10 handy luggage tips to make sure you don't arrive empty-handed

Lately I’ve had a lot of bad luck with my luggage while traveling on long-haul flights. My bags were delayed three trips in a row – reaching my destination only 1 to 3 days after I had arrived. After these three consecutive luggage mishaps, I was confident the airlines could not mess up a fourth time.

They didn’t – but my bout of bad luck did not end with that fourth flight. Arriving at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, I was relieved to see my distinctive gray-with-orange-border suitcase appear on the luggage carousel. But while lugging it off, I noticed it was a lot heavier than when I had checked it in in Bangalore. I checked the luggage tag, only to see that it was not mine! When no other gray-with-orange-border suitcase showed up, I realized that there must have been a mix-up.

This litany of luggage mishaps came full circle a week later with another unfortunate mix-up when a fellow passenger mistakenly took my strolley from the hold of a shuttle bus on arrival at the airport!

Fortunately, despite these unlucky incidents, I was eventually reunited with my luggage each time, and since then have learned one or two things about traveling with luggage.

How can you make sure your luggage is not delayed or goes missing? You can’t. But you can cut the risk by following these helpful tips:

1. Travel light. The best way to avoid your bag being delayed or lost is to travel with hand luggage only. This is usually only possible for short 1- to 3-day trips. Make sure you carefully check the airline’s size and weight restrictions and its policy regarding liquids or you may be required to check in your bag.

2. Stand out. Black is cool but when buying luggage, choose colors that stand out so that your bag is easily identifiable. Be aware that many other people will have the same suitcase as you! Avoid a mix-up by tying a bright ribbon, handkerchief or scarf to your bag so that you can easily identify it.

3. Label it. Always attach a secure luggage tag with your name, local address, local contact number and email address to each piece of check-in and carry-on baggage. Update these details each time you take a flight and perhaps even include the date and flight number(s). Luggage tags can easily be torn off or removed, so put your contact details inside your bags too.

4. Always check the tag. Even though the bag you pull off the carousel may look just like yours, always check the name on the luggage tag. If your personal luggage tag was torn off somehow, you can find your name printed on the destination tag affixed by the airline.

5. Insure it. If you’re traveling with expensive items like laptops, tablets, and cameras, it’s a good idea to take out baggage insurance. If your bags are lost or delayed, your insurance should also cover the cost of any essential emergency purchases.

6. Lock it. Using a lock does not guarantee your luggage is tamper-proof but it does make it more difficult to open and may deter a potential thief. Beware that traveling with an unlocked suitcase could invalidate your baggage insurance. Avoid locks with keys which can be easily lost or misplaced. If traveling in the US, use a TSA-approved lock (identified by a logo of a flame or diamond) to avoid it being broken by security inspectors.

7. If it’s important, carry it with you. Avoid putting any valuables in your checked-in luggage and always carry your travel documents, cash, credit cards, jewelry, medical prescriptions and tickets for onward travel with you in your carry-on bag. It’s also a good idea to carry any essentials you need with you in case your luggage is delayed.

8. Pack carefully. Never overstuff your suitcase – this can cause it to burst open. You don’t want to find your personal belongings scattered across the luggage carousel!

9. Make a list. Always make a list of the contents of your baggage. You will need to supply these details if your luggage gets delayed or lost, and to make an insurance claim.

10. Report it. If your luggage has not appeared on the carousel by the time it stops, contact the lost luggage desk and fill in a delayed/lost luggage report. Airline staff will be able to trace your bag and tell you when you can expect to receive it. Ask about their delayed luggage policy: they may be able to immediately offer cash compensation, a kit of basic amenities, or provide a refund for any essential purchases. Make sure to keep the receipts to be able to claim the cost of these.

Happy travels!

