To test the system's performance at the configuration stage, the K computer's processing speed was measured by the LINPACK benchmark program, placing it on the 37th TOP500 ranking of the world's fastest supercomputers.
Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, appeared on the CBS program "Face the Nation" to outline concerns over what he called Sotomayor's possible racial bias.
The U.S. program has been kept alive with backing from powerful pols such as Alaska's ranking Senator Ted Stevens, a World War II veteran and chairman of the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.