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Bob Costas, the longtime sportscaster for NBC, had some choice words for the gun culture in America at tonight's halftime of the Eagles-Cowboys game. Costas' remarks will infuriate conservatives and gun nuts. He cited this piece (In KC, it's no time for a game) by Fox Sports' Jason Whitlock, who expressed contempt for the NFL's decision to have Kansas City play on Sunday after the murder-suicide..

BOB COSTAS: Well, you knew it was coming. In the aftermath of the nearly unfathomable events in Kansas City, that most mindless of sports clichés was heard yet again: something like this really puts it all in perspective. Well, if so, that sort of perspective has a very short shelf-life since we will inevitably hear about the perspective we have supposedly again regained the next time ugly reality intrudes upon our games.

Please, those who need tragedies to continually recalibrate their sense of proportion about sports would seem to have little hope of ever truly achieving perspective. You want some actual perspective on this?

Well, a bit of it comes from the Kansas City-based writer Jason Whitlock with whom I do not always agree, but who today said it so well that we may as well just quote or paraphrase from the end of his article.

“Our current gun culture,” Whitlock wrote, “ensures that more and more domestic disputes will end in the ultimate tragedy, and that more convenience-store confrontations over loud music coming from a car will leave more teenage boys bloodied and dead."

“Handguns do not enhance our safety. They exacerbate our flaws, tempt us to escalate arguments, and bait us into embracing confrontation rather than avoiding it. In the coming days, Jovan Belcher’s actions, and their possible connection to football, will be analyzed. Who knows?"

“But here,” wrote Jason Whitlock, “is what I believe. If Jovan Belcher didn’t possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today.”

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As Karoli noted, it seems tweeting about Kansas Governor Sam Brownback gets you a trip to the principal's office if the governor's staff happen to be reading your remarks and don't like them. As NBC action news reported earlier last week, eighteen-year-old Emma Sullivan had not yet decided if she was going to issue the requested apology to the governor's office. The good news is, it appears she has now made her decision and the answer is no.

h/t The Political Carnival

Teen tweeter won't apologize to Kan. governor:

A Kansas teenager who wrote a disparaging tweet about Gov. Sam Brownback said Sunday that she is rejecting her high school principal's demand for a written apology.

Emma Sullivan, 18, of the Kansas City suburb of Fairway, said she isn't sorry and doesn't think such a letter would be sincere.

The Shawnee Mission East senior was taking part in a Youth in Government program last week in Topeka, Kan., when she sent out a tweet from the back of a crowd of students listening to Brownback's greeting. From her cellphone, she thumbed: "Just made mean comments at gov. brownback and told him he sucked, in person (hash)heblowsalot."

She actually made no such comment and said she was "just joking with friends." But Brownback's office, which monitors social media for postings containing the governor's name, saw Sullivan's post and contacted the Youth in Government program.

Sullivan received a scolding at school and was ordered to send Brownback an apology letter. She said Prinicipal Karl R. Krawitz even suggested talking points for the letter she was supposed to turn in Monday.

The situation exploded after Sullivan's older sister contacted the media. Since then, Sullivan's following on Twitter has grown to about 3,000 people, up from about 65 before the tweet. She said she thinks the tweet has helped "open up dialogue" about free speech in social media..

"I would do it again," she said. Read on...

UPDATED: Wow. Not only did Sullivan not have to apologize, but she got a rather stand up apology from none other than Sam Brownback himself.

Brownback issued a statement attempting to put an end to the media circus.

"My staff over-reacted to this tweet and for that I apologize," Brownback said. "Freedom of speech is among our most treasured freedoms."

I'd say this is one for the Foo Fighters, zippo for the Westboro Baptist Church hate mongers who decided they weren't too happy with the recent video from the Foo Fighters to promote their fall concert tour.

From Balloon Juice -- Foo Fighters Counter-Protest Westboro Baptist Church at Westboro Baptist Church’s Protest of Foo Fighters Concert:

If you haven’t heard, the Foo Fighters created a video called Hot Buns to promote their fall tour:

The Hot Buns video begins innocently enough. Four hillbilly-attired Foo Fighters are chowing down at a truck stop.

Then they head to the showers, soap up, shake their naked backsides and spoof a gay porn film to the strains of Queen’s Body Language.

The viral sensation, created to promote the rock band’s fall tour, drew immediate and widespread reaction from fans. And one response from an open foe. The anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church, notorious for picketing at military funerals, plans to descend upon the Foos’ second tour stop Friday night in Kansas City, Mo.

“I can’t wait,” says Dave Grohl, who hatched the idea for the video after a bus break years ago at a truck stop where drivers lined up for a turn at hot showers. “You know you’ve arrived when they start picketing your shows.”

[...]

Anyway, Fred Phelps and his merry band of a**holes made good on their promise to protest the Foo Fighters show in Kansas City, but the Foo Fighters were ready for them:

As expected, the WBC showed up to protest the show yesterday (Sept. 16) afternoon. What they didn’t expect, however, was a truck-pulled float carrying all five members of Foo Fighters dressed in trucker outfits and wigs identical to those they donned in their recent ‘Hot Buns’ video. The band played the country parody song ‘Keep It Clean,’ heard in the video, skewering the protesters as they looked on with their picket signs in hand.

Safe for work video of the Foo Fighters counter-protest above. Not safe for work video that got the "God hates fags" group at Westboro so worked up to begin with below the fold.

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