Secret Squirrel Dances With Fat.

Secret Squirrel here enters the great quandry of the fat of the lands. The issue of these has arisen in
America, where the New York mayor has banned large soft drink sales as creating fat people, in that he believes that they have made Americans fat, particularly New Yorkers, so he wishes to, and has,banned these large soft drinks in efforts to prevent more American getting fat(some use the term obese,but
it's all the same really). Now, this has been further amplified by Michelle Obama who has decided that candy bars(chocos or whatever), are too large, and the large size ones are making American fat so she has been after the candy bar companies to eliminate the king size bars, the large size bars, and so produce only small sized bars. Well face it, they have seen the problem of fat people. Clearly there is a problem,take airline seats, fat people spill over in to the next seats, and so most require two seats, and the airlines responded by charging the obese for the two seats they take up.  Recently, MOST U.S. air carriers have announced new or newly-enforced policies that apply to what they discreetly call “passengers of size” or “passengers requiring extra space.” The terminology is polite, but the policies are, for the most part, straightforward. If, when you sit down in your airplane seat, you need a seatbelt extender (or a second one, in at least one case) or you can’t lower both armrests, you will be asked to pay for a second seat unless extra space is available somewhere onboard the aircraft.

There is still a problem, however,on emergency evacuation of an aircraft,imagine being behind such a fatty, and said fatty trying to squeeze through the wing window evacuation exit..........face it, they'll just never make it, nor will you.Some airlines have vetted some fat people, and simply deemed them too fat to fly,with a view towards the safety of said aircraft and passengers.Note also it costs considerably more to fly fat people about, they cost in terms of precious and expensive aviation fuels.

Now consider costs, at $42/passenger in a 137 seat SWA 737, for example, would be $5754 in jet fuel. At your $2.10/gal figure that's 2740 gallons or 18,358 pounds. That's enough fuel to fly a 737 for over 3½ hours including flying the weight of the airplane, bags, cargo, etc.This article reports that airlines average 49 revenue-passenger-miles per gallon of jet fuel. That's about 20 gallons per 1K miles/pax. Jet juel is about $2.10/gallon recently, so $42/pax/1K miles.If the average pax + bags weighs 200 lbs, that's 21 cents per pound/1K miles.

The last 20,000 pounds of payload requires an extra 5,000 pounds of fuel to maintain a constant range of 3,300 nautical miles. (In other words, starting from a 100,000 pound payload, we add 20,000 more pounds to get the marginal difference for the 120,000 pound maximum payload. The chart shows that the extra 20,000 pound payload adds 25,000 pounds to the gross weight, therefore an extra 5,000 pounds of fuel was required.)

So, if a passenger has a total weight of 200 pounds, including baggage, that would require 50 pounds of extra fuel. Roughly.Oh, by the way, my calculation neglected to mention that it takes a little under 100,000 pounds of fuel to fly the plane with no payload. So each passenger is also reponsible for their
share of that 100,000 pounds.If we convert the nautical miles to real miles we get about 3,800 miles. Jet fuel weighs 5.2 pounds per gallon, which I'l calculate at 5 pounds per gallon.

So it takes 10 gallons of fuel to transport 200 pounds 3,800 miles. It takes 1.3 gallons of fuel to transport 100 pounds 1,000 miles. By my calculation, it takes 1.664 ounces, more or less, to transport 1 pound of weight 1,000 miles. If we calculate the cost of jet fuel at $2.50 per gallon, then the cost to carry one pound 1,000 miles is 4.16 cents, at least on a 777.

I did a little research  regarding the fuel cost of flying to LAX (one way). Note that the cost will vary from aircraft type to type, so I have included the different equipment that AA flies (though you might be hard pressed to get on a 767-200 from DFW to LAX (you could from JFK or Boston) or an Airbus A300 to fly to LAX period). The assumptions are as follows:

*All flights are 185 minutes (this is pretty much true per Sabre, our reservations software). Note that some equipment are much faster, but the scheduled (block) times are the same. (777 is about 555MPH, and MD80 is about 490 MPH).
*The carried weight is 200 lbs (this would be a 170# person with a 30# carryon bag). Of course, you can scale up or down, but that is "typical".
*The data I used is to compute the benefit of taking off x#; and I assume sufficiently straight slope to apply in negative direction.
*Today, Jet fuel is $90.30 per barrel. At 30 gallons per BBL, that works out to $3.01/gallon.

