Mood:  don't ask

LAW OF THE LAND

Court shocker: 10 months for kiddie porn producer

Democrat activist faced 81 years in jail on charges involving kids as young as 6

A Democrat community leader who would "offer a homily during worship services" and facilitated his congregation's "opening our doors to all people regardless of sexual orientation" has been given a slap on the hand after pleading guilty to extensive child pornography offenses involving children as young as six.

Authorities say Andrew Douglas Reed, 53, who reported for an abbreviated jail term just a few weeks ago, had pleaded guilty to a page-long list of counts of 2nd-degree sexual exploitation of a minor.

Court records in the Asheville, N.C., case said he admitted that he would "record, develop and duplicate material containing a visual representation of a minor engaging in sexual activity." That activity is defined by state law as including masturbation, intercourse and "touching -- in apparent sexual stimulation or sexual abuse -- of the genitals, pubic area or buttocks."

However, instead of the 967 months in jail -- nearly 81 years -- for which he was liable, Judge Robert Lewis, another Democrat, gave him, in a plea bargain with the office of District Attorney Ron Moore, who was elected as a Democrat, a 10-12 month sentence.

And even that seemed regrettable, according to a number of letters of recommendation offered by other Democrat leaders of the community to the court on his behalf.

"It has been my pleasure to share Andy's commitment to ensuring that compassion and democracy are at work across our community," wrote Beth Lazer, a Democrat who shared Unitarian Universalist church theologies with Reed and serves as the head of the local public access television, URTV.

She said in her letter of reference she first worked with Reed "when we both served on the board of the local chapter of the League of Women Voters."

"What an invaluable board member he was," she said.

"I also worked with Andy on several projects at our church, most significantly our becoming a welcoming congregation," she said.

Steve Hagerman, the executive director of the Asheville Symphony, wrote on symphony letterhead that, "Reed has been a long-time supporter of the arts in Western North Carolina and has been involved in many worthwhile causes in our community."

And Oralene Graves-Simmons, a Democrat who leads the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Association of Asheville, wrote a page and a half extolling Reed's virtues.

"When the decision was made in 2001 to incorporate the Association as an independent non-profit organization, Andy was instrumental in making it happen. He wrote the new organization's by-laws, revised and edited its incorporation papers, and, with me, determined the makeup of its founding board of directors," Graves-Simmons wrote.

"It was for his ten years of dedicated service that last January the MLK Association honored Andy with the 2005 Community Humanitarian Award," she wrote.

She noted he's also served on governing or advisory boards to the Montford Park Players, a theater company that operates each summer.

"Andy has spent all the years that I've known him bringing people together regardless of race, creed, color, or other differences, gladly working with anyone and everyone, and doing whatever needs to be done, to accomplish our mutual goals," she wrote.

His offenses involved a long list of counts that he used the Internet to collect and share graphic child pornography -- mostly involving children as young as six who were filmed "engaged in sex acts with adults or other children," according to a local news report.

State investigators said Reed used an e-mail account to post 169 images and three movies containing child pornography on file-sharing networks over the last several years.

Ken Bagwell, whose "Heads Up America" radio program has delved into the appropriateness of that sentence, said there's a difference between taking such material from the Internet "and getting your jollies or whatever these sickos do" and actually producing the material.

"You acquire the kid, you abuse the kid on camera, and get a 10-month sentence?" he asked. "I just cannot believe it."

The offenses -- 15 counts -- to which Reed pleaded guilty were victimizing "the absolutely youngest most defenseless people out there," Bagwell told WND. "It just makes me want to gag to see what is happening."

He said he especially was concerned about civic leaders offering their support for a man who now is part of the state's "Sex Offender Control Program" and will have to get approval for his residence and is not allowed to "socialize or communicate with individuals under the age of eighteen (18) in work or social activities unless accompanied by a responsible adult who is aware of the abusive patterns and is approved in writing by the supervising officer."

"We should ask these people, 'Are you telling me you are supporting this?'" Bagwell said.

WND messages for several of these individuals were not returned immediately.

The court report noted that under the plea agreement, "That defendant will plead guilty to all 15 counts and the state agrees that they will be consolidated into four counts for sentencing."

The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation had worked on a sting for more than a year to stop his operations, authorities said.

Reed, who also worked as a columnist for the Asheville Citizen Times, often wrote in support of the "gay" agenda in the region.

