Bloomberg won’t compromise on Central Park…

…but he is offering protesters discounts on meals, museums and office supplies, among other things — as long as they promise to remain peaceful.

And as long as they’re willing to wear a button identifying themselves as “Peaceful Political Activists.”

Seriously.

In a transparently mercantile bid to keep protesters from disrupting the Republican National Convention later this month, the Bloomberg administration will offer “peaceful political activists” discounts at select hotels, museums, stores and restaurants around town during convention week, which begins Aug. 29.

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.

(Parenthetical aside: you know, the Whitney, the Museum of Sex, the Pokemon store — places like that!)

“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.

Protesters can also get the buttons from groups that have a legal permit to rally. But Mr. Bloomberg conceded yesterday that not everyone who wore a button would be strictly vetted for his or her peacefulness. “Unfortunately, we can’t stop an anarchist from getting a button,” he said, though he doubted any of them would want to wear one.

The dummy

Back in the summer of 2001, I did a cartoon which portrayed George Bush as a ventriloquist’s dummy sitting in Dick Cheney’s lap. So when I found out that a company called Great Lakes Science and Novelty was making George Bush dummies for real, I immediately sent them an email. And the happy result is that I, too, can now put words in George Bush’s mouth.

Bandwidth

I’m suddenly getting killed on bandwidth overages and can’t figure out why. Some kind readers have offered me alternate space on their servers, but it’s going to take me time to get things shifted around, assuming I can even figure out what needs to be moved. In the meantime, this site is going on reserve power — I’m shutting down most of the sidebar stuff for the time being.

…update — I believe I have located the problem, or at least a problem. But I’m going to leave the various pages down for a few days just to make sure.

O’Reilly’s really nuts

Catch the Krugman/O’Reilly thing on Russert’s show on MSNBC CNBC if you get the chance. Krugman looks vaguely uncomfortable, as anyone who doesn’t spend a lot of time in front of the camera tends to — but O’Reilly’s just nuts. Over the top bully boy crap. I don’t know what form it will eventually take, but he’s a meltdown waiting to happen.