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Anyone know of any good books of this type that they could recommend? I am looking for something intellectual (e.g., anything written by a Professor, James Fennimore Cooper, Federalist Papers, Tocqueville, etc.) not catered to more mainstream audiences (e.g., Beck, Hannity, Coulter, etc.) and theoretical mostly, either fiction or non-fiction... I have a few on my list that I have read or will read but am just looking for some more ideas Thanks!

For all his contributions to the cause, and they have been many, conservative media personality George Will may well have exhausted his shelf life. In his much-discussed Sunday column, Will all too predictably excoriated those Republicans politicians and pundits who have questioned Obama's origins and ideology.  Most troubling was Will's slam of WOR Radio host Steve Malzberg for asking would-be presidential candidate Mike Huckabee a question that strikes those of us who have done some investigating as altogether reasonable: Asked Malzberg, "Don't you think it's fair also to ask [Barack Obama] . . . how come we don't have a...

JUNEAU -- Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski says she doesn't think Sarah Palin has the leadership qualities to be president, nor the "intellectual curiosity" needed to make good policy. Murkowski also told Katie Couric of the "CBS Evening News" that she doesn't think Palin enjoyed governing.

Not prepared by any official Tea Party, these proposals are presented to all Tea Parties for discussion and hopefully approval. Background: many people have become cynical. They think the Education Establishment is hopelessly corrupt, driven by far-left ideology and old-fashioned greed, and no improvement is possible. But times they are a-changing. Many conservative are being elected. Let's think about how they might use their power to save the public schools. Imagine that a governor like Chris Christie wakes up tomorrow and decides to fix public education in his state. What should he do? In general, which policies should Conservatives, Republicans...

Our former NR colleague, Joe Sobran, passed away today after a long battle with a variety of ailments. He was relatively young, just 64, and while physically beaten at the end, he also departed spiritually triumphant.   Surely, in short order, there will be ample reflection — much of it critical — on the hyper-talented, hyper-controversial writer. There will be a recounting of his history at NR, the break, the following years, and Joe’s soured relationship with WFB (happily, they rekindled their friendship before Bill passed away). Good, let’s discuss all that, and more. But later. Right now, let us,...

PARIS (AFP) – Leading French intellectual Bernard-Henri Levy has been caught red-faced for praising the work of a philosopher who, it turns out, was invented as a joke by a journalist from a satirical daily. In his latest book "De la guerre en philosophie" (Making war in philosophy), Levy quoted Jean-Baptiste Botul, an expert on German philosopher Immanuel Kant created by journalist Frederic Pages. Levy acknowledged late Monday that he had often quoted Botul's work "The sex life of Immanuel Kant" during many public appearances and in the pages of his latest book. "As it turns out, it was a...

How many times have I as a libertarian-minded advocate for individual liberty and free markets been in an argument with liberals, progressives, statists, whatever you choose to name them, and heard that my ideology is too simplistic, too impractical, etc.? Of course, these are the nice versions of what usually comes out of their collective mouths: idiot, fascist, racist, hick, redneck, and the glorious list of intellectual vocabulary marches on and on into pure brilliance. Oftentimes the liberal progressive breaks out into über-intellectual speak as illustrated in the following clip:

At the top of Friday’s Hardball on MSNBC, host Chris Matthews discovered the reason for President Obama’s political difficulties in recent months: “President Obama has his chin out on just about every hot issue out there....He’s exposed and vulnerable. His poll numbers are dropping. Is he just too darned intellectual? Too much the egg head?” Later in the show, Matthews talked to Atlantic Media’s Ron Brownstein and USA Today’s Susan Page about Obama’s great flaw. He began by wondering: “I’m not attacking intellectuals because I do appreciate their contribution – but when politicians begin to get a little too intellectual,...

Believe it or not, he’s not just spinning here. He’s sincerely criticizing Obama for some of his dopier decisions lately; he just can’t help letting his admiration for The One get in the way and filter it as a matter of excess virtue. None of the problems he cites are necessarily — or actually — the product of too much deep thinkin’. Obama’s bow to Akihito was, in fact, stupid since it had the opposite intended effect. His deliberations on Afghanistan are fine, but should have been conducted six months ago given McChrystal’s warning that the war would be lost...

This video is for the Noobs and Noob observers

In his book, The Audacity of Hope, President Obama writes “Our constitution places the ownership of private property at the very heart of our system of liberty. According to Obama adviser Doug Kmiec, President Obama would appoint Supreme Court justices “in the mold of Justices Stephen Bryer and David Souter”. Bryer and Souter have voted against every property rights case for the last 20 years. In a recent study, data shows that countries that protect the physical and intellectual property of their people enjoy nearly nine times higher GDP per capita than countries ranking lowest in property rights protections. The...

