This is very, very DUMB. It would be a nightmare and expensive to administer. A much sounder method would be to apply a carbon tax to fuel equivalent to $1/gal. Make it not included in general revenue. Only used for cash for clunkers, insulating inefficient houses and apts (with no interest loans) curtail the old fuel assistnce programs and instead fix the houses of low income homeowners (include a beefed up system to get fraud and make it a federal crime). Every barrel of oil not used is $100 off the flow of cash out of the country. The jobs created are in country and furthermore are the most valuable ones. Jobs that are doable by any unemployed person without collage. Also, I think that money expended for this turns over several times and thus it increases tax revenue to the general fund and to states. Because they are employed at fair wages they do not need food stamps, assisted housing etc. Oh by the way a few percent of money sent to the middle east for oil winds up in Osama (used to any way), so we cut down on that problem a little. Also some guy on the weather channel replying to a question by NBC as to what caused the tornadoes and flooding, said when you heat up the ocean and the gulf, you put more water in the air. When that water vapor condenses it releases >500 cal/gram of water. This is over five times what is needed to raise a gram of water from 0 to 100 Celsius. Heat feeds tornadoes and thunderstorms. So reducing the amount of oil burned helps, besides oil is too valuable as a feed stock for plastics, etc.

The US is a republic. There are no functioning democracies in the world to-day. The last true democracy was ancient Greece. There are several representative democracies such as Canada, Great Britain, Australia, New Z eland. I'm not sure about South Africa. This type of democratic form is distinguished by an upper limit to the term of the elected representative body (Canada is five years). There is no lower limit (I'll illuminate later). The party which gains the majority of seats forms the government. If no party does , a coalition with some similarity of interests may combine to form a working majority. This majority then forms the cabinet (Defence, State etc). The government thus formed proposes legislation. If it carries, it becomes law. If not there must be a vote of confidence in the government. If that fails, a general election is called and all members of the commons must stand for re-election. The most notable instance of this occurred in Canada when the Diefenbaker government failed and an election was required. The ruling majority can also call an election if it feels that it is in a favorable electoral position. If this occurs and the ploy works the term limit is renewed. The House of Lords is a lifetime post. It can sdefeat a law by the commons, but if it is re-submitted (I believe 3 times), it becomes law. Thus it serves as a tempering influence. The distinguishing difference between this system and the US is that is precludes divided government which can occur when there are fixed term lengths. The founding fathers tied to fix this by setting limits on the commons (Representatives-2 yrs) and the lords (Senate-6 yrs) and the king (President-4 yrs). By the way, in Canada the king is replaced by the Governor General (appointed by the Queen of England from a list submitted by the Canadian government. This function in England is performed by the Queen. The purpose is to provide for institutional memory. The GovGen has no real power and is usually a distinguished person, usually from govt but not necessarilly.

In WWII, when German soldiers occupied a house to use as a firing location, the civilians got out. Maybe some of the SS would force them to stay, but if they did, and alied soldiers used artillery or whatever and the civilians were killed, we (in the 1940's) had enough common sense to know that the civilians were killed by the SS, not the allied soldiers. Also if the civilians chose to stay it was their suicide. Now in Iraq, when the bad guys don't let the civilians leave and they are killed, its somehow our soldiers that killed them and not the dirtbags that held them captive??? If you believe that, you are an ally of AlQueda or just plain stupid!!! If someone takes hostages and it is necessary to take down the hostage takers and a few hostages are killed, why are they dead? Because they were murdered by the rescuers or because the hostage takers are responsible.