A federal judge has resigned from the court that oversees government surveillance in intelligence cases, reportedly over concerns about the secret program authorized by President Bush that bypasses the court and allows spying on people believed to be communicating with terror suspects abroad.

Judge Quits, Reportedly Over U.S. Spy Program

Bosch's adaptive (radar) cruise control system.

Robert Bosch GmbH - Systems and Products for Automobile Manufacturer

Four rare transits of the Sun by aircraft have been captured by the Improved Solar Optical Observing Network (ISOON) telescope at the National Solar Observatory atop Sacramento Peak at Sunspot, New Mexico.

Follow the link to nso.edu to see the original pics.

Flying across the Sun

Many economists have long suspected that official government statistics here provided only a shadow of reality.

With China's announcement on Tuesday that its economy was considerably bigger than previously estimated, economists and financial prognosticators are scrambling to rethink their assessment of China's rise and its role on the world stage. China's new figures suggest that it probably has passed France, Italy and Britain to become the world's fourth-largest economy.

Some economists are even accelerating their timetables for when China may eclipse the United States as the world's biggest economy. With the new figures offering a more expansive view of economic activity, some said China could overtake the United States as early as 2035, at least five years earlier than previous projections.

That Blur? It's China, Moving Up in the Pack

Five days before the holiday, the Senate remains at work, poised for decisive votes Wednesday on major legislation. The results will determine whether the Congressional session ends on a triumphal note for Republicans, or whether Democrats will celebrate blocking Republican priorities like Arctic oil drilling and spending cuts.

In Still-Busy Senate, Showdown Is Today

On the campaign stump, Evo Morales liked to say that if he was elected president of Bolivia, he would become America's nightmare. After his election on Sunday, a State Department official said essentially the same thing, calling Mr. Morales "potentially our worst nightmare."

The Bush administration says it fears that Mr. Morales will follow through on his promise to join Hugo Ch�vez, the Venezuelan president, as an anti-American, leftist leader, while also carrying out his promise to reduce restrictions on his nation's production of coca leaf, the primary ingredient of cocaine, much of which finds its way to the United States.

U.S. Keeps a Wary Eye on the Next Bolivian President

The jet approaching Reagan National Airport followed the complicated turns required for the prescribed route over the Potomac River, banking sharply left and right as it descended smoothly toward Runway 19. But the two pilots never touched the controls. The plane was being guided by the autopilot, which was taking its cues in three dimensions, from satellites in orbit.

New Airline Navigation System Is Displayed

Seagate Technology, the giant digital storage company, has reached a deal to acquire a rival, the Maxtor Corporation, for $1.9 billion in stock, the companies announced today.

Whoa! The consolidation continues. Now we're down to:

Seagate/Maxtor/Quantum/Conner/DEC
Hitachi/IBM
Western Digital
Fujitsu
Toshiba (laptops only, IIRC)
Samsung (a newcomer, I think -- I wonder if their disk business came from an acquisition. All of theirs looks low-end in any event).

Seagate Agrees to Buy Maxtor for $1.9 Billion

The federal government's two-year-old antispam law is helping to cut back on unsolicited bulk e-mail, but more must be done to fight the problem. Those are the conclusions of a Federal Trade Commission report, released today, on how well the law is working.

The 116-page report , titled "Effectiveness and Enforcement of the CAN-SPAM Act," is the FTC's first assessment of federal antispam efforts since the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003 (CAN-SPAM) took effect. It touts the FTC's accomplishments, outlines new challenges, and advocates passage of an additional law that would give the FTC broader authority to go after international spammers.

FTC's CAN-SPAM Report Card

In his opinion, the judge said he found the testimony of Barbara Forrest, a historian of science, very persuasive. She had presented evidence that the authors of an intelligent design textbook, "Of Pandas and People, merely removed the word "creationism" from an earlier edition and substituted it with "intelligent design" after the Supreme Court's ruling in 1987.

Here's the NYT story.

Judge Bars 'Intelligent Design' From Pa. Classes