I wrote about this for my college paper in 2000. There's nothing new here- and it's not about national politics, it's about the local elections that will be decided on the same ballot.

Full-time and long-time residents of small towns hosting large college campuses worry that swarming hordes of undereducated students who don't give a darn about their local government will "screw up" the local races with reckless, uninformed ballot marking.

In my town, this was manifested in large signs at the voter's registration counter, warning that changing your place of residency could have dire consequences, such as requiring you to also change your driver's license and vehicle registration, or, if you were from out of state, losing access to financial aid benefits granted by their home state.

Students, of course, took this as an attempt to scare them out of registering to vote (which it was), locals insisted they were only trying to educate the students on the law (also true)... he push was to try to get students to register to vote "at home," and by absentee ballot.

It was still wrong, but it wasn't a partisan effort- just parochial.

I just picked up an HP Pavilion tx2525... I don't mind the bulk from the keyboard when I'm just tooling around the living room, I didn't even mind having a plain laptop in the living room, but I went with the tablet because the price and the specs were right (about $1000) to justify the fact that I liked the convenience of having a tablet screen built in better than my previous setup-having to wait until I was home and sit down at a real desk, then haul out my USB non-display tablet just to doodle/sketch onto the notebook.

Personal experience- if you are in tablet mode, you can't just place it on your lap, you won't be able to view the LCD screen without tipping it at an angel. Large sofa throw pillows are a huge help in that dept when you are riding the couch.

Sounds like the Amtrack spokesperson was making a distinction between the train station- which is managed by Amtrack- and the mall, whis is managed by the mall owners (ie: LaSalle). Actually, most mall-style shopping centers prohibit photography, although it tends to be enforced more enthusiastically against the folks with bigger cameras (ie: news crews). Why? Because it's private property, and it's their private property, so they can, and they do, I guess. Same reason they can hustle teenagers off the premesis for "trespassing" if they aren't shopping concertedly enough.

I agree with General Specific- I got a desk about a year ago (I think it's the Legare "50-inch desk," but Pier One called it "the Tool Free desk"), and it's great. I am not stacking cinderblocks on it, but it's pretty sturdy.

This happpens all the time, and with even more expensive items.

Best Buy consider's itself a "closed box" seller, which means they don't sell opened items- or rather, that opened items are inspected, re-closed, and sold at a discount. To avoid losing money, Best Buy will not open an apparently closed box if it is returned, they will just put it back on the shelf.

Obviously, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to steam off some packing tape- or an absolute moron working the customer service desk to miss a staple that's been removed and replaced, or a seam that's been slit, and carefully retaped.

A few years ago, I met a family who was told by a BB manager that if the box for a big-screen TV they just purchased revealed an old TV, then they must have been the ones to put it there. I was working as a reporter, and don't know how it ended, but I know I went to their house and there was indeed one TV on the shelf, one in the box- and one really PO'd dad who had just shelled out some serious bucks for a used tv.

Same thing happened to my kid sister at WalMart with a computer (patio bricks in the box), but at least, they did (after some wrangling) take it back.

BB is more than happy to pass their losses on to the unfortunate customer. The only way you can really protect yourself is to insist on opening the box (at the register, or customer service) and inspecting the item before leaving the store (which is what I do).