Free Republic

For many buyers whose top priority is a car that won’t break down, the J.D. Power Initial Quality Study is gospel. J.D. Power just released the results of its 2019 Initial Quality Study, and the Korean trio of Genesis, Kia, and Hyundai took the top three spots. Luxury brand Genesis ranked highest, followed by sibling brands Kia and Hyundai. It’s a big win for Genesis which, as a relative newcomer to the luxury segment, needs to build credibility with buyers. The high scores achieved by Kia and Hyundai show that you don’t have to spend a lot of money to...

The Obama's presented McCartney with the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. The whole scene is just too delicious: The Obamas surrounded by, and being serenaded by, some of the biggest names in the music industry - no captain's of industry, of course - none of those in the Obama White House. No one there really making the country run. No one there creating jobs. No one there manufacturing anything tangible. Perhaps no one there with an over-sized I.Q. But the Obama mystique was as thick as an oil spill. Adding to the mystique, Michelle wore a dress in silk satin...

Spanking can get kids to behave in a hurry, but new research suggests it can do more harm than good to their noggins. The study, involving hundreds of U.S. children, showed the more a child was spanked the lower his or her IQ compared with others. "All parents want smart children," said study researcher Murray Straus of the University of New Hampshire. "This research shows that avoiding spanking and correcting misbehavior in other ways can help that happen." One might ask, however, whether children who are spanked tend to come from backgrounds in which education opportunities are less or inherited...

The eldest children in families tend to develop slightly higher I.Q.s than their younger siblings, researchers are reporting, based on a large study that could effectively settle more than a half-century of scientific debate about the relationship between I.Q. and birth order.

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Thursday North Korean IQs are feared to be falling due to prolonged malnutrition. "The people have had so little food over much of their lives," Rumsfeld said at a National Press Club luncheon in raising North Korea as an example as to why he said political and economic freedom is needed. "There's a concern that their IQs are going down because of malnutrition and insufficient diet," Rumsfeld said. "People in the North Korean military...are 4 foot 10 inches (145 centimeters), these are men, and less than 100 pounds (45 kilograms)." "That's a tragedy,"...