Offensive new Japanese building - a must see; Obama's Global Poverty Act; Say goodbye to the 100 watt bulb; Unions now oppose Occupy's shutdown of seaports; No prosecutions on Wall St.; UK police to test laser that blinds rioters; Internet piracy bill; Bible forbidden for Walter Reed patients; International Climate Court of Justice proposed; Attach Watch fails; DNC to forbid "occupation" of national convention; Another flash mob robs luxury store; The power of "collective power";

 
The Blaze reports:  

The most offensive building ever? South Korea’s 9/11

It’s quite a unique design but it so clearly looks like the World Trade Centers when they were attacked by terrorists on 9/11/01. Is this building – which is still on track for construction – a purposeful slam on America? Is it a celebration of the terrorist attacks that killed 3,000 innocent Americans?

Since initially reporting this story, The Blaze has learned that an apology has been issued:

Since the posting of this story, MVRDV has issued a statement of apology (be sure to click “read” on the site to see the statement) over the design. The design company writes “MVRDV regrets deeply any connotations The Cloud projects evokes regarding 9/11. 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 MVRDV experiments with a raised city level to reinvent the often solitary typology of the skyscraper. It was not our intention to create an image resembling the attacks nor did we see the resemblance during the design process. We sincerely apologize to anyone whose feelings we have hurt, it was not our intention.”

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According to the New York Times: While as President, Barack Obama has been lukewarm on the topic of global taxation, he is a supporter of giving more of America’s money to other nations. As a senator in 2008, according to Accuracy in Media, Barack Obama sponsored the Global Poverty Act, which would have committed the U.S. to spending 0.7 percent of GNP (or $845 billion over a 13-year period) on foreign aid.
Inexplicably, ever since the #Occupy movement, union bosses and their bought-and-paid for Democrat politicians launched the Robin Hood tax and spend plan, there has been no widespread condemnation.  http://www.redstate.com/laborunionreport/2011/12/11/implementing-an-international-irs-in-the-name-of-robin-hood/
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The New York Post: On New Year’s Day, in addition to a hangover, America will wake up in the pale winter light to one grim consequence of the Bush administration’s never-requited desire to be loved by the left: the traditional 100-watt light bulb will be banned for sale in the United States.
At the height of the panic over “man-caused global warming” (one of history’s greatest frauds), lawmakers felt compelled to be seen to do something, and Edison’s bright bulb made a handy fall guy.
In 2007, Congress passed and Bush signed the Energy Independence and Security Act, mandating a 27 percent increase in light-bulb-energy efficiency by 2014. The theory: Force the world to swap its incandescent bulbs for compact fluorescent bulbs and other types of lighting, and carbon-dioxide emissions would be reduced by . . . wait for it . . . a whopping 1 percent.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/gray_dawn_green_bulbs_black_hole_7nwjh5PDMTDwK8vXu7uB3J#ixzz1gK5CM7Ct

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San Francisco Gate reports: Occupy Oakland's plan to shut down the city's bustling port on Monday for the second time in as many months is facing a complicating wrinkle nowhere in sight last time - opposition from several unions and some within the Occupy movement itself.
The Alameda County Building and Construction Trades Council's secretary-treasurer, Andreas Cluver, said many of his union's workers were recently hired at port building projects after long stretches on unemployment. Given that, a port shutdown aimed at punishing the 1 percent "makes no sense," he said.
He said no union at the port supports the shutdown.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/12/10/MN2G1MAO6E.DTL#ixzz1gK6kngum

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STEVE KROFT (TO PRESIDENT OBAMA): One of the things that surprised me the most about this poll is that when asked who your policies favor the most, 42 percent said Wall Street. Only 35 percent said average Americans. My suspicion is, some of that may have to do with the fact that there's not been any prosecutions, criminal prosecutions, of people on Wall Street. And that the civil charges that have been brought have often resulted in what many people think have been a slap on the wrist, fines. Are you disappointed by that?

There was an astonishingly revealing moment on Sunday's 60 Minutes when President Obama said, "Some of the most damaging behavior on Wall Street, in some cases, some of the least ethical behavior on Wall Street, wasn't illegal."
For what should be obvious reasons, CBS's Steve Kroft didn't bother asking his guest who created, voted for or signed the pieces of legislation that allowed this "damaging behavior on Wall Street" to be legal
Imagine for a moment you were Kroft, and the President of the United States - who has been blaming all the country's problems on Wall Street for years - admitted "that some of the most damaging behavior on Wall Street, in some cases, some of the least ethical behavior on Wall Street, wasn't illegal."
Wouldn't you ask him when such behaviors became legal and who was responsible for the legislation?
Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2011/12/11/obama-tells-60-minutes-damaging-behavior-wall-street-legal-wasnt-aske#ixzz1gK7wT0A2
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UK Telegraph reports: Police to test laser that 'blinds rioters'

A shoulder-mounted laser that emits a blinding wall of light capable of repelling rioters is to be trialled by police under preparations to prevent a repeat of this summer's looting and arson. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8949060/Police-to-test-laser-that-blinds-rioters.html

