Paul, I think you'll find that I wrote "more civilized", not "civilized". I don't think we are particularly civilized, but I think we are generally moving in that direction. I think you'll also find that I was writing about what is legal and accepted in different nations. A LOT of what the U.S. government has been doing for the last eight years is neither legal nor accepted by most of us. The Bush administration was a definite back-swing in the whole civilization department.

No matter how uncivilized we behave at any particular moment, honor killings still aren't legal here. Nor is burning school buildings full children or cutting off girls' sexual bits.