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Friday, April 13, 2001 1:21 P.M. EDT

Million Mom Eviction
The Million Mom March will have to leave the rent-free office space it's been using at San Francisco General Hospital after a pro-gun activist revealed "what he said were unapproved taxpayer subsidies--meaning free rent--going toward the ailing gun-control organization," the San Francisco Examiner reports. The Associated Press reports, meanwhile, that the number of gun-related deaths in America declined 26% between 1993 and 1998, according to a Centers for Disease Control study.

Riots in Cincinnati
Cincinnati has been rocked by riots all week. The violence began Monday night, three days after a Cincinnati cop fatally shot an unarmed black man who was wanted on 14 misdemeanor warrants, including receiving stolen goods. "The worst of the disturbances were reported Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning, when stores were looted and set on fire and people were pulled from their cars and beaten," WLWT-TV reports.

Police arrested 94 people last night for violating an 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew, WLWT reports. The curfew will continue tonight. Mayor Charles Luken is talking with the governor's office about calling in the National Guard; the state has already sent in 75 highway patrol officers to help stop the looting and the clashes between police and bands of youth.

Making Pardons Pay
Denise Rich is looking to get richer. The ex-wife of the pardoned fugitive Marc Rich is shopping a book telling her story. The New York Daily News's Mitchell Fink reports that Denise Rich's agent "is in final negotiations with a New York publisher for a deal that sources tell me could net the New York-based composer and society fixture a high-six-figure fee."

Hillary's First Hundred Days
The "first hundred days" of a presidential administration has become something of a cliché, but we've never heard of a mere senator getting the first-hundred-days treatment--until now. The New York Times publishes, on its front page no less, an article (link requires registration) about the "mundane" life of New York's junior senator, who tries her hand at comedy: " 'I'm a measured kind of person,' she said playfully. 'I carry around a little measuring cup, a little measuring spoon.' " Hey Hillary, keep your day job.

Not that Hillary can't be funny at times. Reason magazine unearths a hilarious quote from a March 1 Hillary floor speech (it appears in the May issue of the magazine but not on its Web site): "No one should have to leave their hometown, their families and their roots to find a good job in America."

Bill Clinton vs. the New Black Panthers
Not everyone in Harlem is thrilled about the impending arrival of Hillary's husband. Reuters reports the New Black Panther Party is protesting Bill Clinton's plans to open an office on 125th Street. "Poor blacks and black businesses are being pushed out of Harlem in favor of elite whites," says party spokesman Malik Zulu Shabazz. "Bill Clinton is a perfect symbol of the reality of the white takeover. He is opening the floodgates now for complete gentrification of Harlem."

Federally Approved Washing Machines
The Bush administration approves standards proposed by the Clinton administration that would require improvements in the energy efficiency of washing machines and water heaters. The Energy Department estimates the cost of the improvements will add $240 to the price of a new washing machine, the Associated Press reports. The Mercatus Center, which tracks government regulations, dissects the folly of the Department of Energy's standards:

DOE's proposed standards for clothes washers would take away consumer choice by eliminating the most popular (vertical-axis) washing machine models. The standards would force Americans to buy washing machines that DOE estimates will be 57 percent more expensive than machines today, with fewer of the attributes consumers seek. DOE claims that mandating washing machine specifications is necessary to save consumers money through lower operating costs over the life of the machine. Yet, manufacturers currently offer energy- and water-efficient washing machines that would meet the new standards (and, by Doe's calculus, save consumers money), but only five percent of consumers choose to buy them. . . .

Doe's conclusion that more energy-efficient machines will save operating costs assumes the machine will wash 392 loads of laundry per year over more than 14 years. Our analysis suggests that consumers who wash under six loads per week would actually lose money, as well as convenience, if DOE imposes the proposed mandate.

As a follow-up measure, the Mercatus Center commissioned a poll by Rasmussen Research. Here's how Mercatus described the survey's findings: "When faced with the simple question of whether they would favor or oppose a regulation that effectively eliminated top-loading washer models, consumers expressed opposition by a ratio of six to one. Even when informed that the mandated machines would have lower operating costs and greater energy efficiency, respondents still opposed the regulation by a margin of 2.6 to one. When asked whether the savings predicted by DOE would be a 'good deal,' respondents replied in the negative by a ratio of almost two to one."

'Bush Is Right About Arsenic'
Slate's Michael Kinsley acknowledges that Bush was right to roll back Clinton administration regulations on arsenic in drinking water, an action that has prompted more hysteria from Kinsley's fellow liberals than anything Bush has done at least since last month. Kinsley notes that the overturned regulation would have cost, by the government's own estimate, $7.5 million for each life saved. (An AEI-Brookings study puts the cost much higher--$65 million--and says the rule would have cost as many lives as it saved.)

Kinsley imagines a scene in which Laura Bush is urging the president to come to bed, and he says: "Honey, could you bring me that epidemiological study? It's over there on top of my pocket calculator." Then Kinsley quips: "More likely, Bush stumbled or was blindsided into this heroic and correct application of his own principles."

