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Talk:Liberal bias

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 * Talk:Liberal bias/Quotes

Peter Jennings?
In The Tipping Point, Gladwell cites a study (Mullen, et al, "Newscasters facial expressions and voting behavior of viewers: Can a smile elect a President?", Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (1986), 51, 291-295), that suggests that not only is Peter Jennings not liberal, but that he has a record of smiling and being more positive when discusssing Republican candidates, and that viewers of ABC on the whole voted more Republican than viewers of other networks, on average, as a result. This probably belongs in the article somewhere, and it seems to make including Peter Jennings in the list of liberals rather odd.

Rewrite requested
This page needs a serious rework. It's entirely anecdotal, and tries to cover an enormous subject in a few cliches (kind of like a bad media report, really).

Lets take some examples. The Ebert quote appears to be central to this, but in what way is this liberal bias? It's bad reporting; it's a good example of a reporter following their agenda rather than trying to find the facts, but is the agenda that the reporter was trying to push more or less liberal than the one Ebert suggests? After all, the point that Ebert was trying to make was made even more successfully by Michael Moore. Is Moore a conservative all of a sudden?

To give this an international perspective, let me tell you than whenever someone from another country who is familiar with US news reporting hears accusations of 'liberal bias' we fall over laughing. US media is the most right-wing of any democracy. The US news media slavishly followed everything the administration said about the War on Iraq. Compare that with every other country, even those that supported the war. Why did no US news outlet publish stories of the attempt to remove voters from the Florida lists in 2000, but the BBC did? DJ Clayworth 15:03, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * Agreed, the article in its current form is of horrible quality. The short paragraph on liberal bias in Media bias is way better: more factual, and neutral. IMHO liberal bias could just as well be deleted and the valuable content (if there is any) moved to media bias. Otherwise we'll have to start conservative bias, progressive bias, US bias, Taiwan bias, etc. for every entity in existence. --snoyes 15:13, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I find it dubious to say that the Tom Brokaw news story spiking is an example of liberal bias. It can be just as easily claimed that it is an example of conservative bias, as the reporter (by his/her questioning) was suggesting censorship of the media as a remedy for school shooting. I'd say that media censorship is perhaps a more conservative value than a liberal one, but maybe I'm wrong. A third possible interpretation is that it is a money-oriented bias: Why would they want to air a viewpoint that in effect advocates something antagonistic to their reason for existence (reporting news). Also, why did you remove that sentence (you know which one)? --snoyes 15:08, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Maybe I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel a bit too hard, looking for examples told by liberals about spiking and then (wrongly) assuming this proves liberal bias. Please forgive me, and let me retreat into a dignified silence for a while, while you all repair the damage. :-( --Uncle Ed 15:17, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * I hope you're not suggesting that I/we (the critics) don't want you to edit Liberal bias, we're just pointing out ways to make the article better. --snoyes 15:21, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I'm increasingly liking the idea of just making this a redirect. Media bias is a lot better than this, and the only thing I found here that is not there is some of the book references (which would be easy to add) and the Spiro Agnew speech (the organisation referenced there is definitely not neutral about liberal bias). DJ Clayworth 15:48, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * I support this, I'd just like Ed's input as well. When the different sections (liberal & conservative bias) are large enough in media bias, they can always be spun off to their own articles. I would just not like to be accused of censorship because of changing liberal bias to redirect to media bias, but rather this must be a consensus decision. --snoyes 15:55, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * I had a go at this article and wasn't so happy with it; I wouldn't object to seeing this redirected. -- Viajero 17:27, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

If anyone thinks they can do the merge -- fairly -- then go ahead and try. Just please delay the REDIRECT until the merge is complete.

On the other hand, I worry that doing the merge too early may discourage writers who perceive a liberal bias and thus want to write about it.

The media bias article, which I just read, makes it seem like journalists are aware of the problem, but it's not that big a deal and they've got a handle on it. After all, media bias is being "studied" at universities, and any tendency toward a "liberal" bias is undoubtedly counteracted by the "conservative" bias attributed to corporate ownership pressures.