(B=Boeing, A=Airbus, PAX = number of passengers, Max)

Code:

Equipment  Gallons      Cost          4oz              PAX   Everybody
B777        17.76        $53.47        6.7 cents       245    $16.38
B767-300    19.88        $59.82        7.5             225     16.83
B767-200    20.74        $62.43        7.8             167     13.03
B757TW*     21.86        $65.80        8.2             188     15.46
B757**      21.94        $66.03        8.3             188     15.52
A300        22.78        $68.56        8.6             268     22.97
B737-800    23.13        $69.61        8.7             148     12.88
MD80        32.84        $98.85       12.4             140     17.30


You'll note that it only costs $53.50 to fly you to LAX on a 777, whereas it costs nearly twice as much ($99) to fly you there on an MD80!!!

If a person went to the bathroom before boarding the flight, he or she might lose 4 oz (average). The 4 oz column is the savings of just one person going to the bathroom. If everyone went to the bathroom we could save up to $23 on that one flight (actually, it would be more if I added the crew). If everyone went to the bathroom before each flight, American would save $3.1 million annually, based upon 85% full planes. So, the next time you prepare to board a flight, ask yourself, "Can I go to the bathroom first?",at home, or in the terminal.It doesn't count to piss in the aircraft toilet,nor,as Gerard Depardieu does, on aircraft floors.  In short consider this, having airline fares calucated .

1) According to the space they take up, as in if they require two or three seats they must pay per seat occupied.

Also, consider this, have the pay an additional fee, bassed on their BMI, the body mass index,charging them more for their overwieght, this would be fair to all those passengers all round, the thinner,those there for carrying less weight, costing less aviation fuel, far less.conversely anorexics could fly for half price under Squirrel's new set of recommendations............What about the people who pay more in spite of their size? Who will step up to defend the rights of the small and the shrimpy? The pipsqueaks? The runts?The transportation industry is also a bastion of slim discrimination, with planes, trains and busses seemingly forgetting that e=mc2: it takes twice as much fuel to transport a 200-pound person than it does a 100-pound person, yet the smaller person must always pay the same ticket price.Changing how we pay for airfare could improve the lives of everyone who travels by air. Let me propose one big improvement. Instead of the flat per-seat fare (plus extra fees for checked baggage), charge each passenger for the total weight he/she contributes to the weight of the plane. That's body weight plus luggage weight.

Charge by the pound. UPS and FedEx do it, and so do professional moving companies. Airlines should do it too. Charging by the pound is not a crazy idea. In fact, if you want to see something crazy, just watch chaos at the TSA screening for a couple of minutes. Aside from being what moving companies do, there are plenty of other reasons to charge per passenger-pound.

Why would this improve the way we fly?

Airlines started charging for bags to save on fuel costs. All those bags weigh a lot, and they cost quite a bit to move. Therefore, it makes sense that they should try to put a price on weighing the plane down. It's expensive! But, does charging for bags really put a price on the right thing?

Take an example. A 230-pound person with a 10-pound bag (240 pounds) burns more fuel than a 120-pound person with 60-pounds of luggage (180 pounds). By the fuel-saving logic, the airlines should charge the big person more, but if you have flown lately, you know that the second person pays more. In other words, if the airlines are trying to price the weight of the plane, they're doing it wrong.

In my per-passenger-pound pricing scheme, the airline can still change the price over time to respond to demand and supply for flights. They could even incorporate the estimated weight of passengers who already booked their tickets on the flight. That's new and useful information that the airlines do not have under the current scheme.

Moreover, the airline that is first to adopt this strategy can push the pounds (and therefore, fuel costs) onto the other airlines. The 150-pound light packers are going to fly with the per-passenger-pound airline, but the 300-pound people with big bags will fly where their weight doesn't cost them. At least before the other airlines switch to per-passenger pound pricing, this means big cost savings for the first airline to switch. And, some of those savings can be passed onto the passengers in the form of lower fares.

Not everyone will benefit, but that's not all bad.

If you are overweight, I have little sympathy. A 300-pound person requires twice as much fuel to move from New York to Denver as a 150-pound person. On the basis of resources used, they should pay almost twice as much for the flight. Doesn't that make the status quo seem unfair?The bus trips, train tickets and flight coupons of small people always cost as much as those of larger people despite the fact that we requires less fuel and energy to transportsmaller mass almost always requires fewer materials than people who have a larger mass, but this is rarely accounted for. Like most small people, my entire life I have had to pay the same prices for goods and services as everyone else, even though my needs require less space, less time and fewer resources.Some airlines will charge you an extra fee if you’re over a certain weight, and it may surprise you to know that I agree with it. They will charge if you have extra heavy bags or one too many, and no one squawks about discrimination then. Weight is weight, and if you’re really, really heavy and want to fly, then you have to be prepared for more discomfort (and possibly costs) than others. It is not the norm, and it’s your own responsibility to let the airline know it might be an issue. It sucks, but there it is, so you deal. Seat prices are based on a constantly changing average amount of costs, and that includes passenger size.