State records show he was brought into the prison system on Nov. 15. And when he gets out, he cannot "linger, loiter nor spend time at locations where persons under eighteen (18) years of age are likely to be present, including but not limited to: parks, playgrounds, school yards, arcades or places frequented by children(s) activities and such similar places whose purpose is the care, entertainment or education of such persons under eighteen (18) years of age."

He also won't be allowed to work as a volunteer or employee for any organization that serves children, but he will have to go through psychological treatment and go through a sexual abuse treatment program.

If you would like to sound off on this issue, participate in today's WND Poll.
World Net Daily.com ** Court shocker: 10 months for kiddie porn producer

Kick Assiest Blog Editorial / Comments...

I thought Demoncrats were "for the children." Considering they believe it is perfectly right and moral to murder unborn children by the million, this really comes as no surprise. This just demonstrates the contempt the left really has for children.

Democraps were shocked, shocked! by Rep. Mark Foley's exchange of heavy breathing e-mails with 17 and 18-year-old former pages. But the wrist-slap given to a party activist who was making kiddie porn involving children as young as six isn't even a small blip on their screens.
Sounds to me like the Democrap Party is blinded by its "culture of perversion."

The dems made such a big stink over Foley (he is disgusting), but here we have tiny children BEING ABUSED and all they can talk about is what a good man he is!!!

You know, I'm really starting to believe that if you want to turn to a life of serious crime, you'll make out like a bandit as long as you become a card-carrying Democrat first. Got kiddie porn? Wanna stuff national secrets down your pants? Have an urge to aid and abet terrorists? Want to spy for the enemy but are afraid of getting brought up on treason or espionage charges? Register as a Democrat; it'll be a big help after the trial starts.

Posted by yaahoo_ at 5:58 PM EST

Updated: Sunday, 26 November 2006 7:30 PM EST

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Word on the street ... they’re listening

Police and councils are considering monitoring conversations in the street using high-powered microphones attached to CCTV cameras, write Steven Swinford and Nicola Smith.

The microphones can detect conversations 100 yards away and record aggressive exchanges before they become violent.

The devices are used at 300 sites in Holland and police, councils and transport officials in London have shown an interest in installing them before the 2012 Olympics.

The interest in the equipment comes amid growing concern that Britain is becoming a “surveillance society”. It was recently highlighted that there are more than 4.2m CCTV cameras, with the average person being filmed more than 300 times a day. The addition of microphones would take surveillance into uncharted territory.

The Association of Chief Police Officers has warned that a full public debate over the microphones’ impact on privacy will be needed before they can be introduced.

The equipment can pick up aggressive tones on the basis of 12 factors, including decibel level, pitch and the speed at which words are spoken. Background noise is filtered out, enabling the camera to focus on specific conversations in public places.

If the aggressive behaviour continues, police can intervene before an incident escalates. Privacy laws in Holland limit the recording of sound to short bursts. Derek van der Vorst, director of Sound Intelligence, the company that created the technology, said: “It is technically capable of being live 24 hours a day and recording 24 hours a day. It really depends on the privacy laws in a particular country.”

Last month Martin Nanninga of VCS Observation, the Dutch company marketing the technology, gave a presentation to officials from Transport for London, the Metropolitan police and the City of London police about the CCTV system. Nanninga is to return next year for further discussions.

“There was a lot of interest in our system, especially with security concerns about the Olympic Games in 2012. We told them about both our intelligent control room and the aggression detection system,” Nanninga said.

In Holland more than 300 of the cameras have been fitted in Groningen, Utrecht and Rotterdam. Locations include city centres, benefit offices, jails, and even T-Mobile shops. The sensitivity of the microphones is adjusted to suit the situation.

Police and local council officials are still assessing their impact on crime, although in an initial six-week trial in Groningen last year the cameras raised 70 genuine alarms, resulting in four arrests.

Harry Hoetjer, head of surveillance at Groningen police headquarters, recalled an incident where the camera had homed in on a gang of four men who were about to attack a passer-by. “We would not normally have detected it as there was no camera directly viewing it,” he said.

Last Friday a Sunday Times reporter visited the office of Sound Intelligence in Groningen to test the system. The reporter stood in the control centre with a view of an empty room on one of a bank of monitors. Van der Vorst entered the room, out of sight of the camera, and began making aggressive noises.

