So I should pay 3-5X for a ticket so I can get a few more inches of leg room?
So the majority of seats on a plane are intended for children and dwarves? Ah! I see!

Yes, the free market solves ALL problems!

1) At some point the cost of diverting flights will exceed the profits generated by cramming more seats into the planes and the problem will correct itself.

2) The airline will figure out a way to shift the cost of flight diversion onto the passengers and the problem will just get worse.

My money is on #2

Ticket prices should be based on a combo of flying weight and space. Flying weight is passenger plus baggage weight. Space is a function of height/weight of the passenger and dimensions of their bags. If you're really tall, and/or really fat, you're going to pay more for a comfortable seat, but you will get a comfortable, safe seat, and those around you will, too.

It shouldn't be too hard to make aircraft seating configurable for passengers of different weights/heights.

It seems likely to me that cramming seats so close together is a safety issue. I wonder what the wreck stats show about leg injuries.

That was an advertising photo. You don't think it bore any relationship to reality, do you? Look at airline ads these days. Full of happy, smiling passengers. When was the last time you saw anyone smiling on a plane?

ad campaign in which they bragged about refitting their planes with more leg room because "they care about their passengers" implying that the other airlines didn't. At that time I was wondering why, if they care about passengers so much, did they put the seats so close together in the first place. Now they're taking the room out again, demonstrating once again exactly how much they care about their passengers.

This is a great example of how the free-market solves problems. Now that people are complaining, some small airline is going to start providing more leg room and the other will have to follow suit. Once they've all provided reasonable space, they'll start taking it away again. It is a repeating cycle and I believe we are near the bottom of this one.

What is really needed is for the feds to regulate the minimum space allowed per passenger so the airlines can't cram us in like the hold of a slave ship.

That sort of interaction is EXACTLY what makes the education at that school an education. Try to imagine what your education would have been like if you had gone to a university where you had difficulty with the language in which the classes were taught. Those foreign students got into that school with your nephew by being smart and maybe/probably well-connected (i.e. they come from wealthy, well educated families in their home countries).

Does your kid end up doing a lot of the documentation of the group work? Sure- his mastery of English is probably better than the foreign students. That's how it goes. So what? Some of the group members don't contribute much? So what? Do you think that if all the kids in the group were white, English speaking Americans there wouldn't be any lazy asses the other group members would have to carry? Group work teaches productive people how to be productive when confronted with the harsh reality of unmotivated group members.

I'd say your nephew is getting an education.

Sufficient for people who want to become a cog in the machine. Those people who are paying for the application service for top ranked schools want to go to those schools because they don't want to become cogs in the machine, they want to own the machine. It is a completely different mindset from "most people".

That push to get into those schools is the same sort of push they apply to the rest of what they do which is why they end up owning businesses instead of working at one. The ideas that those schools are too difficult to get into, they cost too much, I don't come from the right family, are reasons not to bother applying for most people. For the others they are reasons to work at overcoming all those obstacles. Admission to those schools is a filtering process. If you manage to jump through the right hoops you'll have access to a lot of people with brains, money, and power.

If you want to achieve big things you have to think big, have long term goals, and act accordingly.

Your definition of rich is a poor man's definition. Owning a Lexus doesn't make you rich whether you paid cash for it or not. Lexus is, for the most part, a middle-class car brand.

Having a million dollars doesn't make you rich. It makes you middle class, with a loooong way to go to rich. Having a million dollars doesn't mean you can quit working unless you're about 80 years old, especially if you live in the US where the healthcare system is designed to bankrupt you before you die.

Unfortunately the powers that be don't seem interested in fixing anything education-wise. A poorly educated population is easily manipulated and they like it that way.

One of the major parties in the US owes its continued existence to the fact that they have targeted every nut-job fringe group in the US that's willing to vote for someone based on single issues such as abortion, gun ownership, evolution, birth control, etc. Naturally, that same party wants to shut down the Dept of Education. The dumber people are, the more votes they'll get.

between at-risk students and more affluent students who take music lessons?

we all go to work, school, and shopping using our helicopter backpacks.

Crank posts in internet forums are the modern day equivalent of the numbers stations on short wave radio.

Thank goodness we have the NSA scooping all this stuff up and looking for patterns!

You've got your political speechifying down pat!

In classic political style speech, you repeat "Obama" over and over when a single mention of his name and one sentence would have been adequate to state all your "Obama" points. Listen to any preacher, politician, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Jesse Jackson (who likes to throw in a lot of rhymes bcause it makes it easy to remember) or other professional blow-hard- this is exactly how they speak publicly. I believe it is based on the principle that if you repeat a lie loudly and often enough it becomes equivalent to truth in the minds of the listeners.

While you may have the style figured out, your content is very weak. I won't bother taking apart your "arguments" point by point- they're just silly. Keep practicing- you may eventually get good enough to be a live caller on Rush or Fox "News".

Does your caretaker know that you got on the internet again?

Is it?

Another reason not to get off our fat asses!

Can this robotic thing actually be less costly than simply putting a $50 laser printer at each desk?