HOW TO TELL A NATION IS AT RISK: “Which governments will not be able to pay their bills? The ones with private sectors that are not doing well enough to bail out the government. That should be one lesson of the near default this year of the Greek government. Government finances are important, but in the end it is the private sector that matters most.”

DON’T WORRY, IPHONES: Chuck Schumer is on the problem. With his vast expertise in antenna design, and shouting at companies, he’ll have the problem solved in no time. Or at least milk it for a little pointless, cheap publicity.

DAVID FREDDOSO: Kos Pollster Lawsuit Has Real-Life Consequences.

JOHN MERLINE: Memo to Deficit Commission: It’s the Spending, Stupid. “The simple fact is that deficits are out of control right now because spending is out of control. That’s the pretty obvious lesson drawn from looking at the past 60 years of federal budget data.”

RECOVERY SUMMER! Sharpest drop in manufacturing in past year.

IF YOU’RE THINKING OF BUYING A BIG FLAT-SCREEN TV, you might consider a projector like this one instead. The sale price is a lot cheaper than a big-screen TV, and it’s a lot more portable, too.

UPDATE: Reader Lee Hutchins writes:

Is true, but many may be disappointed in the image quality of a projector for a number of reasons; unless the room is very, very dark and you’re using a proper projection screen the image will appear to be washed out, especially when compared to an LCD or plasma TV. Additionally the differences between 720p and 1080i become much more obvious with images of 80 inches or more. Focus will become an issue as well, one you don’t have to deal with on a self contained TV.

But yes, for portability and price, it’s a good option.

Yes, you’ve got advantages and disadvantages both ways — it’s probably not as bright and sharp as a top flatscreen, but as the picture shows, you can have outdoor movies in your backyard at night. And it’s cheaper.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Glenn Perreira writes:

Just a comment on the projector thread…

I bought an InFocus X-1 projector a couple of years ago when it was the cheapest (below $1,000) on the market. Although it was far from high end it got good reviews and I have never regretted it buying it. I only wish I had the time to use it more.

Yes, a major drawback for a projector is needing total darkness to get the best image, which is not conducive to hosting events like the Superbowl (unless, of course, your guests are all frisky cheerleaders).

However, being able to watch movies, streaming TV shows, and playing everything from Wii to PC games on an 8’ foot screen is hard to beat, even if it is not the very highest resolution possible. I have also used it to make costumes and large-scale copies of computer graphics by projecting patterns onto paper which I then traced. During Halloween I lug it to my friend’s apartment and show 12’ horror movies on the side of a nearby building.

Well worth the cash IMHO.

Noted.

MORE: Reader Chris Broussard writes: “I used a middle-of-the-road Dell projector as a TV for several years. Ditto the comments on the darkness issue, and how awesome it is for horror movies. However, the biggest drawback – and the reason I stopped using mine – was the $400 replacement bulb every 6-12 months. The cost of two or three bulbs can buy a pretty decent high-def TV.”

PJTV: Andrew Klavan: Obama’s Beach Blanket Recovery: It’s Happy. It’s Snappy. It’s Incredibly Crappy. (Bumped).

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EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN: Protesters Claim Tea Party is Racist, Can’t Point to Any Evidence.

MICHAEL BARONE: The Return of the Jeffersonian Vision and the Rejection of Progressivism.

THE HILL: Sen. Bennett agrees to help Ethics panel in probe of Countrywide mortgages. “Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah) has agreed to assist the Senate Ethics Committee in a potential investigation of his staffers participation in a controversial VIP mortgage lending program at Countrywide Financial Corp. Senators or Senate employees received 30 Countrywide loans that offered sweetheart deals or special treatment, according to a letter Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) sent to Senate Ethics Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).” Sounds like the Utah Tea Party’s aim was true, here.

AFFIDAVITS: Former DOJ Colleagues Confirm Whistleblower Adams’ Accusations. “Sworn affidavits from Hans A. von Spakovsky and Karl Bowers, who worked with J. Christian Adams in the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, offer broad confirmation of the whistleblower’s accusations of bias in enforcing voting rights.”

ABC NEWS: Poll: Gulf Coast Residents Oppose Drilling Moratorium. “By 60-38 percent, they opposed the Obama administration’s six-month moratorium on drilling (it got far more support nationally); and more, three-quarters, said drilling should resume at its existing level, or be expanded, in the future.”

