Razib, you may want to check out a new BBC documentary series about the History of Christianity, presented by Diarmaid MacCulloch: 
 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00ntrqh 
 
It's only 6 episodes long, so there's not all that much he can go into, and not that much that you'd be unaware of, but it's quite interesting.

Larison's take on the hyper-revisionist "Crossroads to Islam":  
 
http://larison.org/2007/06/29/the-first-term-of-an-idhaafa-cannot-have-tanween/

So, Bob, given that you didn't tell us which Provost, are you technically plagiarising that rule?

I don't think the question of whether linguistic unity is good can be meaningfully answered. No one's objective anyway - most people don't want to see their own culture die out.

Same goes for the speakers of Tswana, Sotho & Swazi; Botswana, Lesotho & Swaziland include a minority of speakers.

@agnostic 
 
After posting my last comment, I went and checked that Journalism Online site in more detail. The first thing I noticed was that its big name seems to be Steven Brill. Obviously people can change, but the only name recognition value Brill has for me is being consistently wrong about the nature of media and technology in the 90s. And while they boasted about 160 dailies, they won't name any of them, and are very vague about "micropayments" and other aspects of their business model. I'm much less confident than I was that this is a genuine business movement, and more some free-riding on the current paranoia of the newspaper market. 
 
So I'm willing to put down a few bets here. One, that the Journalism Online space will represent a very small proportion of the total online news readership, and one that will decline over time. 
 
Of course, that doesn't necessarily matter in terms of profits (as you've said). But then, subscription-only periodicals have always existed and have been profitable. The question is: will be the media that you (and others) refer to as the mainstream media, and quote from, be free for consumers, or charge for their content? The New York Times or the Guardian have never been the most profitable ventures (nor the highest quality news) but they are general media with visibility and penetration among key political classes. Such media has *never* been successfully funded by reader payments; it has *always* been a rider on advertising or other revenues. I don't see that changing. 
 
So, my second bet. The majority of the "professionally produced" articles, which is to say text that the author was paid to write, referred to or quoted in depth by this blog (which I hope you'll think is a quality information source) will still be to freely viewable public news sites (with the highest impediment being a user login) three years from now. 
 
Would you agree to these bets? If not, what are you saying, exactly?

Agnostic, is there a wager that you'd be willing to make on this prediction? Not on the attempt by a large number of newspapers and news media to raise their subscription walls (which seems to widely known, but may not come together: I've watched the music industry unsuccessfully attempt to create such initiatives, and that's a far tighter cartel), but on the "access to unlimited free access to online journalism is dead" idea.  
 
I mean, in trivial terms, this is already true -- I already can't access the WSJ, for instance. And if they did raise the sub walls, I can imagine not paying it for myself, but that may be down to my convictions. 
 
What we need is some way to differentiate what you're saying, and what a reasonable opposite viewpoint (cough cough my good self, cough cough) might take. My feeling that this will be a largely irrelevant move to the nature of Internet news is probably based around the idea that by locking themselves out of linking online, we'll see online journalism growing separate from the newspapers, with perhaps other organizations taking on the model of a long form article online. Also, of course, widespread casual piracy outside of the firewalls. 
 
How can we concretely differ. I ask because I think you're profoundly wrong -- I just don't see any great change in the nature or quality of online news from this action -- and I really want to put a bet on this.

When Spengler was incognito there was speculation that he was Jewish, I thought it possible, but I thought it unlikely that a Jew would decide what Judaism is by reading Franz Rosenzweig, a pretty obscure dead guy, whereas a Jewish person might be informed by live people and by family traditions as to what Judaism is about. Of course I was wrong.

When one speaks of Southerners accounting for a majority of literary men what do they refer to say South? If I'm not mistaken the most prosperous part of China was the lower Yangtze region (Nanjing, Hangzhou, Suzhou, etc), many other parts of South China today were not yet sinicized at the time, and much of Southern China is hilly and remote. 
 
The economic divide in China today is not North-South but the rural and poor West vs. the emerging urban East. I'd be surprised if there is any genetic component to this divide but I wouldn't know.

Again, I don't think the terms 'over-valued' and 'under-valued' are accurate here, but never mind. Still very interesting. 
 