The camera swivelled to film him and an alarm went off in the control room, designed to alert police to a possible incident. “The cameras work on the principle that in an aggressive situation the pitch goes up and the words are spoken faster,” said van der Vorst. “The voice is not the normal flat tone, but vibrates. It is these subtle changes that our audio cameras can pick up on.”

Public prosecution services can use them in court as evidence. The Dutch privacy board has already given its approval to the system.

According to a spokesman for Richard Thomas, Britain’s information commissioner, sound recorded by the cameras would be treated under British law in the same way as CCTV footage. Under the commissioner’s code of practice, audio can be recorded for the detection, prevention of crime and apprehension and prosecution of offenders. It cannot be used for recording private conversations.

Graeme Gerrard, chairman of the chief police officers’ video and CCTV working group, said: “In the UK this is a new step. Clearly there is somebody or something monitoring people speaking in the street, and before we were to engage in that technology there would be a number of legal obstacles.

“We would need to have a debate as to whether or not this is something the public think would be a reasonable use of the technology. The other issue is around the capacity of the police service to deal with this.”

UK Sunday Times ** Word on the street ... they’re listening

Posted by yaahoo_ at 10:38 AM EST

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10 Is the New 15 As Kids Grow Up Faster

Zach Plante is close with his parents - he plays baseball with them and, on weekends, helps with work in the small vineyard they keep at their northern California home.

Lately, though, his parents have begun to notice subtle changes in their son. Among other things, he's announced that he wants to grow his hair longer - and sometimes greets his father with "Yo, Dad!"

"Little comments will come out of his mouth that have a bit of that teen swagger," says Tom Plante, Zach's dad.

Thing is, Zach isn't a teen. He's 10 years old - one part, a fun-loving fifth-grader who likes to watch the Animal Planet network and play with his dog and pet gecko, the other a soon-to-be middle schooler who wants an iPod.

In some ways, it's simply part of a kid's natural journey toward independence. But child development experts say that physical and behavioral changes that would have been typical of teenagers decades ago are now common among "tweens" - kids ages 8 to 12.

Some of them are going on "dates" and talking on their own cell phones. They listen to sexually charged pop music, play mature-rated video games and spend time gossiping on MySpace. And more girls are wearing makeup and clothing that some consider beyond their years.

Zach is starting to notice it in his friends, too, especially the way they treat their parents.

"A lot of kids can sometimes be annoyed by their parents," he says. "If I'm playing with them at one of their houses, then they kind of ignore their parents. If their parents do them a favor, they might just say, 'OK,' but not notice that much."

The shift that's turning tweens into the new teens is complex - and worrisome to parents and some professionals who deal with children. They wonder if kids are equipped to handle the thorny issues that come with the adolescent world.

"I'm sure this isn't the first time in history people have been talking about it. But I definitely feel like these kids are growing up faster - and I'm not sure it's always a good thing," says Dr. Liz Alderman, an adolescent medicine specialist at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City. She's been in practice for 16 years and has noticed a gradual but undeniable change in attitude in that time.

She and others who study and treat children say the reasons it's happening are both physical and social.

Several published studies have found, for instance, that some tweens' bodies are developing faster, with more girls starting menstruation in elementary school - a result doctors often attribute to improved nutrition and, in some cases, obesity. While boys are still being studied, the findings about girls have caused some endocrinologists to lower the limits of early breast development to first or second grade.

Along with that, even young children are having to deal with peer pressure and other societal influences.

Beyond the drugs, sex and rock'n'roll their boomer and Gen X parents navigated, technology and consumerism have accelerated the pace of life, giving kids easy access to influences that may or may not be parent-approved. Sex, violence and foul language that used to be relegated to late-night viewing and R-rated movies are expected fixtures in everyday TV.

And many tweens model what they see, including common plot lines "where the kids are really running the house, not the dysfunctional parents," says Plante, who in addition to being Zach's dad is a psychology professor at Santa Clara University in California's Silicon Valley.

He sees the results of all these factors in his private practice frequently.

Kids look and dress older. They struggle to process the images of sex, violence and adult humor, even when their parents try to shield them. And sometimes, he says, parents end up encouraging the behavior by failing to set limits - in essence, handing over power to their kids.

