We knew this already...

Southerners are more polite. This from a story in the Roanoke Times.

Well we already knew this. I was born and raised in West Virginia. I have worked in Tennessee, New York, and Virginia. My experience is that people are more polite in the south. While in up state New York, Binghamton area, it was very difficult to meet people because it seemed that everyone wanted to keep to themselves. No one made eye contact, no one acknowledged you that you were present, everyone was in a hurry, and no one would talk to stangers.

Being from below the Mason-Dixon line, this was very odd to us. I have not lived in the deep South, but I believe that people are just as nice there.

However, homicide rates are higher in the south. According to the article, "The FBI reported last month that the South accounted for 43 percent of the nation's slayings in 2004, while it's home to just over a third of the U.S. population."

Why? Because "Southerners tend to be thin-skinned. Insults a New Yorker would casually shrug off would be fighting words in Birmingham, Ala."

Hmmmm.