Robert Hume - If that were true, Chagall and Pisarro would appear as the under-valued; but it seems that the general poster-buying public likes them even more than (presumably more Jewish) encyclopedia writers. 
 
Another thing, related to the class issue, but not completely, is that much of old master work was public art, intended for display in palaces, churches, etc, not in college dorm rooms. The impressionists sold to people who while richer than most of us just wanted to hang something nice in the living room, which is a closer approximation of what people want from a poster. 
 
Steve makes a good point about representation of Classical world; I also wonder whether the market for religious themes is that big nowadays. How many people want to have a Pieta in their house?

From the list of 'over-valued' composers you have Puccini, Bizet & Verdi who are primarily well-known for Operas, Tchaikovsky for Ballet, Grieg for the score of a play - maybe these are genres that are not considered as serious and are therefore do not merit as much importance for encyclopedia writers. 
 
This somewhat strengthens my opinion that the fundamental value should be determined by Amazon consumers, since I don't think we live in an age where Opera music is overhyped. 
 
I hardly ever listen to Classical music, so my input here may be completely off the mark.

I use his score in Charles Murray's Human Accomplishment, which measures how much space he is given across a wide variety of music encyclopedias -- how deserving he is 
 
Why is mention of a composer's worth measured by how often he is mentioned in an encyclopedia? Those renaissance composers may be mentioned because they were first, or innovative - people who write encyclopedias like to dwell on questions of origin - rather than because they are enjoyable. 
 
Reminds me of a professor in college who told us the the most important film in history was 'Birth of a Nation' - maybe it was an important film, being the first and all, but nobody would watch that today for pleasure. 
 
Anyway, one could easily make the case that the the numerator and denominator ought to be reversed, that the fundamental value should be decided by Amazon consumers rather than by encyclopedia writers.

Yeah - this isn't exclusive to Indians at all. Family legend has it that my great-grandfather knew the Torah and Talmud by heart (which sounds a bit excessive, but I wouldn't know). I suppose though that if you spent most of your waking hours studying this sort of stuff from the age of 4 to 20 then you could reach pretty impressive results.

the period between 1860 and 1960 was to some extent the south's exile from the presidency 
 
And even Lincoln was born in Kentucky (and Andrew Johnson in North Carolina).

I was looking at 'Albion's Seed' and it seems to me that the evidence for FSE aren't terribly strong. DHF presents several anecdotes about how people of non-WASP origin exhibit the folkways of the area where they settled but it doesn't seem very convincing (e.g. Barry Goldwater, of partial Jewish descent, who grew up in Arizona, arguably on the Western edge of the Borderland area of settlement, is not really a typical Jew, not even a typical Jew from the West). In any case, the 4 folkways are hardly comparable; the Cavalier & Borderland zone did not attract many immigrants at all (except for Black slaves, whose culture differed very significantly); the Quakers were never numerically significant and they weren't the dominant element in Pennsylvania, let alone in points further west. Regarding the Puritans influence on incoming immigrants, one wonders how different the Irish in Boston are from the Irish in New York or Philadelphia or Baltimore, and whether the difference is due to Puritan/Yankee input.

The McCain belt favors laws against interracial marriage, but are also the most in favor of removing racist books from libraries 
 
They are also most in favor of removing anti-religious laws. They are simply less averse to book-banning.

Looking at the 'Beaten as child or adult' stat - It seems not to include people who have never been beaten up at all - probably a plurality.

Oxford is superior to Harvard by a long shot 
 
Are you referring to Oxford, Mississippi? If not, then your point is completely irrelevant.

The word culture means two things: 
 
1. The way people do things, behave or think: In this sense of the word David Hackett Fischer would contend that all the early British migrations were culturally dominant, in the sense that later immigrants assimilated into the cultural patterns of their place of settlement. 
2. High Culture (the definition of which can be regarded as arbitrary), which the Puritans placed more of an emphasis on than the other early settler groups. 
 
(The lack of distinction between the two meanings of the word can lead to inane discussions about whether primitive peoples 'have culture'). 
 
New England Yankees could be said to be culturally-dominant in both senses of the word.