"You get this kind of perfect storm of variables that would suggest that, yes, kids are becoming teens at an earlier age," Plante says.

Natalie Wickstrom, a 10-year-old in suburban Atlanta, says girls her age sometimes wear clothes that are "a little inappropriate." She describes how one friend tied her shirt to show her stomach and "liked to dance, like in rap videos."

Girls in her class also talk about not only liking but "having relationships" with boys.

"There's no rules, no limitations to what they can do," says Natalie, who's also in fifth grade.

Her mom, Billie Wickstrom, says the teen-like behavior of her daughter's peers, influences her daughter - as does parents' willingness to allow it.

"Some parents make it hard on those of us who are trying to hold their kids back a bit," she says.

So far, she and her husband have resisted letting Natalie get her ears pierced, something many of her friends have already done. Now Natalie is lobbying hard for a cell phone and also wants an iPod.

"Sometimes I just think that maybe, if I got one of these things, I could talk about what they talk about," Natalie says of the kids she deems the "popular ones."

It's an age-old issue. Kids want to fit in - and younger kids want to be like older kids.

But as the limits have been pushed, experts say the stakes also have gotten higher - with parents and tweens having to deal with very grown-up issues such as pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Earlier this year, that point hit home when federal officials recommended a vaccine for HPV - a common STD that can lead to cervical cancer - for girls as young as age 9.

"Physically, they're adults, but cognitively, they're children," says Alderman, the physician in New York. She's found that cultural influences have affected her own children, too.

Earlier this year, her 12-year-old son heard the popular pop song "Promiscuous" and asked her what the word meant.

"I mean, it's OK to have that conversation, but when it's constantly playing, it normalizes it," Alderman says.

She observes that parents sometimes gravitate to one of two ill-advised extremes - they're either horrified by such questions from their kids, or they "revel" in the teen-like behavior. As an example of the latter reaction, she notes how some parents think it's cute when their daughters wear pants or shorts with words such as "hottie" on the back.

"Believe me, I'm a very open-minded person. But it promotes a certain way of thinking about girls and their back sides," Alderman says. "A 12-year-old isn't sexy."

With grown-up influences coming from so many different angles - from peers to the Internet and TV - some parents say the trend is difficult to combat.

Claire Unterseher, a mother in Chicago, says she only allows her children - including an 8-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter - to watch public television.

And yet, already, they're coming home from school asking to download songs she considers more appropriate for teens.

"I think I bought my first Abba single when I was 13 or 14 - and here my 7-year-old wants me to download Kelly Clarkson all the time," Unterseher says. "Why are they so interested in all this adult stuff?"

Part of it, experts say, is marketing - and tweens are much-sought-after consumers.

Advertisers have found that, increasingly, children and teens are influencing the buying decisions in their households - from cars to computers and family vacations. According to 360 Youth, an umbrella organization for various youth marketing groups, tweens represent $51 billion worth of annual spending power on their own from gifts and allowance, and also have a great deal of say about the additional $170 billion spent directly on them each year.

Toymakers also have picked up on tweens' interest in older themes and developed toy lines to meet the demand - from dolls known as Bratz to video games with more violence.

Diane Levin, a professor of human development and early childhood at Wheelock College in Boston, is among those who've taken aim at toys deemed too violent or sexual.

"We've crossed a line. We can no longer avoid it - it's just so in our face," says Levin, author of the upcoming book "So Sexy So Soon: The Sexualization of Childhood."

Earlier this year, she and others from a group known as the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood successfully pressured toy maker Hasbro to drop plans for a line of children's toys modeled after the singing group Pussycat Dolls.

Other parents, including Clyde Otis III, are trying their own methods.

An attorney with a background in music publishing, Otis has compiled a line of CDs called "Music Talking" that includes classic oldies he believes are interesting to tweens, but age appropriate. Artists include Aretha Franklin, Rose Royce and Blessid Union of Souls.

"I don't want to be like a prude. But some of the stuff out there, it's just out of control sometimes," says Otis, a father of three from Maplewood, N.J.

"Beyonce singing about bouncing her butt all over the place is a little much - at least for an 8-year-old."

In the end, many parents find it tricky to strike a balance between setting limits and allowing their kids to be more independent.

Plante, in California, discovered that a few weeks ago when he and Zach rode bikes to school, as the two of them have done since the first day of kindergarten.

