Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho, My Visa Credit Line is Running Low

In what may be the most "Bloombergian" idea ever, the City of New York is attempting to buy off protestors coming to New York (and face it, unlike the DNC convention, they are coming in droves) by offering them discount coupons if they wear this button.

Law-abiding protesters will be given buttons that bear a fetching rendition of the Statue of Liberty holding a sign that reads, "peaceful political activists." Protesters can present the buttons at places like the Whitney Museum, the Museum of Sex, the Pokémon Center store and such restaurants as Miss Mamie's Spoonbread Too and Applebee's to save some cash during their stay.

If only the Romanovs had thought of this.

"It's no fun to protest on an empty stomach," Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said yesterday, when he announced the program at NYC & Company, the city's tourism office, which will distribute the buttons to all comers to its Midtown office.

Okay, the Romanov joke pisses me off because it makes the Louis XVI joke I was going to make superfluous. News reporters should NOT out-snark bloggers!

What I love is the fact that the newspaper article says that the package is similar to the package offered RNC convention delegates, with some notable exceptions. For example, RNC delegates get a discount at the Museum of Natural History instead of the Museum of Sex.

By the way, how many quarters does one need to visit the Museum of Sex, and rather than an admission, wouldn't it be better to call it a "browsing fee"?