Does Safari handle the paste event correctly?

I think the answer, as unsatisfying as it might be, is "no". See this WebKit bug:

https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=75891

If your intention is to receive paste data into something that's not contentEditable, a text input or a text area, I don't know of any method to make the current version of Safari do this.

Update: an attempted work-around in this JSFiddle, simplified to only deal with text, does not work in Safari 6.0.5. It attempts a work-around where a hidden text field is automatically focused when Cmd-V is pressed, just in order to enable pasting in Safari. It does prevent the "you can't paste beep", but no paste event is sent and nothing is pasted into the secret input.

$(function () {
    $(window).bind('keydown', function (e) {
        // Cmd-V
        if (e.which == 86 && e.metaKey) {
            if (e.target.nodeName.toUpperCase() !== "INPUT")
                $('#secretinput').focus();
        }
    });

    $(window).bind('beforepaste', function (e) {
        return false;
    });

    $(window).bind('paste', function (e) {
        var clipboardData = e.originalEvent.clipboardData;
        console.log(clipboardData);
        $('#textdest').html(clipboardData.getData('text/plain'));
    });
});