"You know, dad, you don't have to bike to school with me anymore," Zach said.

Plante was taken aback.

"It was a poignant moment," he says. "There was this notion of being embarrassed of having parents be too close."

Since then, Zach has been riding by himself - a big step in his dad's mind.

"Of course, it is hard to let go, but we all need to do so in various ways over time," Plante says, "as long as we do it thoughtfully and lovingly, I suppose."

• On the Net: Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood --- Music Talking

Martha Irvine is a national writer specializing in coverage of people in their 20s and younger. She can be reached at mirvine@ap.org.
My Way News ~ Associated Press - Martha Irvine ** 10 Is the New 15 As Kids Grow Up Faster

Posted by yaahoo_ at 12:01 AM EST

Updated: Sunday, 26 November 2006 6:49 AM EST

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PETA Mistakenly Targets Alaska Church

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- The pastor at Anchorage First Free Methodist Church was mystified. Why was the activist group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals chastising him? No animals are harmed in the church's holiday nativity display. In fact, animals aren't used at all.

People, however, do dress the parts - Mary, Joseph, the wise men, etc. The volunteers stand shivering at a manger on the church lawn in a silent tribute to Christmas.

The Rev. Jason Armstrong was confused by an e-mail this week from PETA, which admonished him for subjecting animals "to cruel treatment and danger," by forcing them into roles in the church's annual manger scene.

"We've never had live animals, so I just figured this was some spam thing," Armstrong said. "It's rough enough on us people standing out there in the cold. So we're definitely not using animals."

Jackie Vergerio, PETA's captive animals in entertainment specialist, said her organization tracks churches nationwide that use real animals in "living nativity scenes."

Seems the confusion started with the church's choice of phrase. PETA flagged Free Methodist's display as a "living nativity," and indeed, that's how the church describes it on its Web site.

To PETA, that means animals.

"Those animals are subject to all sorts of terrible fates in some cases," Vergerio said. "Animals have been stolen and slaughtered, they've been raped, they've escaped from the nativity scenes and have been struck by cars and killed. Just really unfathomable things have happened to them."

In the letter to Armstrong, Vergerio shared some sad fates of previous nativity animals - like Brighty the donkey, snatched from a nativity scene in Virginia and beaten by three young men. Ernie the camel fled a creche in Maryland but was struck and killed by a car. Two sheep and a donkey had to be euthanized after a dog mauling at a manger scene in Virginia.

Free Methodist's display is peaceful, Armstrong said. The congregation erects the stable. Members spread straw and don costumes. Some even dress as manger animals.

"We have some puppet camel things we put out," Armstrong said. "We have a cow hood thing that a person will wear that actually just looks spooky."

The volunteers stand beneath a brightly lit electric star as Christmas music fills the frosty air. They don't even speak.

Posted by yaahoo_ at 12:01 AM EST

Updated: Sunday, 26 November 2006 9:21 AM EST

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Arianna's Playpen on the Holiday

By Kathryn Jean Lopez

The Huffington Post reaches a new low with a prayer for Dick Cheney's death from libtard Tony Hendra.

National Review Online ~ The Corner ** Arianna's Playpen on the Holiday

Libtards will do, as libtards will do. I'm not anywhere near shocked or amazed by their hatred anymore. Their bullshit "compassion" always seems to shine through.

Posted by yaahoo_ at 12:01 AM EST

Updated: Friday, 24 November 2006 12:17 AM EST

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Puglosi's Dream Team ~

Congressional Committees Chairmanship Roster

The Speaker of the House Elect, Mad-dem Nancy "NAMBLA" Puglosi, may not stop with the "ethically pure" chairman picks of Jack "Redeployed" Murtha and Alcee "Impeached" Hastings. In fine Demented-crat fashion, I'd like to submit more powerful committee chairmanship positions in Congress for the libtard leadership to consider:

• Chairman of the Senatorial
Real Estate Agents Caucus:
Sen. Majority Leader,
Harry Greid (D-NV)

• Chairman of the Congressional
Race Relations Committee:
Michael "Kramer" Richards

• Secretary of Education:
Debra Lafave

• "Keeper of Records":
Sandy Burglar

• Congressional Chairman of
"No Child Left Behind":
John Mark Karr

• Drug Zsar:
Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI)

• Secretary of the (Freezer) Interior:
Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA)

• Chaiman of Military and Armed Services Recruitment:
Sen. Lurch Heinz Kerry (D-MA)

• Mississippi State Welcome Committee, and
• Chairman of The Military Eligibility Council:
Rep. Charlie "Draft" Rangel (D-NY)

• Congressional Chocolate City Council:
Mayor Ray Nagin (D-New Orleans)

• Chief of Interns:
Bubba
"Billyboy" Clintax
(D-Pres.1993-2001)

•• Can't remember all the other ones I was laughing / thinking about in chat last night.