Unlike evangelical Christians in the South, Mormons do not accept with resignation that many youth may "raise hell" before settling down 
 
This article is interesting.

i think mormons tend to have an organizational genius and group coherency and power projection 
 
You keep saying this, is this relative to Southern Protestants or absolutely? Maybe Romney was the most able Republican candidate this year (and his father was similarly well-regarded), but that doesn't prove anything. I'm not aware of a Mormon who created as great a business empire as Arkansas Presbyterian Sam Walton. In terms of power projection, Mormons are certainly well-represented in the US Senate (5 of them) where the Mountain West is overrepresented, I don't think it's true of the House. (I'll grant the group coherency part). 
 
Mormonism today somewhat resembles a non-governmental version of the Swedish welfare state 
 
I imagine that you are referring to Utah's relative egalitarianism relative to the rest of the USA (richest 20% 5.9 as much income as poorest 20%). But this is nowhere near Scandinavian levels of inequality (Denmark - 4.3, Sweden - 4, Norway - 3.9). The most egalitarian country is Japan (3.4). Now the Japanese most definitely have organizational genius. Hmmn... does Nephi mention anything about this?

a cool essay by Charles Francis Adams, Jr. is a good review of the political scene, from a Mugwump New England high-Republican perspective, up to about the turn of the century. 
 
It's getting really tangential to a discussion on Mormons, but I'd also recommend this collection of NY Times presidential endorsements since 1860, seems to be a chronicle of north-eastern liberal opinion: 
 
1860-1880: Partisan Republicans. Anti-slavery and pro-reconstruction. 
 
1884-1932: Mugwumps. Pro-free trade, sound money, moderate reform, since the 20s anti-prohibition and internationalist. Endorsements go to Democrats that aren't called William Jennings Bryan. 
 
1936-1960: Centrist Internationalists: Surprisingly ambivalent about the New Deal, strongly internationalist. Endorsements are divided about equally between the two parties. 
 
1964-: Reluctant Leftists: In the face of the growing conservatism of the Republican party, the NYT is strongly committed to the Democrats.

What happened in the '30s is that the extreme progressive wing of the Republican party came up with a neat trick 
 
Can you name names? 
 
You mean, FDR? Or his advisers, like Louis Howe? 
 
FDR was elected Democratic NY State Senator in 1910. Howe was an associate of FDR from around that time. The Democratic party in 1910 was not exactly an attractive vehicle for winning Presidential Elections, having held power for a grand total of 8 years in the previous 50. If either had previously been extreme progressive republicans, I don't know, but if they were - planning the New Deal coalition that arose out of the Great Depression 20 years before it happened - that would be some neat trick! 
 
They'd already been doing it in Europe. That's basically what a Reform Jew is: a Protestant Jew 
 
Reform Judaism has nothing to do with it. Both left-wing politics and reform were responses to the identity crises that afflicted Ashkenazi Jews in the 19th century - but they were distinct responses. Central European Jews (and also pre-1880 American Jews of German descent) tended towards Reform Judaism, which indeed aped liberal protestantism. In Eastern Europe, where the mass of American Jews come from, Reform Judaism didn't exist, if they expressed dissent from traditionalist Orthodox Judaism it was usually via this or that brand of secular politics. American Jews of East European descent picked up Reform Judaism in America. 
 
That Coolidge was a New Englander did not prevent him from being elected with Midwestern votes. There were conservatives in New England, too, just not so many. 
 
Wrong. In the 1924 La Follette broke with the Conservative Republicans and ran as a Progressive; Outside the solid Democratic South, New England was his worst region. New England was Coolidge's strongest region.

DHF's folkways on the silver screen: 
 
Mr. Evans: You ever been to Lawrence young man? 
Jack Bull Chiles: No, I reckon not Mr. Evans. I don't believe I'd be too welcome in Lawrence. 
Mr. Evans: I didn't think so. Before this war began, my business took me there often. As I saw those northerners build that town, I witnessed the seeds of our destruction being sown. 
Jack Bull Chiles: The foundin' of that town was truly the beginnin' of the Yankee invasion. 
Mr. Evans: I'm not speakin' of numbers, nor even abolitionist trouble makin'. It was the schoolhouse. Before they built their church, even, they built that schoolhouse. And they let in every tailor's son... and every farmer's daughter in that country. 
Jack Bull Chiles: Spellin' won't help you hold a plow any firmer. Or a gun either. 
Mr. Evans: No, it won't Mr. Chiles. But my point is merely that they rounded every pup up into that schoolhouse because they fancied that everyone should think and talk the same free-thinkin' way they do with no regard to station, custom, propriety. And that is why they will win. Because they believe everyone should live and think just like them. And we shall lose because we don't care one way or another how they live. We just worry about ourselves. 
 