I think it's too early to consider reducing the liberal bias to a mere redirect. The other article, media bias, is unsatisfactory in itself. --Uncle Ed 18:40, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

anyone know how to do the footnote thingie? Is it like [foot#2] or what? --Uncle Ed 20:04, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

 * Hmm, no idea. Footnotes doesn't say that it is actually possible. This is the best I could come up with:  [ 1 ] ? --snoyes 20:19, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

God, these articles on controversial topics that devolve into a polemical essay by one side, followed by a refuting polemical essay by the other side, are tiresome. Why does this topic deserve its own article, anyway? And shouldn't it be "Liberal bias in the U.S. media", or some such? john 08:04, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * Well, it's an important topic--we've studied it in my upper level media classes. As far as it goes, you're right, this is not Wikipedia's finest hour.  I'd support a move, but only if we kept the resulting redirect--"liberal bias" is the much more common phrase. Meelar 08:09, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I agree that it's an important topic. The problem is when articles about controversial subjects are written by someone who is ideologically committed to one side of the controversy, and when those who disagree with them, instead of arguing with the article as a whole, are content to add a section at the bottom expressing their disagreement. Ideally, an article about a controversial subject should be from the perspective of a somewhat detached observer, looking at, and reporting accurately, the arguments of both sides. It should not simply be "the argument of one side" followed by "the argument of the other side." An article ought to look as if it was written by one person, even though (obviously) it was not. I'm not sure what the best approach for this article is, but it clearly shouldn't take for granted that "liberal bias" is a real phenomenon, because that's in dispute. It should report on what people who say there is liberal bias say, and report on what people who say there is not liberal bias say, but the narrative voice itself shouldn't be taking sides. john 08:26, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Another point, discussed in December, is that this stuff should really go under media bias. If Ed Poor thinks that that article currently doesn't express arguments as to media bias well, he should have tried to work on making that article better, instead of making up an entirely new article in order to give his POV free reign (I mean, that examples section was perhaps the most egregious POV I've ever seen on Wikipedia, and I've been involved in arguments over Polish place names.) john 08:31, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

fairpress.org
What is fairpress.org? What kind of organization is it? I know what the MRC and FAIR are, but I have no idea what this is. john 01:29, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)

 * I donno either, I just generally dislike removing external links. Lets look into it. Sam Spade 01:34, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Liberal bias in liberal bias?

 * Lines like "...and point to the lack of convincing evidence of a 'liberal media' and much evidence of a conservative bias" and "...both the print and broadcast media survive from advertising revenues, which in turn makes them beholden above all to large corporations" both seem to have, ironically enough, a liberal bias to them.
 * The first suggests that claims of a conservative bias are more accurate than claims of a liberal bias, and the second states - as fact - that the broadcast media is "beholden above all to large corporations". Those are two very POV lines, in my opinion, and I don't think they're appropriate for an article on this subject. Beginning 20:36, Jul 29, 2004 (UTC)
 * I removed or rephrased both sentences.--Neutrality 20:45, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

This article is dreadfully slanted. Does anyone dispute a pro-democrat bias in the US media? If so, who? I have seen surveys of journalists, reporters and anchormen, and it was outrageously tilted away from republican or independant values. I'll come up w some statistics shortly. Sam [Spade] 17:55, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * Yes, plenty of people dispute a pro-democrat bias, including, but not limited to, the reporters themselves. There's never been any convincing showing in the political science literature one way or the other, and the general consensus amongst political scientists is that any bias is completely dwarfed by other biases (like, for instance, the bias towards an interesting story, the tendency to see all political stories through preset "frames", etc.). I'll read the article more carefully and work on it, but this is my initial reaction. [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 17:59, 2004 Aug 10 (UTC)

