Fantasy Colbert League Weekly: February 9-12

Welcome to No Fact Zone’s weekly roundup of ‘Colbert Report’ guests, created in the spirit of the oft-enjoyed Fantasy Colbert League. While we can’t start up the online version of the game again, we can make it so that you can get the information you need about the guests before they come on the show.

Just like you, we want to be it-getters before the interviews start. So we’ve compiled brief bios, issues or events that Stephen might bring up during the interview, and a fun Fract (Freedom Fact) to impress your fellow viewers during the commercial breaks. Read, enjoy, and see if you can anticipate how Stephen might nail each of the following guests!

Note: As always, guests are subject to change.

Monday, 2/9: TV on the Radio

TV on the Radio (or TVotR, if you’re a fan) is an experimental American rock group founded in New York City in 2001. Their sounds include musical styles like punk rock, doo-wop, soul, and electro, as well as a capella singing. Their latest album, ‘Dear Science,’ was released in September 2008, garnering numerous awards including being named Rolling Stones’ Best Album of 2008. TVotR comes to the Report fresh off a performance on the February 7 ‘Saturday Night Live’ show.

• Fract: Spoiler Alert: According to MTV.com, TV on the Radio will be playing their song ‘Dancing Choose’ and might take part in a ‘skit’ with Stephen Colbert.

Tuesday, 2/10: Robert Ballard

Former U.S. Navy Commander Robert Ballard is an oceanographer who specializes in underwater archaeology. He is president of the Institute for Exploration and director of the Institute for Archaeological Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island. In 1985, he discovered a little vessel called the R.M.S. Titanic, resting on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean after its catastrophic collision with an iceberg. His latest book, published September 2008, is ‘Titanic: The Last Great Images.’

• Fract: Commander Ballard has also discovered the wrecks of the battleship Bismarck, the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Yorktown, and John F. Kennedy’s PT-109 (the motor torpedo boat piloted by the then-Lieutenant, which crashed in the Pacific Theater during WWII).

Wednesday, 2/11: Steven Pinker

Havard professor Steven Pinker crossed Ivy League borders when he came to the Harvard Department of Psychology after teaching at MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. He examines language and cognition, and visited the Report on February 7, 2007, to discuss his book ‘The Blank Slate.’ His most recent book is ‘The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature,’ a discussion of language and how it reflects the workings of our brains.

• Fract: Professor Pinker is the first member of the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists. No, really. Check out an analysis of his and friend-of-the-Report Malcolm Gladwell’s free-flowing manes.

Thursday, 2/12: Adam Gopnik

Essayist Adam Gopnik is a staff writer for The New Yorker. In 1995 he and his family moved to Paris, where he spent five years writing about his time there; these essays were published as the ‘Paris Journals’ and then in a collection called ‘Paris to the Moon.’ His latest work, about which Stephen will have a lot to say, is called ‘Angels And Ages: A Short Book About Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life.’ Gopnik also recently wrote and presented BBC Four’s ‘Lighting Up New York,’ an exploration of the social and cultural history of New York City.

• Fract: President Abraham Lincoln and evolutionist Charles Darwin were both born on February 12, 1809.