(From "Ride in the Devil" - I think anyone who finds this discussion interesting would like this movie).

the main exception i would think are the conservative calvinists associated with institutions like calvin college 
 
I'd never heard of it, but I see that its roots are in the Dutch Reformed church, it's located in Michigan, i.e. unrelated to the Southern/Scots-Irish culture.

in a word, jews are smart, mainline protestants are somewhat smart (unitarians as smart as jews) evangelicals are stupid, and white catholics average 
 
Actually I don't want to say that; maybe I want to say that conservative Catholicism has a rigorous enough intellectual tradition that is able to survive close contact with secular liberal culture, which make Conservative Catholics excellent Republican appointments to the Supreme Court. 
 
What happened in the '30s is that the extreme progressive wing of the Republican party came up with a neat trick 
 
Can you name names? 
 
And assimilationist Jews, not being stupid, realized that the most socially successful American cultural group was the one they wanted to join. Thus, they became progressives. 
 
You're getting it backwards. Jews brought their left-wing inclinations from Europe. (See the 1920 & 1948 elections).

No, it's that liberal Protestants don't set up sectarian colleges that appeal mostly to liberal Protestants. 
 
but that was their original aim. they were colleges to train sectarian ministers 
 
They weren't liberal at the time, nor were they elitist... Applying Occam's razor which Sailer loves so much, Harvard and Yale are the most elitist because they are the oldest and have managed to acquire the most prestige.

i think mormons tend to have an organizational genius and group coherency and power projection which the scot-irish and southerners lack 
 
I was thinking along similar lines regarding the composition of the Supreme Court. The conservative majority consists of 5 Catholics, the liberal minority of 2 Protestants and 2 Jews. Since the bedrock of the Conservative movement is (mostly southern) white evangelicals, the lack of any evangelicals is striking. Since nowadays you can't have mediocrities appointed to the Supreme Court, one wonders whether evangelicalism plays a part here (no offense).

One difference between Mormons and liberal Protestants descended from Puritans is the Mormons are less intellectually elitist 
 
No, it's that liberal Protestants don't set up sectarian colleges that appeal mostly to liberal Protestants. Anyway, there's no difference in this regard between originally-puritan Ivy league colleges like Harvard and Yale compared to Princeton and Columbia that don't have a puritan background.

Unlike evangelical Christians in the South, Mormons do not accept with resignation that many youth may "raise hell" before settling down. Mormons do not accept the Protestant contention that salvation is through faith alone. Behavior matters 
 
I don't agree with anti-Weberian argument there, that belief in predestination encourages bad behavior? Do you actually think that? 
 
English Puritanism tended to have its roots in areas settled by Scandinavians, such as the Danelaw region in eastern England 
 
Other parts of the British Isles, like Northern Ireland, Scotland, Northumbria, Cumberland, from where Appalachian Whites can trace their roots, also had a considerable Viking influx. Unless you someone can show any sort of continuity in East Anglia from the 9th to the 17th century, say in marriage and fertility customs, I'd say it's completely accidental.

intellectuals who had long interacted with jews against the protestant establishment were totally shocked at the turnabout. 
 
Catholics are a diverse bunch, I suppose the Irish are the most important group, but there are others - I understand that you aren't referring to Mexicans. Also, before FDR Jews weren't yet partisan Democrats (which was the natural home of Northeastern Irish Catholics), frex NY Jews didn't like the Irish Catholic-dominated Tammany and voted for the Republican La Guardia, the half-Jewish half-Italian Episcopalian. Seems to me that if there was an alliance it was a short-lived one, as Jews started moving into the Democratic Party, the Catholics were slowly starting to move out. 
 
RE: Mormon baptism of the dead, comes this particularly money quote: 
We ask you to leave our six million Jews, all victims of the Holocaust, alone, they suffered enough 
ROTFL