Facts
From the June 4, 2004, Chicago Sun-Times: "According to a new survey [by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center], only 12 percent of local reporters, editors and media executives describe themselves as conservatives, while twice as many say they're liberal. At national news organizations, the gap is wider7 percent conservative vs. 34 percent liberal."1 In reality the situation is even more unbalanced than those statistics indicate. In that Pew study, 54 percent of news people self-described themselves as "moderate," as neither liberal nor conservative. However, as other statistics in this study suggest, many of these so-called moderates are closet liberals. For example, a stunning 88 percent of journalists believe society should approve of homosexuality while only around half of Americans believe that. And as syndicated columnist George Will once noted, about 90 percent of news reporters, editors, and producers vote for Democrats not Republicans.2

CBS News' Andy Rooney, discussing Bernard Goldberg's book Bias, which argues that the dominant media are biased in the liberal direction, on CNN's "Larry King Live" in June 2002: "There is just no question that I, among others [in the media], have a liberal bias. I mean, I'm consistently liberal in my opinions. And I think...Dan [Rather] is transparently liberal. Now, he may not like to hear me say that....But I think he should be more careful."3

Journalist Charles Krauthammer: "The nonpartisan Center for Media and Public Affairs found...that TV coverage of the new GOP Congress in early 1995 was overwhelmingly negative: 68 percent negative evaluations versus 32 percent positive. (Dan Rather, on CBS, offered this typical description of the House GOP agenda: 'to demolish or damage [not, to fix] government aid programs, many of them designed to help children and the poor.')"4

Roger Ebert: "I agree that Hollywood movies tend toward the liberal agenda, because artistic and creative types in general tend to be liberal."5

U.S. News & World Report's John Leo: "Journalists are increasingly reluctant to report negative news about minorities or women's causes....The upshot of this is soft and caring coverage of favored [liberal] groups [and their causes], with certain stories mostly ruled out of bounds [i.e., censored]--the hyperaggressive side of the gay rights movement, for instance, or anything that might embarrass the cause of abortion rights."6

Chicago Tribune columnist Stephen Chapman: "Liberal journalists--in other words, most journalists--seem to assume that conservatives rise out of bed every morning with no thought but to do whatever they can to make the world worse. They are never given the presumption of pure intentions. Selfless idealism is taken to be the exclusive preserve of those on the other [liberal] end of the political spectrum."7

U.S. News & World Report's Douglas Stanglin: "The three major television networks gave Bill Clinton better coverage during the recent [1996] campaign than they gave Bob Dole. That's the conclusion of an upcoming report by Washington's [nonpartisan] Center for Media and Public Affairs, which...found that 50 percent of the stories on Clinton were positive in tone, compared with only 33 percent for Dole."8

Even Dan "Mr. Liberal" Rather, in a moment of candor, has admitted that "American journalism...is increasingly straying from its mission of public service and from its standards of fairness, accuracy and integrity."9 (The very pro-homosexual Chicago Tribune had this to say about Rather: "Rather...for years has fended off accusations that he has a liberal bias,...[fended off] criticism that he has a liberal, pro-Democrat bias....Well, let's be clear on that. Rather deserves it. In spades."10)

Chicago Sun-Times's Raymond Coffey: "Much of what is going on in this left-right labeling [by many members of the dominant media is]...misleading. And consciously so, in my view."11 (Examples of the kind of labeling being referred to are "open-minded," "far-Right," "extremist," etc. For instance, some reporters biasedly describe liberals as "progressive" instead of, say, "reactionary.")

"Time magazine columnist Hugh Sidey told a luncheon crowd at the Illinois Manufacturers Association last week that in his history of covering presidential campaigns, he has never seen a year in which the media were more biased than in 1992. He said the anti-Bush/pro-Clinton coverage was anything but journalism."12

Columnist Noel Holston: "Republican characters in prime-time [TV] series tend to be straw men [or women], caricatures designed to be the butt of jokes."13

John Leo again: "The media are having unusual trouble describing gay attacks on Catholics....Famous newspapers and commentators who scour language for the faintest hint of insensitivity to gays, blacks and women show little interest in this foot-stomping bigotry toward Catholics."14

Homosexual journalist Andrew Sullivan, in his own name-calling way, has also conceded the media is liberally biased: "But, difficult as it may be to admit, some of the gay-baiting right's argument about media bias holds up."15

Journalist Robert Samuelson: "Among editors and reporters of the national media--papers, magazines, TV--a 'liberal bias' is not so much denied as ignored, despite overwhelming evidence that it exists."16

And for those who think that, because the major media are owned by big corporations those media must be conservative, there is this item from syndicated columnist Mona Charen: "In 1997 [the latest year for which statistics were available at the time she wrote this], corporations gave almost five times as much to left-leaning charities and public-policy advocates than to right-leaning ones."17 Corporate America appears not to be the bastion of conservatism liberals want you to believe it is.