 1. Reise Licht. Der beste Weg, um Ihre Tasche zu vermeiden verzögert oder verloren wird, ist nur mit Handgepäck zu reisen. Dies ist in der Regel nur für kurze 1- bis 3-Tagestouren. Stellen Sie sicher, dass Sie sorgfältig die Fluggesellschaft Größe und Gewichtsbeschränkungen überprüfen und ihre Politik in Bezug auf Flüssigkeiten oder müssen Sie möglicherweise in der Tasche zu überprüfen.
2. Stand aus. Schwarz ist cool, aber wenn Gepäck zu kaufen, wählen Sie Farben, die auffallen, so dass Sie Ihre Tasche leicht erkennbar ist. Seien Sie sich bewusst, dass viele andere Menschen das gleiche Koffer wie Sie haben! Vermeiden Sie einen Mix-up durch ein helles Band, Taschentuch oder Schal zu Ihrer Tasche zu binden, so dass Sie sie leicht identifizieren können.
3. Beschriften Sie es. Bringen Sie immer einen sicheren Gepäckanhänger mit Ihrem Namen, lokale Adresse, lokale Telefonnummer und E-Mail-Adresse zu jedem Stück des Check-in und Handgepäck. Aktualisieren Sie diese Angaben jedes Mal, wenn Sie einen Flug nehmen und vielleicht gehören auch das Datum und die Flugnummer (n). Kofferanhänger können leicht abgerissen oder entfernt werden, so setzen Sie Ihre Kontaktdaten in Ihrem Taschen zu.
4. Prüfen Sie stets den Tag. Auch wenn die Tasche, die Sie das Karussell abziehen wie Ihre aussehen kann nur immer kontrollieren, den Namen auf dem Gepäckanhänger. Wenn Ihr persönliches Gepäck-Tag irgendwie wurde abgerissen, können Sie Ihren Namen von der Fluggesellschaft befestigt auf dem Ziel-Tag aufgedruckt.
5. Versicherung. Wenn Sie mit teure Gegenstände wie Laptops unterwegs sind, Tablet-PCs und Kameras, dann ist es eine gute Idee, Reisegepäckversicherung abzuschliessen. Wenn Ihr Gepäck verloren oder verzögert, sollten Sie Ihre Versicherung auch die Kosten für eventuell notwendige Noteinkäufe decken.
6. es sperren. ist eine Sperre nicht mit dem Gepäck garantieren ist fälschungssicher, aber es macht es schwieriger, zu öffnen und einen potentiellen Dieb abschrecken kann. Beachten Sie, dass mit einem entriegelten Koffer reist Ihr Gepäck Versicherung ungültig machen könnte. Vermeiden Sie Schlösser mit Schlüssel, die leicht verloren gehen kann oder fehl am Platz. Wenn in die USA reisen, verwenden Sie ein TSA-Sicherheitsschloss (durch ein Logo einer Flamme oder Diamant identifiziert) ist es zu vermeiden, indem Sicherheitsinspektoren gebrochen.
7. Wenn es wichtig ist, nehmen Sie sie mit. Vermeiden Sie alle Wertsachen in Ihrem gebenes Gepäck setzen und immer Ihre Reisedokumente tragen, Bargeld, Kreditkarten, Schmuck, medizinische Rezepte und Tickets für die Weiterreise mit Ihnen in Ihrem Handgepäck. Es ist auch eine gute Idee, alle Wesentliche zu tragen Sie mit Ihnen, falls Ihr Gepäck brauchen verzögert.
8. Packung vorsichtig. Nie überfüllen Sie Ihren Koffer - das kann es zum Aufplatzen führen. Sie wollen nicht Ihre persönlichen Sachen über das Gepäckband verstreut zu finden!
9. Machen Sie eine Liste. Erstellen Sie immer eine Liste mit dem Inhalt Ihres Gepäcks. Sie müssen diese Informationen zu liefern, wenn Ihr Gepäck wird verzögert oder verloren, und eine Versicherung in Anspruch zu machen.
10. Bericht es. Wenn Sie Ihr Gepäck auf dem Karussell durch die Zeit nicht erschienen ist, es stoppt, kontaktieren Sie das Gepäck Schreibtisch verloren und in einer verzögerten / verlorenes Gepäck Bericht zu füllen. Airline Mitarbeiter werden in der Lage sein, Ihre Tasche zu verfolgen und Ihnen sagen, wenn Sie erwarten, dass sie zu empfangen. Informieren Sie sich über ihre Gepäckverspätung Politik: sie kann in der Lage sein, sofort Barabfindung anbieten, ein Kit von Einrichtungen des Hotels, oder Rückerstattung für notwendige Anschaffungen zur Verfügung stellen. Achten Sie darauf, die Einnahmen zu halten zu können, die Kosten für diese zu erreichen.