BOB OWENS slaps ThinkProgress for fakery. Remember, it’s not meant to convince anybody — just to keep the faithful from weakening between now and November.

THE NEW ERA: Big biz seeks profit from big gov.

HOW TO GET BUSINESSES TO INNOVATE: More regulation! Plus, more politically convenient Chamber Of Commerce-bashing. Is Steven Pearlstein a JournoLister? I mean, he’s really on a roll with the Administration spin.

MORE QUESTIONS about the Al Gore / masseuse story. “We’ve had some fun with those freaky deaky Taiwanese animations of the Goracle’s supposed escapade so I want to make sure you see the case for the defense too.”

EDITORIAL: Racialist Justice at the DoJ?

By now, the default judgment about the Barack Obama-Eric H. Holder Jr. Justice Department is that it discriminates intentionally on the basis of race. By the precise definition used in the American Heritage dictionary, the department is racialist.

The Justice Department hasn’t seriously contested the accusation of racialism. Recently resigned whistleblowing attorney J. Christian Adams has made credible charges, backed by at least five former colleagues, that the department’s Civil Rights Division has adopted a policy of refusing to enforce civil rights laws on behalf of whites victimized by minority perpetrators. Mr. Adams cited an incident from November in which Deputy Assistant Attorney General Julie Fernandes openly stated it was departmental policy not to enforce parts of the federal motor-voter law that involve cleaning up dead and ineligible voters from poll registries. Another former department attorney, Nicole S. Marrone, has written that Ms. Fernandes previously discussed that law in explicitly racial terms.

To such a specific allegation of lawlessness, the Justice Department’s response has been dead silence. No specific denial of the accusation. No statement that the department would not tolerate such lawlessness. No investigation. And when The Washington Times asked directly on Monday about the Fernandes statement, Justice spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler responded with boilerplate that neither affirmed nor denied the statement.

The Justice Department’s behavior here runs the risk of delegitimizing the entire civil rights and voting apparatus, which would be a disaster. But if “civil rights” becomes a synonym for “helping Democratic constituencies only” then disaster is what it will be.

DAN MITCHELL: Obamanomics and my Seven Steamy Nights with the Gals from Victoria’s Secret. “I’ve decided to adopt this clever strategy to spice up my social life. Next time I see my buddies, I’m going to claim that I enjoyed a week of debauchery with the Victoria’s Secret models. And if any of them are rude enough to point out that I’m lying, I’ll simply explain that I started with an assumption of spending -7 nights with the supermodels. And since I actually spent zero nights with them, that means a net of +7.”

FROM FAMILY COOK TO Food Czar.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Democratic fundraiser gets 12 years for bank fraud: “Former political fundraiser Hassan Nemazee was sentenced Thursday to 144 months in prison, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York and to the FBI. Nemazee, 60, a New York resident pleaded guilty in March to multiple charges stemming from over a decade of defrauding three major banks, scamming them out nearly $300 million. . . . Nemazee is a former finance chairman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign and held the same post for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential bid.”

YES. Is The Foreclosure Crisis Getting Worse?

LYNNE STEWART UPDATE: Attorney who helped terrorist gets 10 years in prison. It’s a light sentence, as what she did was a betrayal on several levels.

SHOCKER: Oh my: Mel Gibson tapes might have been doctored.

DOES REGULATORY RISK MATTER? Megan McArdle writes: “I’m frankly rather shocked that Steve Pearlstein would say something like this in a radio interview. . . . I myself have long been skeptical of the Amity Shlaes thesis on the Great Depression–but not skeptical enough to make fun of CEO’s fighting a collapse in aggregate demand and a hostile new regulatory environment for being a bunch of unimaginative ******s who spend too much time listening to the boys down at the country club. If there’s one thing that business school taught me, it’s that running a company is really hard, and that most people who think they could do better are merely displaying their ignorance of what’s involved.” Personally, I’m finding Shlaes’ thesis more compelling all the time, as I see it demonstrated in the present tense. . . .

SISSY WILLIS: Should a Tea Party candidate run in the 2012 primary if Scott Brown drifts further?

UPDATE: From the comments: “I voted for Scott Brown and gave him a donation when it appeared he had a serious chance, but I’m neither enthused nor disenchanted. I was supporting divided government, not Scott Brown.” He’s better than Martha Coakley would have been.