and New York Nicks point guard Jeremy Lin. He said Lin achieved the impossible, which is to make people want to watch the Nicks. After high-five-ing the on-screen image of Lin a couple times, Colbert played clips from CNN that talked about how Lin went undrafted, got cut from two teams, and was finally demoted to the D-leagues before getting called back up due to injuries. Since then, Lin has put up phenomenal numbers and has garnered the attention of basketball fans around the country. This craze has been called “Lin-sanity”.

Colbert next talked about the dangers of government regulation, in a segment entitled “People Who Are Destroying America”. Table saws are dangerous, and statistically cut off ten fingers per day. Inventor Steve Gass designed a new type of table saw called “Saw-stop” with built in safety measures that stop the blade before it does more than nick your finger. But the power tool trade association rejected the idea saying it could cause more accidents then it prevents since people would be less careful using them. Colbert spoke against “Saw-stop”, saying that it was an attempt to emasculate the table saw.

Next Colbert talked about February 14 – Steven Colbert's Free Americone Dream giveaway day, where at participating stores you could get free scoops of Colbert's Ben & Jerry's flavor, Americone Dream. He also talked about his enmity with Jimmy Fallon, whose ice cream flavor has been outselling Colbert's. Colbert suspects morgues are using it to chill corpses. He did however decide to send Fallon a Valentine's Day card. He delivered it via carrier-rabbit.

Colbert's guest, Bill McKibben, is fighting the Keystone XL pipeline, and is an avid environmentalist. He has been on the show before, and had a lively debate with Colbert about the pipeline. McKibben hopes to speed up the development and production of more fuel-efficient cars and more efficient fuel sources. McKibben also wants to stop drilling for oil, and believes stopping the pipeline will make the oil inaccessible for most of the world and therefore would prevent the drilling and sale of the oil. He is gathering signatures for a petition to stop the pipeline.