Benefits of Breastfeeding for Mother

 

 

Breastfeeding benefits mothers as well as their babies. It is the best choice for your baby because it can protect them against illnesses and provides the best nutrients for their bodies. What benefits does the mother get out of this?
After the birth, each time your breastfeed, your body releases oxytocin which helps your uterus contract and shrink back down to its pre-pregnancy size. Breastfeeding helps the mother lose weight more easily after the pregnancy.
Nursing your baby can increase your emotional health, women who breastfeed are less likely to develop post-partum depression. Nursing also forces you to sit down and rest while you are feeding your baby. You may not be able to take a nap while your baby is feeding, but you can sit back and kick up your feet for a little while.
Breastfeeding can reduce the chances of breast and ovarian cancer. You can reduce the chances of developing breast or ovarian cancer by as much as 25%-50% depending on how long you have breastfed your baby. The longer you breastfeed, the greater your chances are of reducing breast or ovarian cancer.
One of the greatest benefits to mothers is that breastfeeding is free. It doesn’t cost anything to give your baby the best nutrients available. You can give your baby a head start by giving them your own milk. Even if you factor in the price of nursing bras, nursing pads, a breast pump, and breast milk storage bags, it is still less than the cost of formula feeding.
Not only is it free, it is readily available. How easy is that? There’s no need to warm up bottles or prepare formula.
Breastfeeding benefits the baby as well as the mother, if you want to give your baby the best start possible breastfeeding is the best choice. Help your body return to its pre-pregnancy shape by nursing your new baby and enjoy this time with her before they grow up.

 

THE PERFECT ORGASM

THE PERFECT ORGASM

Boff is a big man, six foot two inches, two hundred and twenty pounds. He is bald, wears thick-lensed, horn-rimmed, glasses. His piercing eyes are hazel, but almost no one has 
ever seen him without his glasses. He wears them when he showers and takes them off only to sleep. His nose is straight, his lips full; his mustache and beard not always trimmed. His clothes are rumpled, usually looking like he slept in them. Occasionally, he has.

Professor Brugelbagel was the world's leading expert on emotional and sexual problems. Boff Brugelbagel: medical doctor, psychiatrist, sexologist

He is full of energy, only still when he is in a therapy session. His concentration is total; he is tolerant and understanding, with his patients, staff and students. He speaks to them gently and firmly, creating an atmosphere of intimacy. Unintended. But there.

He is the professor of Psychiatry and Sexology at the best medical school and hospital in the United States. He has the world's greatest collection of sex material: The biggest library, the most paintings, photographs, movies, sculptures, videotapes, and instruments used in all kinds of human sexual functioning. Normal and abnormal. In the basement of his home. He livesalone in a small, one-story house in the suburbs; his office is in the attic, his living accomodations on the ground floor. There is a small apartment for his live-in housekeeper. He has trouble keeping his housekeepers though he pays them twice the going rate. He hardly talks to them. Some of them were were frightened because of his work with emotional and sexual problems. He fired several if he thought they were too curious about his basement collection. He treats a few patients privately and reluctantly goes to the bank when the cash and checks in his wall safe overflow. He writes articles for medical journals and he writes books. The only time he stops working is to eat or sleep.

He was adopted as a very young baby by a childless couple who were strict, religious, and negatively aggressive about any kind of sex. He taught himself to read when he was five years old. As he got older he began to read about love, intimacy, sex. Secretly. He looked for books about the mind, how it works, how and why people become sick, how they are cured.
He never told his adopted parents about his interest in the mind, love, intimacy and sex. They were always telling him to stay away from dirty things like that. When he was a teenager he 
made a mistake. His parents allowed him to go to a movie they thought was safe. It wasn't.

There were some heavy sex scenes in it. Boff came home very excited, sexually stimulated, and confused. He told his parents how he felt. His step-mother told her husband to beat him. 
He did.

