Word: ratchet
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...covers a bit without losing any steam. But your brain is already taking steps to protect you from the shock of starting a new day. Rising cortisol levels signal the hypothalamus to stop sounding the alarm. Other parts of the brain chime in, and eventually the adrenal glands ratchet down their cortisol production. In other words, the brain's stress response contains its own off switch...
...around the Shi'a slum of Sadr City, home to the Mahdi Army militia blamed for much of the sectarian killings around Baghdad. During the days when the Sadr City cordon was in place, Baghdad saw noticeably fewer murders. The episode revealed two important things. First, U.S. forces can ratchet down the killings in Baghdad, at least for a time, with basic tactics like roadblocks and military policing. And second, as of now, the militias so eager to kill civilians are reluctant to confront American troops. The Mahdi Army didn't attack U.S. forces in earnest even when they massed...
Thus, step by step, travelers have been subjected to ever more intrusive searches, interrogations, and general hassle. The security ratchet tightens over time and the costs, in terms of individual liberty, convenience, and taxes (over $17 million per day for the TSA alone), only rise. Even though the British didn’t catch the August 10 would-be bombers by confiscating their toothpaste—it took months of old-fashioned gumshoe detective work—the day heralded a new set of irrational security restrictions. Our shoeless security circus, where minimally qualified federal screeners leer at passengers...
...documents, accelerating and decelerating until you get where you want to be. The scroll wheel actually engages and disengages the free spin depending on what application you're in, and what you're doing. If you are inching through a news story, you get the familiar bump-by-bump ratchet action, but if you land on your friend's mile-long blog and start scrolling, the ratchet bumps go away and the wheel's spin becomes Lance Armstrong smooth...
...auto industry lawsuit to invalidate its landmark 2002 law requiring carmakers to reduce tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gas and cut CO2 emissions for new vehicles by about 30 percent. And if that law were to be invalidated, California officials will face yet a new challenge: finding other ways to ratchet back emissions to meet the new overall limits it has just enacted...