Thursday Open Thread [2.26.15]

Thursday Open Thread [2.26.15]

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The Senate is moving forward on a clean bill funding DHS until September, and though it's not clear when that vote will happen, we know that House Republican leadership plans, at the very least, to let things go down to the wire. For some House Republicans, after all, a DHS shutdown is not such a big deal. First Read: “With the Senate easily advancing a ‘clean’ bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security, the ball is now in House Speaker Boehner’s court. And the timing couldn’t be more problematic for him: The conservatives assembling at CPAC probably aren’t going to appreciate House Republicans caving in their fight against the Obama administration. It’s déjà vu for Boehner: He’s caught between trying to help his caucus out of tricky situations, and looking over his shoulder for conservatives who want his head on a platter if he caves to Democrats. What we haven’t been able to understand: Why haven’t Boehner and Republicans been able to make their success (so far) in the courts against Obama’s executive action an asset here?”
Science Takes On A Zombie Outbreak

Science Takes On A Zombie Outbreak

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Given my and DelawareDem's love of The Walking Dead, I had to post this. This is for you, DD!
A team of Cornell University researchers has determined the best place to hide during a zombie apocalypse. A graduate statistical mechanics class was inspired by a reading of “World War Z,” a fictional oral history of a zombie war, and decided to explore what might happen in an actual zombie outbreak, reported Phys.org. [...] He said most films or books assume that a zombie outbreak would affect all areas at the same time, leaving a small pocket of survivors after a few months. “But in our attempt to model zombies somewhat realistically, it doesn’t seem like this is how it would actually go down,” Alemi said. Cities would fall quickly, the researchers found, but it would take weeks or even months for zombies to penetrate less densely populated areas.