He had a lonely childhood and adolescence with isolated experiences of intimacy: He had a friend for a year, when he was twelve years old; then the friend moved away. He had 
several teachers who loved him. In his shy way, he reciprocated. Only a little.

His step-mother showed him warmth and caring, on special occasions. On freezing, stormy, dark winter mornings, before he went to school, she made him a treat: boiling hot cocoa made 
entirely with milk. Then she streaked instant coffee across the foamy top. She filled the cup, brimmingly, served it was a smile. A small one.

Buying a home is a major purchase. But while some of us enjoy the hunt for a new property, few of us welcome the stressful negotiations that follow.

You've found that dream property, but the price is too high. You want the property so much you know it will be difficult to disguise your keenness and realise it would be almost impossible to negotiate on something upon which you have set your heart. So what can you do? The answer is to use a buying agent, who will be able to do the job far better than you, not least because he or she is acting as a third – and unbiased – party. And in the current softening market, the chance of obtaining a discount on the asking price is more of a probability than an impossibility.

"We remove emotions and provide a distance between the principals," says Tim Lawson of Property Pathfinder (01285 653190), who works mainly in the Cotswolds. "A purchaser might go in and have a cosy chat with the vendor and agree a price, then on the way home start thinking he has paid too much or wondering whether there was something he'd missed - like a footpath running through the garden, which would upset his privacy, or a planning restriction which means he will not be able to add the extension he needs. He cannot go back and say he underestimated the value of such and such problem. Much better for him to pick up the phone to someone like us. We have the local knowledge, we'll do the research on the property and make the right offer."

The County Homesearch group (01872 1234567), which has 25 offices in the UK, is seeing an increase in the number of people asking for their expertise in negotiation. "This market is enabling us to look at a property, then organise a survey before putting in an offer," says director Jonathan Haward. "The heat is off and fewer buyers are actively purchasing so we have the luxury of having more time to negotiate. We can always do better than the purchaser as we know the area and are involved with houses seven days a week. We can go in with sound, reasoned argument based on knowledge and fact, rather than 'I'm a purchaser and I've got cash'. We can also sit down with the vendor and his agent and reason with them in a way a purchaser could not do. We can demonstrate comparables and often persuade the vendor to take an offer because he knows he has a definite sale."

County Homesearch recently bought for a client a large farmhouse in poor condition with spectacular views over the Cornish coast. It was on the market for £350,000, and, because the company could get a surveyor round before making an offer and then persuade the owner of the merit of having a cash buyer who would not pull out because so much work needed doing, they managed to get £20,000 knocked off the price.

For deals like this, purchasers need to be cash buyers or able to borrow money for a bridging loan, as it is crucial for the vendor or his agent to know the buyer is serious and is not in a chain. Fees are either based on a percentage (around 10 per cent) of the discount achieved or a small percentage (around 1.5 per cent) of the purchase price.

For many purchasers, especially if they are particularly busy people, these charges are well worth the money, says Lawson. "We had a client last year, who was looking for a good quality village home and was prepared to spend around £1.5 million. Then he found something in a different area and phoned us, saying he didn't want to deal with the vendor himself as he was far too tied up. He was prepared to pay £1.4 million, but we negotiated it down to £1.23 million. We happened to know that the circumstances of the vendor would make him susceptible to an offer. The vendor, of course, had no idea of this. Not surprisingly, our client was delighted."

It is because buying agents have their ear to the ground that they can achieve a better deal than the purchaser, especially if he or she does not know the area. "Buying agents will know or can find out the vendor's situation – how badly they need to sell, how long they have been trying to sell," says James Greenwood of Stacks Property Search and Acquisition (01594 1234567). "Depending on the circumstances, the acceptable price is likely to vary. We also have market knowledge because we monitor asking and sales prices in the area on a constant basis. Negotiating the correct price for a property is a fine art and, given the current softening market, there is often room for negotiation. But it's important to judge the level at which the property won't be lost. We have bought numerous properties on behalf of clients this year at well below the asking price."