But you get the idea, I know I left alot of big names and positions open... the list could go on and on.

Posted by yaahoo_ at 6:46 PM EST

Updated: Thursday, 23 November 2006 10:12 PM EST

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If you spent a Clintax dollar, would it be inappropriate to say you 'blew' the money?
Just wondering...

Dollar coin gets presidential spin

WASHINGTON - Can George Washington and Thomas Jefferson succeed where Susan B. Anthony and Sacagawea failed? The U.S. Mint is hoping America's presidents will win acceptance, finally, for the maligned one-dollar coin.

The public will get the chance to decide starting in February when the first of the new coins, bearing the image of the first president, is introduced.

Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison are scheduled to grace the coin in 2007, with a different president appearing every three months.

The series will honor four different presidents per year, in the order they served in office. Each president will appear on only one coin, except for Grover Cleveland, who will be on two because he was the only president to serve nonconsecutive terms. To be depicted on a coin, a president must have been dead for at least two years.

The idea of rotating designs borrows from the highly successful 50-state quarter program. Since its launch in 1999, this program has featured five state designs each year in the order the state joined the union.

The quarter program has been widely successful, introducing millions of people to coin collecting for the first time. The Mint hopes the presidential program will enjoy similar success, in part because of the bold designs on the new coins.

Those designs are being made public during a ceremony today at the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery, home of some of the famous paintings that served as models for the coins.

Copies of the designs were made available to the Associated Press in advance.

"These designs are beautiful and so eye-catching that a lot of Americans are going to do a double-take when they get them in their change the first time," Edmund C. Moy, the director of the Mint, said in an AP interview.

The coins will be the same size as the Sacagawea dollar - a little larger than a quarter - and the same golden color as the Sacagawea. The image of the president will be on one side and the Statue of Liberty on the other.

The images will be slightly larger than those on a quarter because space was freed up by moving some of the traditional wording such as "In God We Trust" to the edge of the coin. Edge lettering has not been tried on an American coin since 1933.

Will all this be enough to make the presidential dollars a success where the Susan B. Anthony, introduced in 1979, and the Sacagawea, introduced in 2000, have been flops, at least in terms of gaining acceptance as circulating coins?

Moy is optimistic, saying a number of things have changed since the Sacagawea launch six years ago. Rising prices mean it takes more quarters to feed the parking meter and vending machines. People might now be more willing to carry the dollar coin to replace four quarters.

Moy said the Mint also will do a better job of coordinating with the Federal Reserve to make sure that commercial banks quickly get their orders for the new dollars filled.

"We are geared up to make hundreds of millions of these coins depending on what the demand is," Moy said.

Rep. Michael Castle, R-Del., a prime mover in Congress for both the 50-state quarter legislation and the presidential coins, said he believed the new dollars would have a good chance for success.

Buffalo News ~ Associated Press - Martin Crutsinger ** Dollar coin gets presidential spin

Posted by yaahoo_ at 7:48 PM EST

Updated: Wednesday, 22 November 2006 8:13 PM EST

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The first remarkable close-up pictures of animals in the womb

• Gallery: See more amazing pictures of animals in the womb

An unborn elephant, tiny but perfect in every way. A dolphin swimming in the womb, just as it will have to swim in the ocean the moment it is born. An unborn dog panting.
Each one amazing and now, thanks to these remarkable pictures, they can be seen for the first time.

Using an array of technology, the images reveal what until now has been a secret - exactly how animals develop in the womb. They were created by the same team who in 2004 showed how human embryos "walk in the womb".

Using a combination of three-dimensional ultrasound scans, computer graphics and tiny cameras, the team were able to show the entire process from conception to birth.

"These kind of images from inside animals have never been seen before," said Jeremy Dear of Pioneer Productions, who made the film.