Sam [Spade] 17:59, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * What's missing in that, of course, is the media's portrayal of Democrats is just as negative. I'd say that more than any ideological bias, there's a bias towards exposing the flaws of those in the article (and, not coincidentally, placing the journalist as the arbiter of absolute truth). Not only that, but those arguments about partisanship figures have a main weakness: if people who hold political opinions can't write neutrally, then neither you nor I should be here. I've gone through, and I think the opposition section still needs a little work, but it's nowhere near as bad as it could be. Best wishes, [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 18:12, 2004 Aug 10 (UTC)

Revert, merger
This article seems hazardous to edit, but I've removed the big "references" section. As far as I can tell, that section didn't contribute anything to the article. Looking at this talk page, it seems to have been a list of the sources of Sam Spade's quotes above, which is a good thing to have -- but with those quotes not actually in the article, having the references for them seemed meaningless. Modargo 06:49, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Sam Spade -- Why did you revert the edits I made? I made two edits, removing the references (which were not used in the article) and removing the meaningless caption from the pictures. And since there seemed to be a dispute about this article, I even noted the removal of the references here. You could at least have the courtesy to say here why you reverted my edits instead of just using the edit summary to say you "fixed a couple things ;)". I try to assume good faith, but it gets hard to do that when somebody reverts edits that I made without giving any explanation. I don't want to start a revert war over this, so I'm not going to remove the references again right now, but I do want an explanation for your actions. Modargo 17:33, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * I just took the references out actually, the reason I reverted was because you removed "right" from all the images, messing up the format terribly. Try previewing edits like that next time ;) I also fixed some severe POV in the intro, suggesting its only the right-wing that complains about liberal media bias. To be honest, this page should prob be merged with media bias, which has a more accurate title. Sam [Spade] 18:25, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * I did preview. It looked the exact same as the previous version, except without the word "right" under all the pictures (and I also looked at the page after saving the edit). For example, the code for the Bias image after my edit was Image:Bias.jpg|100px|thumb|right|. The only difference between that and the current Image:Bias.jpg|100px|thumb|right|Bernard Goldberg's Bias (which works for you, correct?) is the lack of a caption for the picture. If one displays correctly, so should the other.

 * Even putting that aside, however, and assuming that we just have different browser settings or something, you still should not have reverted both edits I made. There were two separate edits that I made, one for the reference removal, and one for the image caption removal. The image caption edit was even after the reference removal edit. All you had to do was revert the image caption removal. Try only reverting the edit that is actually causing the problems for you next time ;). Modargo 18:41, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * Does this look the same? I don't necessarily agree with your having removed the references either, but we'll keep them on the talk page for now. Sam [Spade] 19:29, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * Yes, that looks the same as when I made the edit. All the images aligned on the right, starting after the history heading, and do not have captions. A better way to compare would be to look at the result of my first edit, then look at the result of my second edit. The only display difference between those two versions is the lack of the word "right" in the captions of all the pictures. Everything else is the same.

 * I also just checked the syntax for Image:, to make sure that I was right about how Image: stuff works. That page specifically notes that the options "thumb" and "right" can be used with each other. It also makes note of the method I used for removing the captions, giving Image:Westminstpalace.jpg|right| as an example of a picture that will be right-aligned and not have a caption, and saying "The last vertical bar ensures that the alternate text becomes "Westminstpalace.jpg" and not "right"." That example can be clearly expanded to Image:Westminstpalace.jpg|thumb|right|, which would display the image as a thumbnail on the right side of the screen with no caption, just as I did with the images in this article.