Another reason purchasers may use buying agents to negotiate a deal is because they simply don't like doing it themselves. "Purchasers might not understand the intricacies of the property market and at the moment, confidence is a vital component," says James Wilson, who is a buying agent with Lane Fox (020-7499 4785).

"We build up a relationship with the selling agent, who also wants to get a deal rather than take a fancy price, which falls through at a later date. A while ago, I had a client, who was a successful entrepreneur in the software business. He had found a house in West Sussex and because he was very dynamic, he fell out big time with the selling agent. He tried to apply his entrepreneurial skills to a completely different market and the agent didn't like it."

In the end, the purchaser gave Lane Fox a ring and explained he wanted to buy the house, but didn't want to deal with the vendor's agent any more. "We already knew the agent and were able to bring a degree of objectivity to the deal," says Wilson. "We saved our client about £100,000 on a house worth £1.5 million which he is now going to use to do it up."

50 places to see before you die

"I am not sure whether I should even admit to some of these choices as I don't really want them trampled over by hordes of tourists looking for something which was perhaps intensely personal and probably wouldn't move others at all" – so begins Bill Polley of Carrickfergus, who overcomes his reservations to join the rush of Independent readers to nominate five places that others should see before they die.

Two weeks ago, the BBC's Holiday programme revealed the results of its survey, which placed the Grand Canyon, the Great Barrier Reef and Walt Disney World in the first three places.

Readers of The Independent are particularly well–travelled, and well–read, so we anticipated a very different agenda – but we were amazed by the scale of your response.

We made no restrictions in nominations, and welcomed a sweeping range of suggestions: some as vast as the Himalayas and the Sahara, others as specific as the dining room of the Manoir de Sornat at Bourbon Lancy in Burgundy. But as Ann Miller notes, "One can't really compare a city like Venice, Rome or Paris to a place of natural beauty like a great waterfall or the Grand Canyon, or to a site of spiritual and archaeological interest like Machu Picchu, or the Pyramids." The great majority of votes crystallised into one of five categories: country, city, island, natural phenomenon and work of man.

Country

Italy emerges as most favoured nation, but only just – England and Spain were narrowly beaten into joint second place. (If Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland had not been counted as separate nations, the UK would be clear winner.) Within England, Yorkshire was prominent, with Marie Paterson commending "Runswick Bay, North Yorkshire, where white houses tumble down the steep cliffs to the sea". Yet Roger Perry says the best thing about England is leaving it; he recommends, "The caf} at the back of a SeaFrance ferry, watching Dover recede".

The three top nations amassed almost as many votes as the rest put together, with a wide gulf between them and the United States in fourth place. France, which numerically is Britain's favourite overseas destination, was squeezed into fifth place.

Scotland scored well ahead of Wales and Northern Ireland to take sixth place. The world's most populous country, China, was helped into seventh place by the inclusion of Hong Kong and Macau. Australia (which, I suppose, could have qualified for one of the top islands) nipped ahead of Canada as leading Commonwealth country. The Incas trailed in at 10, with Peru propping up the table.

Several high–profile countries, including Greece, Egypt, India, Thailand and Mexico, missed the cut. Plucky Luxembourg received not a single vote, even though some residents from the country took part.

Top 10 countries

1 Italy 
2 = England 
2 = Spain 
4 United States 
5 France 
6 Scotland 
7 China 
8 Australia 
9 Canada 
10 Peru

Cities

Europe took seven of the 10 places, including the first four. No surprise there, given the popularity of city breaks to the Continent – but the order was at odds with the top–sellers of tour operators.

Ten years ago, only two airlines flew from the UK to Venice – both from London, and only a couple of times a day. This winter, you can fly from 10 British airports to this magical city, for lower fares than a decade ago. It is now possible to fly the entire population of Crawley – which matches the number of people who live in Venice – to La Serenissima every month using scheduled flights from Britain (though Ryanair passengers, inevitably, end up some distance away). Until that unlikely event happens, Venice is top of your list; it was favourite European city for Holiday viewers, but in 18th place overall.

