WordPress, the blogging software that powers The Big Picture along with 11 million other blogs and has 256 million unique visitors to its hosted sites, may not be as revolutionary as movable type but it is a crucial element in what has made it possible for blogging to grow from a hobby into a major threat to the mainstream media….

Via Reason.com – In England it’s so bad, cops rob you! (here):

Police in Exeter, England, say some residents make life too easy for burglars, and to prove it, they’ve burgled around 50 homes themselves. The police look for places with unlocked doors or open windows, and then they slip inside and put valuables into a bag for the owners to find.

Via Cato – Cisneros, the Clinton Administration’s head of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) explains how the government had little to do with the housing crisis – Cato responds (here):

In a recent speech to real estate interests, former Clinton HUD secretary Henry Cisnerospreposterously claimed that the recent housing meltdown “occurred not out of a governmental push, but out of a hijacking of the homeownership process by some unscrupulous interests.”

The only criticisms Cisneros could muster for the government’s housing policies over the past 20 years were that regulations weren’t tough enough and it should have focused more onrental subsidies.

Imagine that… government officials acting as if they  weren’t effecting anything even though their entire intention was to affect the housing market.  Their entire reason for being is to affect the housing market.

Seems oddly similar to recent reports from the White House on the oil spill.  Listen carefully and you’ll hear this:  ”We have been in charge since the incident occurred, but everything that is happening is someone else’s fault.”

Speaking of which, Obama’s approval rating down (here via Gallup).  In late January of this year, 66% approved, only 19% disapproved.  The latest figures show 49% approval, 44% disapprove.  That was quick…

Lastly, but certainly not least – great pictures of the birth of a star (here via Yale):

New Haven, Conn. — Astronomers have glimpsed what could be the youngest known star at the very moment it is being born. Not yet fully developed into a true star, the object is in the earliest stages of star formation and has just begun pulling in matter from a surrounding envelope of gas and dust, according to a new study that appears in the current issue of the Astrophysical Journal.

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