 * I also checked it using a different browser on this computer (Mozilla Firefox), and another two browsers (IE and Opera) on a separate computer, and they correctly displayed the images aligned to the right too. If you saw the formatting messed up after that edit, I suspect that your browser is at fault, unless Win95 IE, Win95 Opera, WinXP IE, and WinXP Mozilla happen to be the only browsers that display it correctly with that syntax. Any chance a third party could check the links to my first and second edits above and comment on what it looks like for them? Modargo 20:51, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * Somebody else is going to have to weigh in, I'm not an expert on images. I'm using Mozilla 1.4.1 Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.4.1) Gecko/20031008 in case that helps. Sam [Spade] 21:00, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Header
OK, so, to clarify: who is disputing the neutrality here, and how can we fix it? I'd like to remove the header. Best, [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 13:35, 2004 Aug 11 (UTC)

 * I am (or was). I'll take the header off, since its not currrently applicable, but it was just yesterday. Anyhow, what do you think of merging w media bias? Sam [Spade] 18:28, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * We'd have to bring in conservative bias as well--and I'm going to have a look at that media bias page. It'll be a huge project, but a merger would be appropriate.

 * If we decide against a merger, I think we should at least rename the pages to Liberal bias in the media, or some such, to make it clear what were talking about. Otherwise, the topic is far broader than what were dealing with here. For example, I wouldn't mind exploring liberal bias in academia, but I'm not sure that should be in the same place as the content of this article. Sam [Spade] 20:56, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Bias in Article
Neutrality, let's not start an edit war. One of the several things I did (probably should have done it in several section specific edits to avoid having someone wholesale revert it) was change the constant usage of the word "Conservative" to the word "Critic in the section "Allegations". It is true that many of the critics of an alleged bias are conservative, but they are all critics. Using the word conservative everywhere criticism is mentioned introduces the POV that there is no bias, and that only conservatives claim there is a bias, which is untrue.

Another thing I pulled out was the snide comment "[used] mostly by those on the political right" which is in the article summary. This is once again POV, and especially inappropriate in the article summary.

The quote from the book is over the top, as no similar quote is made in the allegations section in an article (ostensibly) about Liberal Bias. As such, the article is quite unbalanced. Glaucus 01:51, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

 * Is it not true that most of those who believe in the existence of a "liberal media" are conservatives? The article mentions that.  There is no POV here.  On the other hand, removing the "conservative" label is itself POV because it gives others the impression that critics hail from all over the political spectrum.

 * I believe the "mostly by those on the political right" is appropriate simply because it acknowledges the truth that those who consider the media liberal are largely conservative figures. Note that they didn't say "used by those on the political right", in which case the removal would be justified.  And leave the book quote in there, it's highly relevant in the aptly-named section "Opposing views". Ethereal 02:12, Mar 24, 2005 (UTC)

 * It is true that many of the critices are conservative, however saying that only conservatives are critics is POV and false. I didn't remove the conservative label completely, I replaced it with critic in a paragraph which opened up with "Conservative critics". From then on in the paragraph it was redundant. This is the paragraph I am talking about:
 * Conservative critics often accuse prominent anchors such as Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, and Peter Jennings as being rather "open" liberals instead of political neutrals, and point to various speeches and comments they've made that supposedly illustrate their views. Other anchors may be criticised for their past, non-media careers, in which they may have been supporters, campaigners, or fundraisers of left-wing political candidates. Surveys have been done which indicate that by a rather large margin journalists in the United States tend to vote overwhelmingly Democratic in federal elections. Conservatives argue that when news anchors and producers have private, politically-active backgrounds, it inevitably skews their outlook when delivering the news or holding interviews. They also accuse a majority of the channels (most often CBS, NBC, ABC, and CNN) of having an extreme liberal bias.
 * I changed the sentence starting with "Conservatives argue..." to "Critics argue...". I also changed the "Conservative critics ..." to "Critics...".
 * I am going to revert back some of my changes, but try to balance it out. I don't have access to any of Ann Coulter's books or for that matter anyone else mentioned on the page, but the allegations section definitely needs strengthening. Glaucus 02:58, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

