The joy of being Mark Steyn is never conceding error. Here's his response:
Conor Friedersdorf demolishes our argument by pulling up yellowing Times thumbsuckers from ten years ago about "honor killings" in the Arab world, Turkey, Pakistan - and, eventually, Berlin.
I think Friedersdorf, in his usual pedantic way, has not refuted my point but reinforced it: The Times was more enthusiastic about covering "honor killings" when they were way out on the fringes of the map and could be used for a distant anthropological study of remote tribal cultures. Now they're happening down the block in Buffalo, Peoria and Kingston, Ontario, and raise complicating questions for the prevailing pieties on diversity, multiculturalism, immigration, assimilation et al, questions for which most of the liberal press has no stomach.
...Why aren't Noor Almaleki and Aasiya Hassan as famous as Matthew Shepard?
Conor stands by his point. Steyn's notion that he was only concerned with MSM "silence" on honor killings in the US is pedantry when you read the post, and his previous fulminations. But even if we concede this tap-dance, he's still flat-wrong. The reason that Noor Almaleki and Aasiya Hassan are less famous than Matthew Shepard is because almost no murder victim is as famous as Matthew Shepard - well, maybe Natalee Holloway. They're white, Mr Steyn. That's why they're more famous. Unfair and wrong - but fame in America is often like that.
And on the key point, he's wrong again. Silence? Here's the coverage of the Noor Almaleki case by the biggest newspaper in the state where the murder occurred:
10/29/2009 -- Subtracting 'honor' from 'honor killing.'
10/30/2009 -- Glendale man accused of running over daughter found.
11/02/2009 -- Woman in Suspected Honor Killing Dies.
11/06/2009 -- Glendale honor killing victim, 20, just wanted to be normal.
12/21/2009 -- Glendale dad accused in honor killing faces murder charge.
01/13/2010 -- Religion issue raised in case of Glendale man in 'honor killing.'
02/19/10 -- Dad accused in 'honor killing' will not face death penalty.
04/10/2010 -- Police: 'Honor Killing' suspect may have been aided by family.
Again, this is silence? Or just take yesterday, in Canada's own biggest paper, the Globe and Mail. Here's the editorial - on honor killings in Canada, Steyn's home country:
Canadian justice needs to be unyielding with those who kill women and children for what they deem to be culturally appropriate reasons. There is reason to question whether it gave too much ground, in the murder of 16-year-old Aqsa Parvez of Mississauga, Ont., by her father, Muhammad Parvez, and her brother, Waqas.
So the test of epistemic closure at NRO is concluded.