amygdala hijack n.— «How we deal with stress, challenge and conflict has roots deep in human evolution. The problem: In times of great stress or crisis, our limbic brains literally take over the rest of the brain. In the emotional intelligence...
twenty-minute takeout n.— «The “security check” used by the CIA to prepare a detainee for transport on a rendition plane was described to us by one source in the American intelligence community as a “twenty-minute takeout.” His explanation was that...
bucket baby n.— «Some studies have shown that sling-carried babies are more intelligent than bucket babies (nickname for how when a baby is carried around in the popular car seat carriers it looks like the parent is carrying around a baby in a...
Jerry Springer n.— «The American soldiers themselves were aware of how inane many of their night raids were. Back in January 2004, the unit I was with jokingly called their raids “Jerry Springers.” Why? Because the intelligence was often based on...
false flag n.— «The betting among spy buffs is that Asgari was recruited in what’s known as a “false flag” operation. His handlers may be Israelis posing as officers of another intelligence service, perhaps even during the debriefing. Such...
HIT n.— «Mr. Bezos figured that what had been useful to Amazon would be valuable to other businesses, too. The company opened Mechanical Turk as a public site in November 2005. Today, there are more than 100,000 “Turk Workers” in more than 100...

