Free Republic

A new study ranks Minnesota as having the fourth smartest drivers in the country. A GMAC Insurance Study released Thursday states that one in five drivers on the road today cannot meet the basic requirements to get a driver’s license — that’s roughly 18 percent of American drivers. The study says if those drivers were to take the written driver’s test today, they would not pass. Kansas was named the most knowledgeable drivers in the country, while Washington, D.C. bumped out New York to take the last spot on the list.

WASHINGTON, July 28 — They were high school friends from Park Ridge, Ill., both high achievers headed East to college. John Peavoy was a bookish film buff bound for Princeton, Hillary Rodham a driven, civic-minded Republican going off to Wellesley. They were not especially close, but they found each other smart and “interesting” and said they would try to keep in touch. Which they did, prodigiously, exchanging dozens of letters between the late summer of 1965 and the spring of 1969. Ms. Rodham’s 30 dispatches are by turns angst-ridden and prosaic, glib and brooding, anguished and ebullient — a rare...

Birds not so stupid after all By Roger Highfield, Science Editor Last Updated: 1:58am GMT 22/02/2007 Birds have emerged as strong challengers to chimpanzees and dolphins for the title of our smartest rivals in the animal world, biologists at Cambridge University have concluded. Planning and worrying about the future has always been considered an exclusively human activity, but now at least one species of bird has also been found to plan. "This is the first evidence that an animal can plan for the future," said Prof Nicky Clayton, who led the research team. According to her findings, published in the...

The future looks grim for the state and even grimmer for the Inland Empire in education and the economy, according to a Cal State Sacramento study. Called "State of Decline," the study by the university's Institute for Higher Education Leadership and Policy found the Inland Empire is least likely in California to prepare students for college. And a second, unrelated report issued by Morgan Quitno Press lists the state as one of the nation's dumbest, ranking it in 47th place out of the 50 states. Declining college-going rates and an achievement gap between students from different races and regions of...

World's Smartest Woman Denies She is on the Dole in Bulgaria Lifestyle: 14 November 2004, Sunday. The Bulgarian woman, who made headlines after being pronounced the world's cleverest by the country's Mensa office, denied reports she has spent two years without a job in Bulgaria. Daniela Simidchieva, a qualified industrial engineer with a mind-boggling IQ of 200 and five masters degrees, said she was looking for a job to correspond with her qualification and skills. The reports are not true and could discredit me, Daniela told local Trud Daily, commenting reports that she is struggling to find gainful employment, "even...