NDP MP Charlie Angus does a fine job of holding Industry Canada Minister Jim Prentice to account over Canada’s new copyright law that may or may not drop this summer. You’ll recall this law is a bad thing: beholden to industry while criminalizing many content uses we enjoy today. An unsurprising outcome, given that the bill was put together without any public consultation.

Memo to Prentice: when asked a direct question in Parliament, don’t answer with a stupid joke. But I guess you can’t ask for much more out of Canada’s most secretive government ever.

Here’s some awesome video of Keith Olbermann tearing a strip off GWB. Chief among Olbermann’s complaints is Bush’s recent announcement that he showed solidarity with American soldiers in Iraq by giving up golf. Truly, a leader for the ages.

Much has been made over the past few weeks about the apparently high level of perspiration on board the good ship Demetrius, the former-sewage-ship-turned-Starbuck-insanity-vehicle featured so prominently in the last two episodes of BSG.  Comments range from the theoretical ["Isn't space cold?"] to the practical ["Why doesn't someone turn down the damn thermostat?"]. Answers are lacking. Until now.

Science, humankind’s most attractive offspring, comes to the rescue again. Turns out, the sweatbox starship phenomenon is fairly consistent with reality:

Well, it turns out that a ship in space is like the inner flask in a thermos bottle. Its heat can’t be conducted or convected away. It can be radiated away, but Demetrius seems pretty squat and compact — its available surface area is probably pretty small compared to its volume, and that limits its radiative ability. When you factor in a shipload of electronic equipment, all producing heat, and 15 human bodies, all producing heat, you quickly reach a situation in which Demetrius can’t get rid of all the heat it generates.

There you go. Things in space = difficult to cool. And we ultimately benefit, since Starbuck and/or Athena and/or Ceelix tend to look considerably better when coated in a thin patina of moisture.

There’s quite a bit of exciting extraterrestrial news on the interwebs today, so I thought I’d make a party of it. You know, a party where you read stuff. By yourself.

First off, the National Archives of the United Kingdom have released 30 years of UFO-related documents. It’s a collection of individual sightings and the government investigations, of everything from the notorious Rendlesham Forest Incident to a guy whol claimed he was best buddies with an alien named Algar who wanted to meet the PM. According to the documents, about 90 per cent of the cases were explained or dismissed as totally insane. That leaves about 10 per cent unexplained or ‘credible’. Go here for the complete documents.

That unexplained decile fits in nicely with some new alien proclamations made by Vatican – yes, Vatican – astronomer  Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes:

“How can we rule out that life may have developed elsewhere? Just as we consider earthly creatures as ‘a brother,’ and ‘sister,’ why should we not talk about an ‘extraterrestrial brother?’ It would still be part of creation.”

While this may somewhat complicate the whole “made in His image” thing, I am super excited to meet space Jesus. I reckon he’s like regular Jesus, but with shinier pants.

Until then…keep watching the skiiiiis…I mean, skies. Keep watching the skies.

Scientists studying the physiology of joy have made a startling discovery: rats are actually ticklish. And when you tickle them, they actually laugh. Of course, their little rodent guffaws are in the ultrasonic range, so it actually sounds like R2-D2 on a meth bender.

Two things come to mind here. First, given the, uh, vigorous nature of the ‘tickling’, it’s possible the rat is actually screaming. Or delivering some variation of the line, “Dear God! The hand! The hand has returned!” Or possibly even “Stop tickling me, you perv. It’s a form of abuse.”

Second, there is a man out there whose entire job is tickling rats. All he does, from the time he gets to work until the time he leaves, is touch rodents in an amusing way. He may even think about tickling rats while at home with his wife and children. And if that doesn’t put human existence into some sort of perspective, then I don’t know what will.

Once again, through the miracle of DVD sales, a beloved series is getting the big screen treatment. According to Scifi.com, Gogo, Wembley, Mokey, Boober and Red will be appearing in an upcoming Fraggle movie, brought to you by the fine people of the Weinstein Co.

Good on them, I say. As the oddest of the Henson creations, Fraggle Rock deserved more than a three season run and a fade into cult classicism. Also, it had a great theme song. And a character named Boober. Heh heh. Boober.

Check out this press conference/celestial travelogue/psychic fake out to announce Mr. Wait’s summer tour:

Awesome. Thanks to JVT for the link.