 * Also, this needs to be removed: "Others seriously dispute this, with some claiming that there is a conservative bias.". It is in the "allegations". Glaucus 03:00, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

 * I've reinserted: "Others seriously dispute this, with some claiming that there is a conservative bias."--Just because something is mentioned later on does not mean it should be ignored in the intro. See Guide_to_writing_better_articles, where it says:
 * If the article is long (more than one page), the remainder of the opening paragraph should summarize it.
 * HOwever, the sentence about allowing Ann Coulter's critiques should stay out.

 * Meelar (talk) 04:49, Mar 24, 2005 (UTC)

 * Neutrality, stop wholesale reverting my edits! At least have the decency to comment in the talk page. Not very neutral, are you. Glaucus 05:25, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC

I support Neutrality's revert simply because the additional charges of allegations are not backed up by any evidence. If you want to add them in, present the evidence. Simply arguing "conservatives say that" is not good enough unless backed up by external links or citations. More specifically I am going to apply equally tough standards you imposed on the inclusion of the PIPA report in the FOX News article. Ethereal 12:44, Mar 27, 2005 (UTC)

Neutrality and Ethereal. Do not make any more edits without discussing them here. Neutrality, you have not discussed anything since you started reverting my edits. Ethereal, you have posted nothing more then evidence that you bear a grudge with me for disputing the relevance of a report in a completely different article. That is childish. Stop it.

Both of you need to read NPOV. NPOV is NOT ignoring evidence or claims you feel are unfounded. NPOV is presenting the claims on BOTH sides. This article does NOT need to document biases. It simply needs to document claims of biases. Glaucus 20:21, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

NPOV cannot be applied if the content is not good enough or up to encyclopaedia standards for inclusion. Hence for example you cannot attempt to refute the findings of the 9/11 Comission by inserting non-notable self-invented arguments or claims and recite the NPOV mantra to defend your edits. I already said I did not consider calling pro-lifers as anti-abortionists to be "liberal". For some reason you do. I also excluded the MRC article because its claims are non-notable and Wikipedia is |not not a news website Ethereal 02:40, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

 * Calling someone anti-something instead of pro-something-else is a text book example of bias. The Right to an Abortion is a socially liberal value, and the Right to Life is a socially conservative value. It is hard to disagree with that. Therefore calling ProLifers "anti abortionist" instead of "pro life activists" is an example of a liberal bias.
 * The MRC article is a perfect example of a conservative claim of bias. Nothing in that article you are pointing to would disagree with the inclusion of this "media report". I am not trying to throw every single one on there, I am simply trying to document an example of a conservative claim of a liberal bias.
 * If you disagree with my inclusion of the MRC article, kindly find a substitute that will do.
 * Glaucus 04:12, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I don't agree with your first statement. By your reasoning, the term "anti-war activists" instead of "pro-peace activists" would count as a loaded, biased term. However, everyone knows that the opposite is true. Calling pro-life people "anti-abortionists" is neither more or less biased than calling pro-choice people "pro-abortionists". They just happen to be neutral terms which you seem to perceive as being more than a mere slight. I don't think you should include the MRC article because it does not appear to be significant and as I've said before Wikipedia is not a news website.

To show I am willing to compromise on finding more examples on liberal media bias, I have done a search on FOX News' website and have found the following: by O'Reilly and  and. If you would kindly peruse those web pages and and consider them, I would not mind if some of their content are included (even if you include the O'Reilly piece). However, I would object if I feel that you are misrepresenting the reports. In particular, when you include an example of liberal media bias, please also include the name of the person who claimed it, or at least a link to a notable news story. Ethereal 02:32, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

 * Never mind the above 3 examples. I got a good one here

 * According to the report, 36 percent of campaign-related stories about Bush were negative, compared to 12 percent for Kerry. Twenty percent of stories about Bush were positive, compared to 30 percent for Kerry. The remaining stories - 44 percent for Bush and 58 percent for Kerry - were neutral in tone.