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The Hill reports: What began as an attempt to restrain foreign piracy on the Internet has morphed into a domestic “kill switch” on First Amendment freedom in the fastest-growing corner of the marketplace of ideas.
Proposed federal legislation purporting to protect online intellectual property would also impose sweeping new government mandates on internet service providers – a positively Orwellian power grab that would permit the U.S. Justice Department to shut down any internet site it doesn’t like (and cut off its sources of income) on nothing more than a whim. http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/technology/198687-internet-piracy-bill-a-free-speech-kill-switch
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Townhall reports: Walter Reed Chief of Staff C.W. Callahan issued a memo in September which said: "No religious items (i.e. Bibles, reading material, and/or artifacts) are allowed to be given away or used during a visit."
Rep. King, who serves on the House Subcommittee on the Constitution, conveyed the gravity:
"The idea that these soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines that have fought to defend our Constitution, and that includes our First Amendment rights to religious liberty –would be denied that religious liberty when they are lying in a hospital bed recovering from wounds incurred while defending that liberty is the most bitter and offensive type of an irony that I can think of."
The policy was rescinded, but that it happened at all is a reminder of the culture that  Mr. Obama has fostered in the armed forces and executive agencies, where extreme environmentalism, moral relativism, and sexual immorality have replaced traditional American values.  We shouldn’t really be surprised when a bureaucrat tries to bar Bibles in a U.S. military stateside hospital while other bureaucrats make sure that terrorists in Guantanamo Bay get copies of the Koran.
The second news item was Hillary Clinton’s speech in Geneva on Dec. 6 announcing that American taxpayers will be paying for homosexual activism around the world through a $3 million Global Equality Fund. That’s right. In a time when the United States is facing massive debt, plus a rising China and militant Islam, we’re going to use foreign aid money to promote “gay rights” to the world.
The third item is the Food and Drug Administration's evil idea to allow the Plan B "morning after pill" to be sold over the counter to anyone – regardless of age. After the story hit the fan, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sibelius issued a directive on Dec. 7 to stop it. http://townhall.com/columnists/robertknight/2011/12/13/obamas_war_on_truth_and_decency/page/full/
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InfoWars reports: UN

“International Climate Court of Justice” would force western nations to pay “climate debt”

Bureaucrats at the UN Climate Summit in Durban have outlined plans for the most draconian, harebrained and madcap climate change treaty ever produced, under which the west would be mandated to respect “the rights of Mother Earth” by paying a “climate debt” which would act as a slush fund for bankrolling an all-powerful world government.

Even as the tattered shreds of whatever credibility global warming alarmists had left evaporate in the aftermath of Climategate 2.0, the monstrous bureaucracy behind ManBearPig continues to lurch forward.

- The treaty calls for the west to achieve a 50% CO2 emissions reduction within the next eight years, a feat that would completely bankrupt the global economy and spark a new great depression, as well as a “more than 100%” reduction by 2050, which presumably could only be accomplished by killing billions of humans to prevent them from exhaling carbon dioxide.

“So, no motor cars, no coal-fired or gas-fired power stations, no aircraft, no trains. Back to the Stone Age, but without even the right to light a carbon-emitting fire in your caves,” writes Monckton.

- The text calls for a 2 degree Celsius drop in global temperatures, which as Monckton points out “would kill hundreds of millions” and herald a new ice age. http://www.infowars.com/un-calls-for-eco-fascist-world-government-at-durban-summit/

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Washington Examiner reports: In mid-September, President Obama's campaign launched "AttackWatch" to rebut political attacks on President Obama by the media and other candidates. The push, which includes a website and a Twitter feed, received instant ridicule from conservatives and inspired a satirical introduction video that quickly went viral. The whole thing brought back memories of the Obama White House searching for "fishy" emails about Obamacare.
But it looks like the false attacks either aren't coming in or haven't been a priority. The Twitter feed has been silent now for nearly three weeks, and the website hasn't been updated for the same amount of time. http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/attackwatch-done/247836
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NY Magazine reports: In John Heilemann's cover story "2012=1968?," he wonders whether Occupy Wall Street protesters will do to Charlotte's Democratic National Convention in the summer of 2012 what demonstrators did to the Chicago DNC in 1968. The North Carolina city, sometimes called the "Wall Street of the South," is not taking any chances, and is already working to pass an ordinance that would make occupying downtown spaces with tents a "public nuisance," in addition to banning "noxious substances," padlocks, and other camping equipment. The fact that it would knock out the city's current overnight demonstrators is an added bonus. http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/12/charlotte-prepping-for-ows-at-dnc.html
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ABC reports another "flash mob": A swarm of thieves were caught on camera rushing into a luxury accessories store and grabbing whatever they could get their hands on. It was a bold robbery that was over in a matter of seconds.
They're often called flash mob robberies where criminals use strength in numbers to get in and out in a matter of seconds with loads of loot.
Early Wednesday morning, the upscale Hermes of Paris store on Post Oak was targeted by nearly a dozen people. Now we're getting a look at the surveillance video. http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news%2Flocal&id=8460708&rss=rss-ktrk-article-8460708&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+abc13houstonnews+%28abc13.com+-+Houston+News%29
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Salon writes: In the Dec. 12 port shutdown campaign, the rank and file are leading organized labor, not the other way around.

As Occupy Wall Street groups stretching from San Diego to Anchorage mobilize for a multi-port shutdown of the North American West Coast, union members are finding the mobilization offers more than just support against union busting and unfair contracts. Activists and rank-and-file workers say the movement is teaching them what the bureaucratic infrastructure of organized labor has made them forget: collective power.
 http://www.salon.com/2011/12/09/occupy_vs_big_labor/

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