The no–frills effect also boosted Prague, now accessible from all over Britain for fares as low as £50, which coincidentally would buy around 100 litres of good beer in the Czech capital. Third–placed Granada was a shock, because this Andalucian city perched in the mountains is a pig to reach from Britain. Neither is Florence, fourth, easy to get to.

New York City represents the Americas, while Beijing is a surprise at seven – beating Hong Kong, which fails to make the top 10. Barcelona, London and Sydney complete the line–up, at the expense of obvious candidates such as Amsterdam and Dublin. "London's glories," writes Nigel Purry, "are scattered over a large area, but many are best seen on the boat trip from Westminster to Greenwich."

Top 10 cities

1 Venice 
2 Prague 
3 Granada 
4 Florence 
5 New York City 
6 Paris 
7 Beijing 
8 Barcelona 
9 London 
10 Sydney

Islands

Fidel Castro will be heartened to know that Cuba was so far ahead that it was almost out of sight of the following nine; the only other Caribbean island in the top 10 was Barbados, in last place. The Galapagos (yes, archipelagos were allowed) narrowly beat Bali, for which there was a large vote of solidarity. The South Island of New Zealand occupies the same respectable place – fourth – as it did in the BBC Holiday survey.

Santorini is your favourite Greek island, though Crete keeps it company at eight.

Considering Easter Island is so difficult and expensive to reach, its appearance at seven was impressve; and Madagascar, at nine, emerged ahead of Mallorca, Cyprus, Crete, Jamaica and Sri Lanka, which all failed to make it to the top 10. Many Scottish isles were nominated, but none achieved enough votes to win a place, despite Marie Paterson championing Iona's "white sands, turquoise sea and quality of light".

Top 10 islands

1 Cuba 
2 Galapagos 
3 Bali 
4 South Island, New Zealand 
5 Santorini 
6 Easter Island 
7 Gran Canaria 
8 Rhodes 
9 Madagascar 
10 Barbados

Natural Phenomena

What is it about waterfalls? Two southern–hemisphere cataracts splash into the top two places, well ahead of Niagara. Despite the political turmoil in Zimbabwe, the Victoria Falls – where the Zambezi plunges hundreds of feet, separating the country from Zambia – were clearly ahead. Iguacu, at the point where Argentina and Brazil converge (along with Paraguay) is a worthy second.

Scotland's appearance in third place is helped by our broad inclusion of everything from specific mountains to the broad heading "Highlands". Rotorua, the steamiest and smelliest place on New Zealand's North Island, spouts its way into fourth position.

Ireland is curiously absent from much of the voting, but the amazing landscapes of the Burren in County Clare make the top half of the table, nudging the Cornish coast into sixth place.

Arizona's Grand Canyon, which was voted top by BBC Holiday viewers, does not even make your top 10. Instead, there is a canyon (Bryce) in the neighbouring state of Utah and a valley (Monument) in Arizona: "awesome Indian country, inspiration and oozing with history – forget the films see the real thing," says Glenn Showler.

The canyon and valley are separated, at least in this survey, by Japan's holiest mountain, Fuji. And Central America's sole appearance in the travel league is the magical Lake Atitlan in Guatemala.

Top 10 natural phenomena

1 Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe/Zambia 
2 Iguacu Falls, Brazil/Argentina 
3 Highlands, Scotland 
4 Rotorua, New Zealand 
5 The Burren, Ireland 
6 Coast of Cornwall 
7 Bryce Canyon, Utah 
8 Mount Fuji, Japan 
9 Monument Valley, Arizona 
10 Lake Atitlan, Guatemala

Works of man

Cappadocia, in 10th place, shows what man can do with strange landscapes; Denzil Watson describes the region of Turkey as "a lunar landscape of tufa cones riddled with ancient rock–cut churches". Chartres Cathedral, in ninth place, shows what man can do with stained glass. And the Kremlin, eighth, shows what man can do by plundering the peasantry of a poor country and building a grand collection of palaces at the core of the capital.

Now that Cambodia is open for tourism business, and relatively safe, enough of you have been deep into the jungle to visit the temple complexes of Angkor Wat to vote it in at seven.

