KEITH OLBERMANN: Thurber turns an ordinary English-to-French phrasebook into a masterpiece of panic and the angst of travel. Next, in "There's No Place Like Home."
First, because these are the masters of inducing panic, here are "Countdown's" top three nominees for today's "Worst Persons in the World."
The bronze? To Billo the Clown. This isn't about assault with an umbrella — the Bill "Mary Poppins" O'Reilly story. This is about the annual farce that is his coverage of something happening only in his own mind, "The War on Christmas." Please, sir, clean up your own house before you waste everybody else's time.
The invitation to the Republican National Committee "GOP Holiday Party." Not Christmas party. Holiday party. Held at the U.S. freakin' Chamber of Commerce, no less.
The War on Christmas? The one conducted by the Republican Party, hmm?
The runner-up? Sean Hannity of the political whorehouse that is Fox News.
If you are not sufficiently prepared for this next clip, you will either A) go insane, or B) conclude you are having an acid flashback, even if the strongest drug you've ever taken is NyQuil. Just prepare yourself. It doesn't have to make sense. It doesn't have to maintain any thread of logic. It is said by Republicans for Republicans.
This is Hannity and a couple of generic right wingers, plus Joe Trippi, complaining that the killing of Osama bin Laden has been left off the list of the top ten stories of 2011. Because, as we all know, bin Laden was killed by President George W. Bush. Roll 'em:
(Excerpt from video clip) JOE TRIPPI: Where is Osama bin Laden? Barack Obama and — getting Osama bin Laden?
(Excerpt from video clip) SEAN HANNITY: Thanks to George Bush.
(Excerpt from video clip) MAN: Well — exactly and intelligence that George Bush built up, busting that porn king —
(Excerpt from video clip) JOE TRIPPI: I can't — "Time" magazine —
(Excerpt from video clip) MAN: Osama bin Laden was huge.
(Excerpt from video clip) HANNITY: Yeah, he was.
(Excerpt from video clip) MAN: That's the story of the year.
(Excerpt from video clip) HANNITY: You'd give credit to Bush because, if Obama had his way, we wouldn't have gotten bin Laden. You know that.
OLBERMANN: It doesn't have to make sense. It's being said to Republicans.
But our winner — in the largest margin ever in "Worst Persons" — the architectural firm MVRDV of Rotterdam, in Holland. It has designed two adjoining apartment buildings for a project called Yongsan Dreamhub in Seoul.
MVRDV has a history of unique designs, especially connected buildings. One of these buildings is about 70 stories, the other is about 80. And at the 27th floor, they're connected by what the Dutch architects call a "pixilated cloud" that will contain an atrium, a fitness center, swimming pools, restaurants, conference centers — and one horrific reminder of 9/11.
Yep. That's what they want to build. The "pixilated cloud." Needless to say, MVRDV has gotten a little blowback on this and they're still kind of lost in their own cloud.
For while a statement reads "We sincerely apologize to anyone whose feelings we have hurt, the design was not meant to provoke this." It also claims "the cloud was designed based on parameters such as sunlight, outside spaces, living quality for inhabitants and the city. It is one of many projects in which MVRD . . . experiments with a raised city level to reinvent the often-solitary technology. . . "
Shut up! As the son of an architect, I say, "Change it — you look like ghouls."
As to the South Korean developers and whether or not they're actually going to build this thing, MVRDV spokesperson Isabel Pagel says "The client has not made a decision yet." Yeah, I think they have.
But the dumbest remark yet is to be found inside that statement from MVRDV: "It was not our intention to create an image resembling the attacks nor did we see the resemblance during the design process."
I dunno, maybe that is a silver lining inside this cloud. Maybe the world has so moved on that you could really be old enough to be an architect right now without having a clear mental picture of the towers belching black smoke. But even if that's true, two words for those fortunate souls — too soon.
Architects MVRDV of Rotterdam — today's "Worst Persons in the World."
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