A crappy old plant with inadequate safety features was hit by a monster earthquake and a vast tsunami. The electricity supply failed, knocking out the cooling system. The reactors began to explode and melt down. The disaster exposed a familiar legacy of poor design and corner-cutting. Yet, as far as we know, no one has yet received a lethal dose of radiation.
Some greens have wildly exaggerated the dangers of radioactive pollution. For a clearer view, look at the graphic published by xkcd.com. It shows that the average total dose from the Three Mile Island disaster for someone living within 10 miles of the plant was one 625th of the maximum yearly amount permitted for US radiation workers. This, in turn, is half of the lowest one-year dose clearly linked to an increased cancer risk, which, in its turn, is one 80th of an invariably fatal exposure. I'm not proposing complacency here. I am proposing perspective.
Welcome to my Wikipedia page. My nick in the #Wikipedia channel is either ShaunMacPhersonorSynonymous in case you wanted to know :). I have been a member of Wikipedia since January, 2004. Some describe me as an inclusionist although I dislike (being imprisoned by) labels.
I like science fiction, organizing data, video and computer games, reading books, and reading online articles, news, columns, blogs and reports.
I've contributed large lists of information for List of SNES games and List of video game music. I am especially good at collecting and manuplating spreadsheet information, and then converting it into Wiki format.
Online research, journals, academic periodicals, and sourcebooks[edit]
Some of the links below are helpful for finding references online. I'm also listing some journals found in JSTOR in particular that come with the benefit of free access.
Research
JSTOR online archives "Established in August 1995, JSTOR is an independent not-for-profit organization created with the assistance of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to help the scholarly community take advantage of advances in information technology. In pursuing this mission, JSTOR has adopted a system-wide perspective, taking into account the sometimes conflicting needs of scholars, libraries and publishers." 1
World Values Survey ("The World Values Survey is a worldwide investigation of sociocultural and political change. It has carried out representative national surveys of the basic values and beliefs of publics in more than 65 societies on all six inhabited continents, containing almost 80 percent of the world's population." 1)
Social Forces "Social Forces is a journal of social research highlighting sociological inquiry but also exploring realms shared with social psychology, anthropology, political science, history, and economics. The journal's intended academic readers include sociologists, social psychologists, criminologists, economists, political scientists, anthropologists, and students of urban studies, race/ethnic relations, and religious studies." 2
Comparative Studies in Society and History "Comparative Studies in Society and History" is an international forum for new research and interpretation concerning problems of recurrent patterning and change in human societies through time and the contemporary world." 3
Review ofRadical Political Economics "The Review of Radical Political Economics (RRPE) publishes articles onradical political economic theory and applied analysis from a wide variety of theoreticaltraditions: Marxist, institutionalist, post Keynesian, and feminist. RRPE is published by Sage Publications." 4
The Jamestown Foundation "The Jamestown Foundation's mission is to contribute to U.S. understanding of its strategic adversaries that pose a threat to democracy and freedom" 4
Johnson's Russia List "Johnson's Russia List is a daily e-mail newsletter with information and analysis about contemporary Russia from a wide range of sources." 5
Inside joke: I am starting to use this inside joke more around Wikipedia so I will uninside it. Since I do not spell that great sometimes, I've accussed people of following me around fixing my articles and spelling, and I call them my posse, or the mob :).
Whenever a new technology has disrupted copyright, we've changed copyright. Copyright isn't an ethical proposition, it's a utilitarian one. There's nothing *moral* about paying a composer tuppence for the piano-roll rights, there's nothing *immoral* about not paying Hollywood for the right to videotape a movie off your TV. They're just the best way of balancing out so that people's physical property rights in their VCRs and phonographs are respected and so that creators get enough of a dangling carrot to go on making shows and music and books and paintings.
There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped or turned back, for their private benefit. Robert A. Heinlein
Google Popularity Wikipedia Article Ranking Project[edit]
What a mouthful! I am starting an interesting little sub project here to see how well Wikipedia ranks on google for information on different topics. If you think this is a good idea feel free to move this to a common area and email the address in my talk page.
As the template suggests all my work on Wikipedia has been, and will continue to be unless otherwise noted, released under the creative commons copyright license as shown.