What I would not have predicted about the top six is the order. Counting up: Versailles, the Alhambra in Granada, the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China, and Machu Picchu. Given the grave decline that Jordan's tourism has seen in the past few years, it is heartening to see the great Nabatean city of Petra as your favourite work of man.

In my column a fortnight ago, I erroneously compared Petra to Rotherham, saying that they were alike because "no one wants to go to either much at the moment". Not only did Petra's supporters contradict this by voting the rose red city to top place; it also earned this rebuke from one reader: "My flatmate is from Rotherham and sends her best regards. No, wait a minute – that wasn't quite what she said."

Top 10 works of Man

1 Petra, Jordan 
2 Machu Picchu, Peru 
3 Great Wall of China 
4 Taj Mahal, India 
5 The Alhambra, Granada 
6 Chateau of Versailles, Paris 
7 Angkor Wat, Cambodia 
8 Kremlin, Moscow 
9 Chartres Cathedral, France 
10 Cappadocia, Turkey

Yes, I Am

Yes, I Am

. . . an advocate for the Identity Metasystem. Craig Burton convinced me for reasons he didn't know about and reasons I didn't explain to him.

The big reason I believe in it is that it fit my criteria for becoming Internet infrastructure, with an exception that I think can be rectified over time, namely that multiple reference open source implementations don't currently exist. However, the Metasystem is young and these things will most certainly change.

Everything else about the Metasystem is right. It doesn't displace any existing infrastructure, requiring only a simple plugin for web sites to interoperate with the Metasystem. The InfoCard system is a great way to put users safely in control of their own identity claims, and it looks like it will find its way into alternative browsers like Firefox and Safari, making it ubiquitous.

I really have a distaste for silos now that I've experienced the openness of the Metasystem. You'll have to pardon me if I seem too hard on them, especially Sxip, who have their heart in the right place by putting claims back in the hands of users, more or less. It's just that having worked with Dr. Marshall T. Rose and having had a taste of what standardizing Internet infrastructure is all about, and having had exposure to the Metasystem's openness, I don't want to go backward to silos and proprietary networks.

STS, Web cookie management, and barriers to adoption

The STS is designed to plug into authentication mechanisms like Kerberos and OpenSAML that are atomic in nature. Once a user is authenticated, the STS handles tokens cleanly without having to worry about reauthentication to accomplish further transactions.

My engineer friend Kevin who has been studying the STS pointed out a glaring flaw in it when applied to how traditional web servers manage sessions using cookies. How will the STS and the InfoCard system handle session management when a cookie on the client side is responsible for that task? It seems that the only way for that to happen is for someone to create a set of APIs that will intermediate between cookies and STS. This is the approach Sxip has taken with Sxore, by the way.

For the Metasystem, taking the API approach defeats the ease of use of the STS because it requires web server administrators to take an extra step to connect to the Metasystem. It won't be as simple as dropping in an STS to play with InfoCards with their web application. This barrier to adoption could slow down implementation of the Metasystem significantly unless Microsoft has something up their sleeve to mitigate this problem. Let's hope they do.

My First Time

 

 

One of the times that I will always remember, if not cherish, was when I assisted my first embalming.

Several months ago, a woman, youngish in her sixties, had died of natural causes and left her body to the university. She lay nude on a gurney, her arms raised and her legs spread, her head twisted to the side as if to hide her pained expression. Her eyes were squeezed shut and her mouth formed a dark, purple O. Blood had begun to pool under her skin around where she lay, leaving the top of her body pale and her backside an angry, blotchy purple.

her body was in rigor mortis but beginning to soften. Her position inspired the embalmer to joke that she would make a perfect specimen for a gynecologist.

We rolled her to the embalming table and hoisted her onto the cold metal slab. Washing her body down with soap and warm water, we cleaned her body head to toe while massaging the stiffness from her joints. The embalmer clamped his large hands around her skull and twisted her head around so that it faced forward.