If you can include this, please do so. This is more notable than FOX's reports. Also remember not to misrepresent the findings because I'll object. Ethereal 03:00, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

please don't blank this article again
thank you and happy editing--Ham and jelly butter 13:19, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Liberal bias article or redirect to Media bias in the United States?
I think the redirect is sensible, and that an article on Liberal bias is a WP:POVFORK. If there's not enough coverage of alleged liberal bias in the media bias article, then that should be added to that article; that's not an argument for recreating an article on liberal bias. If that article is too long, then perhaps there's an argument for spinning out articles on both alleged liberal and conservative bias.

I think Ham and jelly butter's additional edits to the liberal bias article are also problematically POV in nature, e.g. the opening statement "Liberal bias is common in American politics, expressed by the fact that the American media generally has a liberal bias." Fact? Шизомби 17:32, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
 * this article was here first, that means if anyhting, the other artile is the POV forkd--Ham and jelly butter 17:33, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Perhaps a POV Fork is not the best way of describing this article, then. I think it would be difficult to make the case that Media bias in the United States is a POV Fork; it seems to me to be an attempt to cover all accusations of media bias in an NPOV way.  Still, Liberal bias is a POV article, particularly given the recent edits making it a "fact" rather than a "view." Шизомби 17:41, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I can't see "Liberal Bias" as anything OTHER than inherently POV. I wouldn't support a "Republican Graft" or "Liberatian Psychosis" article, either. --MattShepherd 19:30, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Ham and jelly butter's been blocked for trolling, so I think I'll revert to the redirect. As I noted above, perhaps an article on supposed "liberal bias" would make sense if the media bias can't accomodate it. Шизомби 21:03, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

As an outsider, I believe both articles should exist. Liberal bias (like conservative bias) can exist in other areas than just the media, and in other countries than just the US. Aecis AppleknockerFlophouse 08:50, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
 * In my opinion, the real issue here is not whether anything on Liberal Bias should exist, because it's clearly important enough to have information on it. I personally think, however, that there is not really enough on Liberal Bias that differs from Media Bias to create an article for it. I believe it should have its own section within the Media Bias page. Verloren Hoop 12:10, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

title: Talk:Liberal bias


text:
St Andrews Links

St Andrews Links in the town of St Andrews, Fife, Scotland, is regarded as the "Home of Golf". It has one of the oldest courses in the world, where the game has been played since the 15th century. Today there are seven public golf courses: the Balgove, Eden, Jubilee, Strathtyrum, New, and the Old Course all on the links, and The Castle Course, a mile to the east of the town. The famous Old Course is widely considered one of the finest courses in the world. The courses of St Andrews Links are owned by the local authorities and operated by St Andrews Links Trust, a charitable organization.

In general, St Andrews is a popular hub for golf tourism, as there is a high density of links and heathland courses in the area. In addition to the public courses there are two courses at the privately owned Fairmont Hotel (Torrance and Kittocks) to the south of the town; and the Duke's and Drumoig, both inland parkland courses to the west. A few miles further South are the modern links of Kingsbarns and the traditional Balcomie links at Crail. Also nearby are the courses at Elie, Lundin, Leven, Scotscraig and Anstruther. Within 45 minutes drive are Monifieth, Carnoustie and Panmure.

St Andrews is also home to The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, one of the most prestigious golf clubs and, until 2004, one of the two rule-making authorities of golf.

History

The history of St Andrews Links goes back to 1552 when John Hamilton was granted a charter to establish a rabbit warren to the north of the links. The St Andrews Links Charter refers to the public ownership of the links and the right of the people of St Andrews to play golf and other games. The right to play golf on the links were subsequently confirmed in local and royal charters.

The land was acquired by James Cheape, owner of the adjacent Strathtyrum estate, in 1821 and sold by his brother's grandson, also named James Cheape, to the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews in 1893. Control of St Andrews Links was regulated by the St. Andrews Links Act 1894 and St. Andrews Links Order Confirmation Act 1974 which resulted in the creation of the St Andrews Links Trust.

