A few provisions have emerged, such as a proposal that will expand federal oversight of insurance companies to control excessive rate increases, The Times’s Robert Pear and David Herszenhorn noted. The proposals under study by the White House are intended to bridge some gaps between the previous House and Senate bills.

Republican reception to the proposals ahead of the summit have been mixed, although Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in television interviews on Sunday that he and his Republican colleagues would go to the summit. House and Senate lawmakers return to Capitol Hill today after their prolonged President’s Day/snowstorm break.

A number of G.O.P. lawmakers have been in town late last week, appearing at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where their opposition to overhauling the nation’s health care system has been well-received by those attending. Although Democrats for many months have brushed Republicans as belonging to the “Party of No” – from rejecting the president’s stimulus bundle to health care, conference speakers tried to turn that negative into a positive by saying it’s O.K. to say no to what they see as large federal government programs.

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There’s a massive amount of boasting around the release. On 60 Minutes last night, founder KR Sridhar held up a brick-sized gadget that he claimed could power at least one house. He proposes that Bloom Boxes could at some point take the place of the electricity grid completely.

However with the official release not really until Wednesday, technical information tend to be slim.

The Bloom Box’s catalytic plates comprise of a stack of ceramic plates distributed with an unidentified ‘cheap metal alloy’ – other comparable cells call for costly metals such as platinum.

It could operate on any kind of fuel, states the company, from fossil fuels to biomass, which can be combined with oxygen to produce electrical power, with carbon dioxide and water as byproducts. There is no word on the efficiency of the thing – various other comparable fuel cells can manage up to 90 percent -  of the operating costs.

Sridhar states that he created the idea after working on a device for NASA that would be able to produce oxygen for a Mars mission.

The company already has larger-scale versions – priced at around $700,000 – being used at eBay and Google datacenters, where it claims they have saved the companies hundreds of thousands of dollars in energy expenses.

It says the household models should cost as little as $3,000 and be on the market within five to ten years. However with dozens of other companies focusing on comparable technologies, it’s totally possible that Bloom could possibly be beaten to market.

Bloom Energy has taken eight years to get this far, and has obtained $400 million in venture capital.

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And you don’t need to be a computer expert using any software suite like Photoshop will do the trick – inverting a photo is a simple process that takes one click and is an option available even in the most basic image editing software.

Wow, look at the detail of the inverted photo. You would recognized this girl if you met her on the street. This is actually a low resolution image.  Airport screeners will have access to larger high definition images that, once inverted, will allow them to see every minute detail of your body.

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It’s called “Tiger Woods Voicemail Slow Jam Remix” and was produced by HalfDayToday.com

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Naturally, there are conditions. According to the Whataburger Web site, Tuesday, November 10th, is Orange Night Out, which is exactly what it sounds like. For its customers who “get decked out in orange from head to toe,” (orange being the prominent color in the Whataburger logo) the chain will be giving away a free burger from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Announcement to all Syracuse fans, Oompa-Loompas and prisoners wearing jumpsuits. You’re all in luck, as you could probably get a free burger with little to no effort. But the deal only applies to dine-in customers only.

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As officers led the suspect Jason Rodriguez into a police station, a reporter asked the 40-year-old divorced man why he had attacked his former colleagues.

“Because they left me to rot,” said Rodriguez, who recently had told a bankruptcy judge he was  making under $30,000 a year at a Subway sandwich shop and owed nearly $90,000.

The shooting which took place on the eighth floor of an office tower shutdown downtown Orlando for over three hours. Police quickly tracked Rodriguez to his mother’s home, and spotted him through a window.

He surrendered peacefully and was in custody Friday evening, though he had not yet been formally charged in the shootings.

All of the victims worked at the firm of Reynolds, Smith and Hills, where Rodriguez was an entry-level engineer for 11 months before he was let go in June 2007, the company said.

Police said Rodriguez used a handgun in the shooting, but they did not release additional details, including how he got inside the building, whether he said anything to people in the office or how he initially escaped.

The five wounded people were in stable condition at Orlando hospitals. The person who died was not identified.

Rodriguez worked on drawings in the firm’s transportation group, but his supervisors said his performance was not up their standards, and when he did not improve, he was fired. The company did not hear from him again.

“This is really a mystery to us,” said Ken Jacobson, the firm’s general legal counsel and chief financial officer. “There was nothing to indicate any hard feelings.”

He did not know why Rodriguez would say the company had left him “to rot.”

“It’s been 2 1/2 years,” Jacobson said. “We don’t know where he’s been or what he’s done.”

Police Chief Val Demings said investigators did not know why Rodriguez targeted the engineering firm.

“This is a tragedy, no doubt about it, especially on the heels of the tragedy in Fort Hood that is on our minds,” she said, referring to an Army psychiatrist suspected of opening fire on fellow soldiers at a Texas military base Thursday in an attack that killed 13 people and wounded 30.

Charles Price, an attorney who represented Rodriguez in his bankruptcy case, said he could not comment on specifics of the matter. He had not seen Rodriguez since the summer.

A somber Gov. Charlie Crist visited some of the wounded at Orlando Regional Medical Center.

“They’re obviously traumatized,” he said. “At the same time, I was impressed with their spirit and strength.”

Camille Previlon told The Associated Press her uncle, engineer Guy Lungenbel, was shot in the back and was able to talk but had not said much about the shooting.

“He’s just hurting real bad in the back,” she said.

After the lunchtime shooting, some people streamed out of the Legion Place building while others holed up in their offices. A major highway was closed, and nearby schools were locked down.

Greg Cross, who works in a real estate office on the 12th floor, said he and his co-workers barricaded themselves inside after hearing about the gunman on television.

“We were terrified,” he said. “We locked the door and put a filing cabinet in front of the door and just waited.”

Mark Vella, who works in a different office on the same floor, said he and five co-workers also pulled a filing cabinet in front of their door. They prayed and talked about what to do if the gunman showed up.

“We were afraid the guy was still in the building and making the rounds,” Vella said.

Orlando shooting suspect

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• One dead in Orlando office attack (news.bbc.co.uk)

Technorati Tags: Additional Details, Bankruptcy Judge, Chief Financial Officer, Divorced Man, Drawings, Eighth Floor, Engineering Firm, Entry Level Engineer, Friday Evening, Handgun Shooting, Hard Feelings, Jason Rodriguez, Ken Jacobson, Legal Counsel, Office Tower, Orlando Fla, Police Station, Stable Condition, Subway Sandwich Shop, Transportation Group