today i spent 9 hours working on Ganesha The Car. if i had it to do all over again i would make all the writing the size of the new red & black lines, but it’s pretty good the way it is.
Daily Archives: Tuesday, 060516
494
okay, this is strange…
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Black and white twins
By LUCY LAING
21st February 2006
When Kylie Hodgson gave birth to twin daughters by caesarean section, she was just relieved that they had arrived safely.
It was only when the midwife handed them over for her to hold that she noticed the difference between them.
Remee, who weighed 5lb 15oz, was blonde and fair skinned. Her sister Kian, born a minute later weighing 6lb, was black.
‘Our two gorgeous little girls’
“It was a shock when I realised that my twins were two different colours,” said Kylie, 19. “But it doesn’t matter to us – they are just our two gorgeous little girls.”
The amazing conception happened after two eggs were fertilised at the same time in the womb.
Both Kylie and her partner Remi Horder, 17, are of mixed race. Their mothers are both white and their fathers are black.
According to the Multiple Births Foundation, baby Kian must have inherited the black genes from both sides of the family, whilst Remee inherited the white ones.
Kylie, from Nottingham, discovered she was pregnant in the summer of 2004 and a scan at the Queen’s Medical Centre revealed that twins were on the way.
“It was a shock at first to discover I was expecting as we hadn’t been trying for a family,” she said I had my 14-week scan and the sonographer ran the scanner over my stomach and announced that I was carrying twins.
“We couldn’t believe it. Neither of us could take our eyes off the scanner – you could just see two of everything, even the outline of their little noses. We were both overwhelmed.”
The twins were born by caesarean in April last year because one of the girls was lying in an awkward position in the womb.
“I didn’t see them at first,” added their mother. “They were both whisked away to be checked over and then the midwife came back and placed them both in my arms.
“I noticed that both of them had beautiful blue eyes, but whilst Remee was blonde, Kian’s hair was black and she had darker skin.
“It seemed strange, but I was feeling so ill that I didn’t really take it in at that stage.”
The next day she mentioned the colour difference to her mother, who told her that Remee’s skin would darken as she grew older.
But as the weeks passed, Remee became lighter still while Kian went darker. And while Remee’s eyes stayed blue, Kian’s turned brown.
“There are some similarities between them,” said their mother. “They both love apples and grapes, and their favourite television programme is Teletubbies.
“If they haven’t seen each other for a few hours, they are so pleased to see each other and will hold out their arms, wanting to hug each other. And their smiles just light up their faces.
“I’ll explain it all to them when they get older about why they look so different.”
Million to one odds
The odds against of a mixed race couple having twins of dramatically different colour are a million to one.
Skin colour is believed to be determined by up to seven different genes working together.
If a woman is of mixed race, her eggs will usually contain a mixture of genes coding for both black and white skin.
Similarly, a man of mixed race will have a variety of different genes in his sperm. When these eggs and sperm come together, they will create a baby of mixed race.
But, very occasionally, the egg or sperm might contain genes coding for one skin colour. If both the egg and sperm contain all white genes, the baby will be white. And if both contain just the versions necessary for black skin, the baby will be black.
For a mixed-race couple, the odds of either of these scenarios is around 100 to one. But both scenarios can occur at the same time if the woman conceives non-identical twins, another 100 to one chance.
This involves two eggs being fertilised by two sperm at the same time, which also has odds of around 100 to one.
If a sperm containing all-white genes fuses with a similar egg and a sperm coding for purely black skin fuses with a similar egg, two babies of dramatically different colours will be born.
The odds of this happening are 100 x 100 x 100 – a million to one.
493
By Brian Ross and Richard Esposito
May 15, 2006
A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we (Brian Ross and Richard Esposito) call in an effort to root out confidential sources.
“It’s time for you to get some new cell phones, quick,” the source told us in an in-person conversation.
ABC News does not know how the government determined who we are calling, or whether our phone records were provided to the government as part of the recently-disclosed NSA collection of domestic phone calls.
Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters for ABC News, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation.
One former official was asked to sign a document stating he was not a confidential source for New York Times reporter James Risen.
Our reports on the CIA’s secret prisons in Romania and Poland were known to have upset CIA officials. The CIA asked for an FBI investigation of leaks of classified information following those reports.
People questioned by the FBI about leaks of intelligence information say the CIA was also disturbed by ABC News reports that revealed the use of CIA predator missiles inside Pakistan.
Under Bush Administration guidelines, it is not considered illegal for the government to keep track of numbers dialed by phone customers.
The official who warned ABC News said there was no indication our phones were being tapped so the content of the conversation could be recorded.
A pattern of phone calls from a reporter, however, could provide valuable clues for leak investigators.
and
By Brian Ross and Richard Esposito
May 15, 2006
The FBI acknowledged late Monday that it is increasingly seeking reporters’ phone records in leak investigations.
“It used to be very hard and complicated to do this, but it no longer is in the Bush administration,” said a senior federal official.
The acknowledgement followed our blotter item that ABC News reporters had been warned by a federal source that the government knew who we were calling.
The official said our blotter item was wrong to suggest that ABC News phone calls were being “tracked.”
“Think of it more as backtracking,” said a senior federal official.
But FBI officials did not deny that phone records of ABC News, the New York Times and the Washington Post had been sought as part of a investigation of leaks at the CIA.
In a statement, the FBI press office said its leak investigations begin with the examination of government phone records.
“The FBI will take logical investigative steps to determine if a criminal act was committed by a government employee by the unauthorized release of classified information,” the statement said.
Officials say that means that phone records of reporters will be sought if government records are not sufficient.
Officials say the FBI makes extensive use of a new provision of the Patriot Act which allows agents to seek information with what are called National Security Letters (NSL).
The NSLs are a version of an administrative subpoena and are not signed by a judge. Under the law, a phone company receiving a NSL for phone records must provide them and may not divulge to the customer that the records have been given to the government.
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