In space, no-one can hear you table amendments to motions

The United Nations recently held a panel discussion at its New York headquarters to discuss how “Battlestar Galactica” might inform the international body’s approach to some problems of the day: terrorism, torture, religious conflict. No, really, it did. According to the New Yorker,

Placards at the seats, which earlier had identified delegates from France and Venezuela, now read “Caprica” and “Aquarion.” The panel included William Adama (played by Edward James Olmos), the admiral of the spaceship Galactica, and Laura Roslin (played by Mary McDonnell), the president of the Twelve Colonies, along with two producers from “B.S.G.” and a handful of earthbound U.N. dignitaries. Whoopi Goldberg, a big fan of the show, had been enlisted to moderate. The line of sci-fi buffs snaked out the door. A sign on the wall reading “Smoking Discouraged” (the U.N. is not subject to New York City regulations) enhanced the feeling that the event was taking place in another dimension. What the frak?

- New Yorker, 6 April 2009