The key to the story is at the end: "The lock on your front door is probably pretty easy to pick, but using a crowbar or going through a window would probably also suffice."

With modern technology, it's pretty easy to make a completely un-pickable lock. But when you lose the key, it's a nightmare to get access again, and thieves would just use a torch or cryogenic cold to destroy the lock (or another part of the enclosure).

Safes, rather than locks, encompass a much larger segment of the picture. And an unpickable safe isn't very useful, when a torch can cut the back open in a few minutes.

The Maginot Line around France stretched about 700 km, was 20-25 km deep with arms, supplies and very heavy fortifications. Yet that didn't protect France.

Neither were those 10 km of anti-tank barriers what protected Switzerland... Instead, it was politically protected, being neutral, and "its economic cooperation with Nazi Germany" kept it safe. Germany forced neutral Switzerland to have black-outs, and to use their small air force to force down Allied aircraft over their territory. Switzerland was heavily dependent on the Germany economy, and even instituted censorship, to avoid offending their close partners. Switzerland allowed transports between Germany and Italy in sealed box cars without checking the contents. Buying gold from Germany in exchange for convertible currency (Germany's national currency was no longer accepted as a means of payment in the international markets) was also an important factor.

"their equipment was not very up to date. Eugen Bircher, a Swiss colonel at the time, probably made a correct assessment of the situation when saying that the Germans would have been able to advance towards the Swiss capital Berne with a single tank regiment easily."

http://history-switzerland.geschichte-schweiz.ch/switzerland-second-world-war-ii.html

And now it looks like the Ford Explorer based Police Interceptor SUV is going to take over the world. The CHP chose it as their exclusive new vehicle, and local agencies all over are buying up big numbers of them at a record clip. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Explorer#Ford_Utility_Police_Interceptor

"While clearly based on the Explorer SUV, Ford insists that the PI Utility is a purpose-built vehicle." http://www.motortrend.com/features/auto_news/2012/1205_ford_police_interceptor_utility_is_california_highway_patrols_next_cruiser/

Doubly annoying... First the vertical video, then that lady's incredibly irritating voice that just goes on non-stop through the whole thing.

Peter Falk (Columbo) did a very good job playing an obvious Fidel Castro knockoff in the Twilight Zone episode: The Mirror (1961), all about dictators becoming paranoid of everyone around them.

Wasn't it an old Simpson's bit about (poorly) mowing a lawn with a weed whacker? Seems to be the same idea.

"This is exactly what I didn't want. That's why I left. I cannot stress that enough. I'd rather be in the mountains picking mushrooms." Warnock told the Lewiston Tribune at his Clarkston, Washington, home Thursday.

http://magicvalley.com/news/local/mystery-man-who-rescued-driver-from-cliff-comes-forward/article_359e59e0-e526-11e4-a908-97355673d237.html

Wonder if it being the 40th anniversary will make my original LP worth more...

That's the album that reminds me the most of what's missing with CDs and even more with individual MP3 downloads. There's a whole other dimension to listening to music on a painstakingly-mastered album, song order and such, and in particular the songs before/after you have to swap the disks, and the requisite long and silent pause in there, which you don't get on CD, or does anyone even know is supposed to be there.

Tool tries to do a bit of that today with their CDs, but it's still a far cry.

Trampled Under Foot seems to have just as much relevance today as it ever did... Finger Eleven's "Paralyzer" sounds like almost a direct knock-off, while
most of Franz Ferdinand's "Take Me Out" is awfully similar, too. Each song can be sampled on YouTube for anyone interested in comparing them.

If it's not sorted by death-toll, it's just not a list of the "most dangerous" anything at all.

That write-up is pretty hard to follow... He is of course not the famous actor by the same first/last name.

"very intense friendliness with nothing behind the eyes"

That's how I've always seen Tom Cruise... Without a doubt the stiffest and least convincing actor out there, unable to express ANY believable emotions on-screen. No idea why he still has a career.

Description still longer than the actual video.

Makes it sound so Kumbaya, with these cutthroat capitalists volunteering to lose money for the good of the poor animals. I suppose that's to be expected from "Fortune". Meanwhile, what actually happened is voters in the state of California passed Proposition 2, requiring humane conditions for calves raised for veal, egg-laying hens, and more, and forbids non-compliant eggs or veal from being sold inside the state. Any companies doing business in CA have no choice but to switch their supply chain to humanely produced eggs. And the effect will spread even wider, as farmers across the country must either comply with the California law, or be shut-out from about 15% of the entire US market.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/03/07/286811197/poultry-farmers-to-fight-back-on-california-cage-free-egg-law