LAPTOPS for under $500.

WAIT, HERBERT HOOVER WASN’T A LIBERTARIAN? Correcting an embarrassing historical error by The Atlantic’s Joshua Green.

FORBES: How To Beat A Speeding Ticket. On the other hand, it contains a blatant lie: “Swoboda says speeding tickets are not issued to make up for police-department budget deficits. It’s about safety, he says.” No, it’s about revenue.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Liberal Arts, Post-Recession.

CHANGE: Meet the Vermont Phone Company That Wants to Kill Cable TV. “Flush With Federal Funds, Green Mountain Cable Provider Tells Customers Paying For 250 Channels Is ‘Obsolete’.”

CHANGE: 85% of College Grads Move Back Into Their Parents’ Home.

WHO SUFFERS FROM THE FORECLOSURE MESS? Just about everyone.

Already, it’s apparently impossible to sell a foreclosure–and people who have bought foreclosed homes are starting to sweat, wondering if they’re going to get embroiled in a lawsuit. But what about short sales? Again, if a company doesn’t have the authority to foreclose, it doesn’t have the authority to authorize you to sell it for less than the value of the mortgage. Things seem cleaner with ordinary sales, but what if some other company comes out of the woodwork to claim that the note wasn’t properly registered, and you paid the wrong guy? Does the lien go back on the house? Who owes the money?

This is why people are worried that the title-insurance system will break down. We finally closed on our house last Friday, and though it was a straight sale, I have been comforted all week with the knowledge that if something goes desperately wrong with the old mortgage, at least the title insurance will make us whole. But if I were a title insurer, that would make me kind of reluctant to write new policies. . . .

All this uncertainty is ultimately going to be terrible for both the housing market, and the broader economy. We’d better work hard at crafting legislative and judicial remedies–more about which later.

Indeed. The mess is bigger, and deeper, than it seemed in 2008.

DAVID WARREN ON the historic problems of universities. “The great majority of the universities — founded since the Second World War to bureaucratically process and credentialize a large part of the general population, as a matter of ‘right’ and regardless of their intellectual capacities — are in effect ‘community colleges’ or trade schools.”

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: The Problem With J Street. “During the Cold War, Americans gradually got into the habit of considering Israel one of our most valuable and reliable allies. In recent years this longstanding association has been substantially strengthened by the widespread public belief that the same people who most hate Israel and want to bring it down are the bitter enemies of the United States and will stop at nothing to kill as many American civilians as they possibly can. . . . If the Jews of Hollywood, Wall Street and the mainstream media were as powerful and clannish as European anti-Semitic legend has it, Europe would actually like America’s Middle East policies much more than it does.” These days, the Baptists support Israel more than the Jews.

IN THE MAIL: From Poul Anderson, The High Crusade.

FROM ANNE MCKINNEY, See You In November.

And don’t miss her 1.3 million-view bombshell, The Ballad of Timothy Geithner.

KEN LANGONE: Stop Bashing Business, Mr. President.

A little more than 30 years ago, Bernie Marcus, Arthur Blank, Pat Farrah and I got together and founded The Home Depot. Our dream was to create (memo to DNC activists: that’s build, not take or coerce) a new kind of home-improvement center catering to do-it-yourselfers. The concept was to have a wide assortment, a high level of service, and the lowest pricing possible.

We opened the front door in 1979, also a time of severe economic slowdown. Yet today, Home Depot is staffed by more than 325,000 dedicated, well-trained, and highly motivated people offering outstanding service and knowledge to millions of consumers.

If we tried to start Home Depot today, under the kind of onerous regulatory controls that you have advocated, it’s a stone cold certainty that our business would never get off the ground, much less thrive.

Read the whole thing.

JAMES JOYNER: Politicians And The Soft Bigotry Of Low Expectations. “The point seems to be, not that Angle wasn’t as awful as everyone figured she’d be but that she was every bit as good — or, should I say, every bit as bad — as Harry Reid. Reid has been in the Senate 23 years and the leader of the Senate Democrats since 2005. So, to the extent that these faux debates are a measure of competence to hold the office in question, holding her own against the veteran incumbent demonstrated that she was up to the task. Or, at least, as up to it as Reid.” The country’s in the very best of hands!

WHEN STUDENT LOANS BECOME golden handcuffs. “In the end, the new student loan program will hit the economy hard. Young people who chose to go into the public sector will find themselves ‘job locked,’ with few opportunities to leave the public sector without suffering a large financial loss. This will increase labor market rigidity and drive talent away from the private sector, resulting in a slower economic growth. Meanwhile, taxpayers will continue to be hit with ever increasing tabs for government payrolls, employee benefits and student loans.”

RAHM PROTECTION FALLOUT: Arrest Warrant Filed for CBS Reporter Jay Levine.

IOWAHAWK: Playing “Beltway Adventure.”

A ONE-DAY SALE ON Sirius/XM Satellite Radio Receivers. You can use it to listen to PJM Political! Or Howard Stern. Your choice.

POLIWOOD: “Gerrymandering,” A Documentary That Needs to Have Its Maps Redrawn.

MICKEY KAUS: Barbara Boxer In Trouble?