After washing her and rinsing her off and relaxing her body so that she was laying relatively normally, the embalmer turned on his machines. He then took a scalpel and opened up her neck, pulling her jugular out with a hook instrument. He then sliced it and stuck a tube into the vein. I was still massaging her legs but stopped to watch as he began pumping fluid into her body. Blood poured out of her vein onto the slab. It was black and putrid looking. I was shocked at how much was coming out and fundamentally disturbed to watch blood flowfrom a corpse. After a moment the color of her body began to change...the blotchy purple disappeared and she turned white, and then as more fluid was pumped in, she began to turn pink. For a few minutes she looked almost happy and alive, like she could just stand up, get dressed, smile and drive herself home.

The embalmer pumped more and more fluid into her until she began to expand. Dirty fluid began to bubble from her mouth and nose as the contents of her stomach were forced out of her mouth. A low groan escaped her gurgling lips. Shocked, I felt cold all over as I stared at her pink bloated face. The embalmer smirked and assured me that it was just air from her stomach escaping her mouth. he said that I was lucky that stomach contents only came out of her mouth, and that often bodies getting this kind of industrial embalming will urinate and defecate due to the pressure of the fluid.

By the time he was finished with her, she had nearly tripled in size! Even her breasts had grown a cup size, but mainly her belly had expanded to shocking proportions. The woman, who originally was only slightly flabby now looked fat and pregnant. We covered her with a sheet and left her there to sit overnight.

I don't know what happened to her after that, but I assume that she is hanging from a harness in the meatlocker now, silent and anonymous in the morbidly frozen crowd.

Polish Police Bust Sex Ring Involving Children

 

 Police probing the biggest pedophile ring ever uncovered in Poland said Wednesday more than 100 foreigners, including Canadians, were on the lists of a homosexual contacts service offering under-age boys for sex.

Police Lt. Pawel Biedziak told Reuters the alleged organizer of the ring, a 44-year-old local government official in the northern city Szczecin, had been formally accused by police of sexual offences against minors.

The ring's existence was revealed late Tuesday by Polish public television's Wiadomosci news program which showed explicit but electronically-blurred photographs, confiscated by police, of men and boys engaged in sexual activities.

Biedziak said police raided the home of the civil defense inspector and former army officer, identified only by his underworld alias "the Major," after being alerted by a journalist and a call to a helpline for abused children.

The police found a computer with nearly 1,000 names of men seeking gay sex partners. Most of these men were interested in other adults and Biedziak said they did not concern the police.

"But among the adults there was a part who specified they wanted to meet underage boys for sexual contacts and that will be the subject of our interest," Biedziak said, speaking by telephone from provincial police headquarters in Szczecin.

Biedziak said about 100 names on the computer lists were of foreigners, including men from Germany, The Netherlands, Russia, Austria, Canada, and Saudi Arabia, but declined to say if or how many of these were suspected of abusing young boys.

He said none were from Belgium, which has been rocked this year by child-sex scandals.

The computer also contained names of boys, including more than a dozen elementary school pupils, who were available for sexual contacts with adults and usually were seeking a so-called "sponsor" who would support them financially.

Biedziak said the Szczecin police had started by tracing boys who featured on photographs found at the scene and several of these had said they had had sex with the Major.

"One of these boys also speaks of contacts, when below the age of 15, with a citizen of Sweden," Biedziak said.

The television news interviewed boys who had been under 15, the age above which sexual relations with adults are not prosecuted in Poland, when they were allegedly picked up by the Major at stations or video parlors and lured to his home.

One, 14-year-old Robert who was shown in silhouette, said he had telephoned the Major and been invited to meet a man.

"The guy said he was rich and so on. I didn't care about that and I went and slept with him," Robert said.

Biedziak said the large-scale investigation was still in its early stages.

Police had also found a sex video featuring eight boys, some of whom were not Polish speakers, and were investigating.

Biedziak did not give "the Major's" real name to safeguard him from attacks by other prisoners.

There has been public concern that child abusers from wealthy Western Europe may be coming to Poland to prey on children from deprived homes. But Biedziak said foreigners had so far featured only in a few of the child sex abuse cases uncovered in Szczecin, near Germany.

Warsaw police spokesman Andrzej Przemyski said the Szczecin case was by far the biggest of its kind uncovered so far in Poland, although there were continued cases of Polish boys traveling to Berlin to offer themselves for prostitution.