WASHINGTON, D.C. -- No one has yet commented on the obvious irony of a ten-day UN meeting convened to deplore the production of hot air. Amy Ridenour of the National Center for Public Policy Research distributed a very helpful breakdown of the amount of jet fuel required to get everyone to Kyoto and back - probably enough to power some small African nation for a month. Al Gore's plane alone required more than 65,000 gallons of jet fuel for his round trip - all for a ten-minute speech. This works out to almost 40 gallons of fuel per word. At least it was a recycled speech.

And from the looks of Gore at his brief public appearances there, you'd think the Attorney General had named an independent counsel after all. Clearly Gore is not very keen on the unpleasant reality that has intruded on his triumphal crusade to save the planet. People just have this unenlightened fondness for economic growth, which depends on energy. Why, even the labor unions have wagged their finger at Gore. And Gore's other major political donor base - the Chinese - haven't been very accommodating either. Fred Smith reports from Kyoto that, when pressed by the U.S. to accept tougher limits on greenhouse gas emissions, the Chinese delegates asked: "Do you want us to be poor forever?"

So as of press time here Monday, it seems as though the conference might adjourn with little more produced than hot air. The best case scenario all along has been that the Kyoto conference would turn out to be the environmental equivalent of health care reform. But this might also turn out to be the worst case scenario, too. Remember that although the health care grand scheme failed, we are still getting much of it in little pieces. This will be the fallback strategy for the Gore Corps. And it might actually suit Gore's political interest better anyway.

Updates: A couple of updates from recent letters. Two weeks ago in this space I tried to give "paradigm shift" the shaft, thinking that there might still be time to strangle this clich" in in its cradle. Alas, I have to recognize total defeat. A new TV ad for Lexus automobiles touts the fitness of the Lexus "because paradigms doth shift." If it has made it to the realm of TV advertising, we're finished.

Second, four weeks ago I wrote about the "Spong-Fong-Long Hong Kong Song Bill" from the 1970s. My fact-checking department in Louisville, Kentucky has a better memory than I for arcane legislation. The bill actually dealt with sales of American musical instruments in Asia (not just music, as my faulty memory recalled). So, in fact, it was called the "Spong-Fong-Long Hong Kong Gong Bill." That's okay, I told my fact-checking department: the California version was undoubtedly the "Spong-Fong-Long Hong Kong Bong Bill."

--By Steven Hayward