Now let's be accomodating,let's consider a new policy, Dances With Fat. Let's create and design NEW airliners, airliners to accomodate fat people, in their own section of the airplane,away from everybody else.Indeed,yes, FAT CLASS. Seats specially large to accomodate various sizes of FAT people, and only fat people, in their own entirely isolated FAT SECTION,FAT CLASS........and they'll have their own emergency exit and chutes as well, albeit that will necessitate actual cargo doors in the sides of their speical isolated compartment.Adding this to all of the above, makes this safe for thin people,for slim people,the anorexics as well.

Some airlines, such as Ryan air, have pondered new ways to move many passengers cheaply about.Ryan has suggested it might try strap hanger passengers, the passengers would simply stand and hold on to straps for the entire flight. Well, consider, say, the ridiculous flying fat man, Gerard Depardieu,imagine him as a strap hanger. Imagine now the airplane encounteriung turbulence, why the lad would swing wildly about like a huge wrecking ball,smashing to pieces everyone round and about his pendulous circumference.If Ryan air would ever go to such a system, they would most definately have to ban such as those from the aircraft.Indeed the Air Ministry would have to step in an impose such a ban.They also envisaged passengers sitting not in seats, but on benchs either configured as airline seats presently are, or sideways as most military jets have. Why here there would be a problem as the fat man would not be contained as he would be buy an airline seat, and he would fall backwards or forwards crushing those in crash situations, or turbluence, or do the same to either side of him in the sideways seat scenario.

Mostly positively our exampled fat man, would be a dangerous threat to the safety of his fellow passengers would he be ever allowed to board such an aircraft. Kevin Smith, famous Hollywood director (he directed Clerks and Chasing Amy) is a very large man, and he was thrown off a Southwest flight from Oakland to Burbank because the crew decided he was too big.But why single out that unpleasantness to punish? Why would being seated next to a fat person worse than sitting next to someone who obviously has not bathed in several days, or hasn't brushed his teeth in what smells like a week? Or someone who talks constantly while you are trying to read or sleep?

I think that overweight people receive a special opprobrium, because we regard their obesity as a moral failing, evidence of lack of self-control. We're a culture that doesn't particularly like any visible sign of appetite.

On the buses the fatties are a problem as well.....they simply don't fit you know.There also there is a cost of transport problem, they cost much more to move their bulk about than do the thin people,most assuredly, but there are other costly problems developing.In the country that invented obesity along with their fat-saturated fast food, the US Federal Transit Authority proposes raising the assumed average weight per bus passenger from 68 kilos to 80 kilos which will result in fewer people being allowed on each city transit bus.

They say the average American bus rider is now tipping the scale at more than 90 kilos but current federal guidelines on average bus passenger weight are based on surveys in 1960-62 of what Americans weighed then.The transit authority, which regulates how much weight a bus can carry, also proposes adding an 12 centimetres of floor space per passenger “to acknowledge the expanding girth of the average passenger.”

One result is that bus design companies are also going to have to study how the problem could alter bus designs,which means costlier buses.They say that with such heavier people using the buses, one of their safety concerns is the increased possibility of the bus rolling over on sharp turns.

The price of gas in the US has seen increases in bus use – but very fat people also have problems fitting behind the car wheel so may opt for a bus instead.It’s not just passengers getting too fat. Fat bus drivers are also under scrutiny.In some parts of the UK, for example, overweight bus drivers have been asked to get fit amid fears they are so fat they will break their seats.

Some ideas to help solve the problem
    - instead of bike racks on the fronts of buses, have fat people cages
    - have a set of scales at the front of the bus, and your fare is weight dependant
    - have a set of scales at the front of the bus, and an alarm to go off, alarm goes off.too fat to board.Face it even horseback ride shave weight limits for the safety and protection of the horses, it's humane you know,even PETA deamnds it.

So far these fatties have been molly coddled.It is almost as if society is rewarding people for gluttony and self-indulgence and people who look after their health and weight have to pay for that. Hospitals are now required to purchase larger beds at an exorbitant cost to accommodate the obese, to the detriment of normal sized citizens who are missing out on health care because of the cost of providing health care to the obese. The attitude of the overweight is one where they believe they should have the comfortable seat when at a party, the food has to be in reaching distance of them, they think airlines should provide larger seats at the same price as economy, they think that others should get up and wait on them and fetch things for them because it’s too inconvenient for them to get off their butt, huge people have taken up more than one seat on boat rides to the detriment of other paying customers, and obese people on planes take up the seat space of the person next to them (who have paid the same price for their seat) and now are missing out on their own comfort and are required to accommodate the obese with no choice in the matter.


