According to the latest on Twitter, the House Republicans asked in a press conference for President Bush to call Congress for a special session. (Sweet job perk.) This follows up on public outcry to Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office that asks for her to reconvene the House and, y'know, ask politicians to do their jobs rather than hang out on vacation. Which many of us can't afford thanks to high gas prices. That Democrats want to do nothing about. In other words: same old, same old.

Why is this important?

Democrats consistently blocked energy legislation from coming to the House. Pelosi admitted that she didn't want a Republican energy plan (involving offshore drilling) coming up for a vote. Why? She's saving the planet. Also, it's her gavel and she ain't giving it away until you pry it from her cold, lifeless fingers.

Guess what, Nancy? That isn't in your job description!

It would be one thing for Democrats--and Nancy Pelosi--to oppose offshore drilling (or any energy legislation!) on its merits. It is quite another for Nancy to decide what will and won't be law, and what will and won't be considered, just because she can do it procedurally.

Paying a lot for gas makes me mad, but listening to one person ask as though she gets to decide the national agenda makes me furious. So even if you don't agree with Republicans on policy, you should agree with them on principle.

This is government by and for the people, not a dog and pony show led up by Nancy Pelosi.

The House Republicans continued their self-proclaimed revolution today. (If you haven't heard about it yet, check out posts here and here.) They say they're going to be at it all week--all month even. Nothing more "real world" than that.

House members today continue to give speeches as bloggers and Twitter-ers cover the events at a frenetic pace. The hub of the activity is DontGo.us, a handy way of compiling the tweets of everyone paying attention to the event. Since the revoluton isn't being televised, the internet is the only way the word is getting out.

But the most important part of this story is that the revolution would not be possible without the hundreds of people across the country pushing it forward. The mainstream media really isn't pushing it. Politicians have limited ways of pushing it since they're cut off from video, audio, and photos on the House floor. So it's the people typing away on their computers or furiously checking their Crackberries/PDAs that are making this happen.

We need to keep it going.

Follow the Twitter feeds. Call Nancy Pelosi (202-225-0100) and ask for a vote on energy legislation. But more than that, tell your friends and family what is happening in Washington DC.

Just because the revolution isn't being televised doesn't mean it won't be heard.

I don’t always (or, okay, usually) agree with President Bush so I’d like to enjoy this (brief) moment that I do.

From a press conference this morning about gas prices and why he wouldn’t push Americans to conserve (via Politico):
"They're [consumers are] smart enough to figure out whether they're going to drive less or not. I mean, you know, it's interesting what the price of gasoline has done," Bush said at a news conference in the White House press room, "is it caused people to drive less. That's why they want smaller cars: They want to conserve. But the consumer's plenty bright. The marketplace works.”

This reminded me of when I was in North Carolina last summer for a record-breaking drought. Local governments urged people to conserve, conserve, conserve (and made it mandatory) but did not raise prices or adopt a tiered pricing scheme. What happened? Since they didn’t take a hit in their pocketbooks, most people didn’t conserve all that very much. The people I saw really caring about each drop of precious water were the ones pumping from wells.

So what’s the point? When resources become scarce, it isn’t the government’s job to ration them—or even worry about rationing them. They’re most likely going to get it wrong and, with money and power involved, they’re most likely going to do it in a skewed, unequal way.