Ha ha, we get it--Bush isn't very bright! Isn't this about the 1,381st time some variation of that joke has appeared on Slate? Someone, please, ship the boys in Seattle some new material!

Dispatch From the Porn Belt
"Teachers should freely discuss gays in history, portray images of lesbians and bisexuals on classroom walls, and establish a clear rest room policy if any kid at school happens to have had a sex-change operation." These are the recommendations of a committee in California (Gore by 11.8%) set up to recommend how to carry out a law banning discrimination based on sexual orientation and "gender identity," the San Francisco Chronicle Reports.

Beverly Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition tells the Chronicle that "the state is forcing students to think that homosexuality is moral." We're against discrimination too, but it's hard to disagree with Sheldon's point. If "images of lesbians and bisexuals on classroom walls" are an appropriate way to fight discrimination against homosexuals, why not also combat religious discrimination by posting the Ten Commandments on public-school classroom walls?

Speaking of Social Conservatives . . .
Ralph Reed, former executive director of the Christian Coalition, is running for chairman of the Republican Party in Georgia. The Washington Post reports that after one poll by Tony Fabrizio showed that voters would be less likely to support a Republican candidate if they knew Reed was the party's state chairman, Reed allies hired another Republican pollster, Ed Goeas, to critique Fabrizio's poll. The Goeas critique described the Fabrizio poll as "anti-Christian bigotry."

Comedy Is Not Pretty
Asian-American journalists are upset over an appearance by the Capitol Steps singing comedy group at the American Society of Newspaper Editors convention, the Washington Post's "Reliable Source" column reports. Amy Leang, an intern covering the event for the convention newspaper, reports that she saw "white males impersonating a Chinese official and his translator. The Chinese official sported a black wig and thick glasses and spoke in a disconcerting version of 'Chinese.' 'Ching ching chong chong,' the man shouted as he gestured wildly with his hands." She says she woke up crying the next morning, "angry and hurt."

"This is a comedy show," says Capitol Steps performer Mark Eaton. "We're not into making policy statements. We're trying to make people laugh." The skit will stay in the show as long as China stays in the news, Eaton says.

Last week we noted a quip by National Review's Jonah Goldberg, who wrote of the China-U.S. military standoff: "I will be in favor of apologizing the moment they apologize for all of those menus they keep leaving outside my front door." We found this funny precisely because it's such a preposterous non sequitur, but the folks at AsianAvenue.com apparently didn't get the joke. "In an act of public service," the site declares, "AsianAvenue.com is collecting Chinese take-out menus to send to Mr. Goldberg and the National Review on behalf of its members. Hopefully, they will notice that the Chinese menus left at their doorstep are from Asian American establishments and not from China."

Zero-Tolerance Watch
Seventeen-year-old Ben Jamieson had already served a five-day suspension for an obnoxious prank: "He leaped into a giant cake celebrating Lassiter High School's 20th anniversary, splattering white-and-burgundy frosting before a crowd of dignitaries." He had written a letter of apology to principal Charles Lee, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

But after the suspension was over, he and his mother went to the Marietta, Ga., school for a meeting with Lee. At the meeting, the principal had Jamieson arrested and taken to the Cobb County Jail, "where he sat for six hours with drug and traffic offenders." After superintendent Joe Redden intervened on Jamieson's behalf, prosecutors declined to press charges.

In Oklahoma, two Stillwater Junior High students have been suspended for "allegedly bringing a paintball gun to school," the Stillwater NewsPress reports. "At no time was any student or staff member at risk," a statement by assistant superintendent Deborah Reed acknowledges. "The weapon was inoperable. The barrel and hand pieces were not assembled and were in possession of two different students." Nonetheless, the two students out of school "awaiting a disciplinary hearing in accordance with district policy, state and federal statutes."

A 16-year-old girl at Pasco High School in Washington state was "emergency expelled" after someone found a sheet of paper taped to a rest-room stall. "At the top were the words 'Hit List,' followed by the names of about 20 students and teachers," the Tri-City Herald reports. "There were no overt acts or intended acts described on this list," Pasco police captain Jim Raymond acknowledges. "It was just a list of names. The student was identified and is being dealt with by the school district."

Across the pond, an 11-year-old English boy is to be tried for "racially aggravated assault," the Times of London reports. "The overweight boy was allegedly likened to a Teletubby by a pupil at his school in Suffolk. He allegedly retaliated by punching the Asian boy twice in the back and calling him a 'Paki bastard.' "

The London Times also reports zero tolerance has come to the White House, a venue where, we'll admit, there's good reason to be hypersensitive about security. "Children attending the annual White House Easter Egg Roll . . . will be frisked for stun guns by the Secret Service." Also banned from the youngsters' Easter baskets, according to this list published by ABCNews.com: "fireworks/firecrackers," "guns/ammunition," "knives with blades over three inches" and "nunchucks." No word what the million moms think of all this.

(Thanks to Jim Wickenhiser, Brian Jones, Susan Reardon, Russell Simkins, Sheldon Townsend, Mike Daley and Tim McLendon. If you have a tip for Best of the Web Today, e-mail us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)