The article below, which asserts that conservatives are less creative than liberals, is just the usual Leftist bigotry, based on a very poor knowledge of the research literature. Creativity does not generalize much, meaning there is no such thing as an overall trait of creativity. So all that is shown below is that Leftists judge one-another as more creative and are more likely to take an interest in self-indulgent activities.I am reproducing the full article below so people can admire the propaganda effort. It sounds quite plausible and fair if you don’t know the underlying facts By Scott Barry Kaufman...

from the let's-do-business,-or-we-might-sue deptLast week, Microsoft was kind enough to invite me to sit down, one-on-one with Horacio Gutierrez, the company's VP and Deputy General Counsel in charge of intellectual property and licensing. As you might imagine, given my views on the patent system in general, and Microsoft's gradual embrace of the patent system specifically, he and I disagreed on a fair amount. We agreed that the patent system should be focused on encouraging innovation. We agreed that there were abuses of the system. From there, our views pretty much diverged, though the conversation was fun and lively. Gutierrez began...

Does vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin consider herself intellectual? You betcha! "And you have to be up on not only current events, but you have to understand the foundation of the issues that you're working on," Palin said in an interview with People magazine. "You can't just go on what is presented you." SNIP the Alaska governor told People that she has always been a "voracious reader" and named reading _ anything from biographies to historical works _ as her favorite thing along with her children and sports. SNIP Palin said if she and husband Todd had had a sixth...

Inventors, scientists, and researchers have been at the core of America’s success since our earliest days… With tight economic conditions and emerging economies, America’s innovation will be facing many challenges if Intellectual Property is not protected.

This is one of the most frightening things I've learned in a long time. Over in the US, a bill has passed the House of Representatives and is heading to Congress – with a huge amount of support. The PRO-IP bill, H.R.4279, significantly increases the state's power to detect and prosecute IP infringement, carrying with it a whole host of new law enforcement positions and capabilities. It establishes an IP Czar, someone with the job of overseeing zealous action on behalf of copyright and trademark owners, and includes such powers as the ability to seize equipment if it contains just...

If the Christian base of the GOP gets its way, "All government employees — federal, state and local — would be required to participate in weekly Bible classes in the workplace, as well as compulsory daily prayer sessions." We would all have to carry religious identity cards that "would provide Christocrats with preferential treatment in many areas of life, including home ownership, student loans, employment and education." Non-Christians would be indulged as second-class citizens, "but younger members . . . would be strongly encouraged to formally convert to the dominant evangelical Christianity." Homosexual sex would be illegalized, while "known homosexuals...

Neoconservatism is hard to pin down as discrete political theory; Mr. Podhoretz [prefers] "tendency." In any case, as a practical matter, it denotes the mentality of those who moved from somewhere on the political left to somewhere on the right, primarily during the late '70s. It had "two ruling passions," according to Mr. Podhoretz. On the one hand, the neocons were repulsed by the countercultural '60s radicalism that came to dominate the American liberal establishment. On the other, they argued for a more assertive, muscular foreign policy (at the time in response to Soviet expansionism). ... The "war on terror,"...

Stealth firm plays reversi with VoIP codeChinese software developers have reportedly reverse engineered Skype's internet telephony software to develop a clone. The unnamed company has developed a software client using the same protocol and encryption technology used by Skype. This software, which is still in the early stages of development, was used to call Charlie Paglee, co-founder of Voice over IP startup Vozin Communications. Although the software lacks features that indicate whether someone is online or instant messaging technology, Paglee reports that the mystery firm involved plans to add these features (along with stability improvements) and release a stable version...

Iranian author arrested in Tehran By Frances Harrison BBC News, Tehran A leading Canadian-Iranian intellectual, Ramin Jahanbegloo, has been arrested at the airport in Tehran. A prominent dissident cleric described Mr Jahanbegloo's arrest as "the height of lawlessness and insecurity". At a gathering to celebrate International Press Freedom Day, Mohsen Kadivar said Mr Jahanbegloo was one of Iran's philosophical journalists. The arrest has caused concern about freedom of speech as Iran comes under increasing pressure from abroad. Mr Jahanbegloo is a well-known Canadian-Iranian professor with doctorates from the Sorbonne and Harvard University. He has written and edited more than a...