Now are there uses for fat people, uses such that they would be employed properly, without actually abusing them, helping them,as it were?Yes, indeed, and this is an idea that occured to me as I vistied the local "fat" farm, the exercise,den of iniquity, at least from the point of view of the fat, which was strangely visited only by the thin,the lean, the slim, who wished to stay so. Consider now, a power plant with water wheels and the people run in them like hamsters---> benefits= loss of weight and power saving (people dont get mad.... this is how satire works).pay them to loose weoight whilst adding energy to the world.these people them supplying America with free energy. How much energy? A lot of free energy! There are 3,500 calories in 1 pound of bodyweight. An average obese man weighing at a modest 300lbs. will contain 1,050,000 calories. Since there are 14,644 Joules in 3500 calories, a 300lbs person can provide over 4,393,200 Joules(4,393.2 KJ) of pure energy. One kilo-joule per second equates to one kilo-watt. The average U.S. household uses one kilo-watt of energy every second. Therefore, 4,393.2 KJ/60 seconds amounts to over 73.22 minutes of power for the average U.S. household. So that fat guy you see eating a sandwich at work can potentially power your whole house for over an hour.HEALTH and energy chiefs need to consider Squirrel's plan  to make fat people power turbines by forcing them to run in giant hamster wheels,turning suitable electrical generators, thus contributing to any particular city's power grid!!Fat people do contribute, in other ways though, to the economy as it were, providing jobs as it were.In the U.S, nearly 9.7 out of every 10 people are considered obese,who have never met a doughnut they’ve never liked.Traditionally, obesity has been a sign of wealth and power.Obesity, money, and power go hand in hand. If you have all three, you’re definitely living the American dream,that although obesity, and its catastrophic effects put a strain,for example, on the Health budget, this figure paled into insignificance when it was taken into account that the yearly consumption of delicious candy and choco Bars alone, generates  revenue for the sweet shop industry.

The Health sector, itself, benefits from the services of  members of staff employed specifically to operate on, and subsequently provide aftercare for, porkers who have undergone major stapling surgery,liposuctions and various other fat reducing surgeries.Companies like McDonalds and Burger King could not function without the gluttonous patronage of the weightily-challenged, and more  people in Britain eke out a living serving fast food to fat fools.Companies like McDonalds and Burger King could not function without the gluttonous patronage of the weightily-challenged, and more than 50,000 people in Britain eke out a living serving fast food to fat fools."These human circus tents are the mainstay of our economy. They are what makes nations great. Without them, the country would be a poorer, not to mention thinner, place. We should be proud of them and feed them whenever they look hungry - a bit like throwing a bun to an elephant at the zoo."

Obesity has become one of the number one causes of death in the United States. In the last 20 years alone there has been a dramatic increase. Nearly 64% of adults in the U.S. are either overweight or obese. This is just ridiculous,  one of the fattest countries in the world,yet the fat is not being taken advantage of quite sufficiently.

An obese Michigan man, was seen transporting a large volume of food across a busy Cloverdale street last week. It was unclear why he  would require additional food, since his bloated body already carried enough stored fat to easily sustain him for months,yet he persisted in buying and consuming more food, than using what he'd already stored up.clearly gluttony.

Scientists were shocked to discover that fat persons often eat more than thinner persons.
 Do large people eat more to support their massive bodies or does eating make you large. It's a puzzle."

But one thing that isn't a puzzle, the government(s),don't approve of fat and wish people to reduce their fat, their obesity.Well,they can't succeed in introducing and obesity prohibition, really, but they can ,for the good of society,and the rest of it, tax it.Yes, also intrdouce a FAT TAX, a FAT INCOME TAX, a surcharge on income tax, introduce a FAT TAX based on the BMI, the Body Mass Index, those being fatter than their recommended BMI, must pay a tax proportional to their actual in excess of BMI.Thus all of the rest of us, through the government taxing FAT,and thence employing and spending that tax for the good of society,in social services and whatever else,(in the case of America, that would be spent on wars directed at foreign lands), can thence be said to, finally, be living off the fat of the land.


Secret Squirrel,
MRL,MP,(Dunny On The Wold),
Minister For Re-Deranged Re-Engineering.