"We worked with dozens of zoos and animal sanctuaries across the world. There were a lot of different challenges - recording a dolphin is very different from an elephant, for instance.

"Animals were trained to sit still near the scanners and we also inserted cameras into the womb via the elephant's rectum-But it has been worth it. It one sequence we follow an elephant developing. When it is finally born, there is not a dry eye in the house.

"The images in the film are a testament to the ingenuity and patience of the production team led by Yavar Abbas and Dr David Barlow, who worked with some of the world's leading vets to obtain these pictures."

The images were created for the programme Animals In The Womb, a two-hour show to be broadcast on the National Geographic Channel in America next month and on Channel 4 and the National Geographic Channel in the UK next year.

Researchers used scans to track elephant calves developing for almost two years in the womb - the longest gestation period of all mammals.

It shows at 16 weeks the elephant foetus starting to look more like an elephant as the trunk develops.

At almost a year, the trunk is longer than the legs, and by 14 months, the characteristic elephant ears are visible. They will eventually grow to almost two feet across to help regulate the body temperature of the fullymature-elephant. At birth, he will weigh nearly 260lb and be able to take his first steps in minutes.

Animals closer to home were also studied. A golden retriever foetus is shown exhibiting some of the same behaviour as family pets, panting with its tongue out, while still in the womb.

Programme makers also reveal the moment at eight weeks when a baby dolphin learns to swim while in the womb. During the next few weeks, it develops flippers, a tail and a blowhole before being born after a year, and must be able to quickly swim to the surface to take its first breath of air.

Experts also found that at 24 days, the dolphin embryo develops tiny leg-like buds, which then disappear over the next two weeks.

After 11 weeks, the dolphin embryo's fins display bone structures resembling human hands, which experts believe may show that dolphin ancestors were land dwellers.

The footage also shows how many animal embryos are like human ones.

"The incredible thing about the early images is how we all look very similar - it is obviously we humans share a common mammalian ancestry very early in life," said Mr Dear.

Reader comments • Gallery: See more amazing pictures of animals in the womb
UK Daily Mail  ** The first remarkable close-up pictures of animals in the womb
Related: Scientific Photographer Takes Awesome Microscopic Pictures of Inside the Human Body, Fetus Formation

Posted by yaahoo_ at 6:42 PM EST

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Antarctic Ice Sheet Mass Balance

Reference
Wingham, D.J., Shepherd, A., Muir, A. and Marshall, G.J. 2006. Mass balance of the Antarctic ice sheet. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A 364: 1627-1635.

What was done
The authors "analyzed 1.2 x 108 European remote sensing satellite altimeter echoes to determine the changes in volume of the Antarctic ice sheet from 1992 to 2003." This survey, in their words, "covers 85% of the East Antarctic ice sheet and 51% of the West Antarctic ice sheet," which together comprise "72% of the grounded ice sheet.""

What was learned
Wingham et al. report that "overall, the data, corrected for isostatic rebound, show the ice sheet growing at 5 ± 1 mm year-1." To calculate the ice sheet's change in mass, however, "requires knowledge of the density at which the volume changes have occurred," and when the researchers' best estimates of regional differences in this parameter are used, they find that "72% of the Antarctic ice sheet is gaining 27 ± 29 Gt year-1, a sink of ocean mass sufficient to lower [authors' italics] global sea levels by 0.08 mm year-1." This net extraction of water from the global ocean, according to Wingham et al., occurs because "mass gains from accumulating snow, particularly on the Antarctic Peninsula and within East Antarctica, exceed the ice dynamic mass loss from West Antarctica."

What it means
Contrary to all the horror stories one hears about global warming-induced mass wastage of the Antarctic ice sheet leading to rising sea levels that gobble up coastal lowlands worldwide, the most recent decade of pertinent real-world data suggest that forces leading to just the opposite effect are apparently prevailing, even in the face of what climate alarmists typically describe as the greatest warming of the world in the past two millennia or more.

CO2 Science ~ Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change ** Antarctic Ice Sheet Mass Balance                 Related: Snow Reported In Central Florida
Arctic May Be "Fighting Back" Against Rising Warmth, new patterns of cooling ocean currents

Posted by yaahoo_ at 2:16 AM EST

Updated: Wednesday, 22 November 2006 2:30 AM EST

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