Balgove Course
The Balgove Course, named after the farm on which it was built, is a 1,520 yard, par 30, nine-hole course. It was originally opened in 1972 and remodeled in 1993.

The Castle Course
The Castle Course opened in June 2008, becoming the seventh public course at St Andrews. It is set on a rugged-cliff top a mile to the east of St Andrews with extensive views over the town, and was designed by the architect David McLay Kidd. The course is a par 71 and measures 6,759 yards from the back tees.

Eden Course
The Eden Course opened in 1914 after demand on the existing courses grew. It was designed by Harry Colt, and alterations in 1989 by Donald Steel maintain Colt's standards. It was named after the Eden estuary by which it resides, as the profits from mussels collected there once made up an important part of the St Andrews economy.

Jubilee Course
The Jubilee Course is the third championship golf course at the Home of Golf. It was named after Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee celebration in 1897.

Originally intended for Victorian dressed ladies, and other golf beginners, it has evolved into one of the hardest courses at St Andrews Links. The course is commonly used to test junior and amateur golfers for the British Mid-Amateur Golf Championship, as well as the St Andrews Links Trophy.

Initially a 12-hole course, it was expanded to 18 holes in 1905. The course has seen considerable developments under the management of Willie Auchterlonie, Donald Steel, David Wilson and Graeme Taylor. It now plays at around 6,745 yards, and is host to the St Andrews Links Trophy. The Jubilee is one of several courses in Scotland that are under threat from erosion.

Strathtyrum Course
The Strathtyrum Course, opened in July 1993, became the first new 18 hole layout at St Andrews in nearly 80 years. It was built on land that was previously part of the Strathtyrum estate and sold to the St Andrews Links Trust by Mrs Gladys Cheape in 1986.

Old Course
The Old Course, believed to be the oldest golf course in the world, dates back more than 600 years.

New Course
The New Course, located adjacent to the Old Course, was paid for and commissioned by the Royal and Ancient Golf Club who asked Old Tom Morris to be designer. The New Course opened for play in 1895.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: St Andrews Links


text:
.gov

The domain name gov is a sponsored top-level domain (sTLD) in the Domain Name System of the Internet. The name is derived from the word government, indicating its restricted use by government entities. The TLD is administered by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), a component of the United States Department of Homeland Security.

.gov is one of the original six top-level domains, defined in RFC 920. Though "originally intended for any kind of government office or agency", only U.S.-based government entities may register .gov domain names, a result of the Internet originating as a U.S. government-sponsored research network.

Other countries typically delegate a second-level domain for government operations on their country-code top-level domain (ccTLD); for example, .gov.uk is the domain for the Government of the United Kingdom, and .gc.ca is the domain for the Government of Canada. The United States is the only country that has a government-specific top-level domain in addition to its ccTLD (.us), a direct result of the United States federal government's role in the creation of the Internet.

.gov domains are registered at get.gov.

History
gov is one of the original top-level domains created in 1984 (the other five being com, org, edu, mil, and arpa). The first site registered was css.gov in June 1985.

Beginning in 1997, the General Services Administration (GSA) began administering .gov. In February 2011, the GSA selected Verisign to manage the registry services, replacing Native Technologies, Inc.

Responsibility for the TLD was transferred to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) under the DOTGOV Online Trust in Government Act of 2020, part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021.

In January 2023, CISA selected Cloudflare to replace Verisign in providing registry services. Cloudflare will also provide authoritative DNS services for the .gov domain.

Use
Many governments in the United States use a .gov domain, though most use .us (e.g., leg.state.nv.us), .com (e.g., myflorida.com), .org (e.g., lacity.org), or other TLDs (e.g., senate.mn). The full list of registered .gov domains is published at get.gov/data.

During GSA's administration of .gov, registration and annual renewal fees peaked at $400 per year. When CISA began managing the TLD in April 2021, all fees were removed.

Federal Executive branch policy requires the use of .gov for civilian agencies, but some U.S. government-related websites use non-.gov domain names, including the United States Postal Service (e.g., usps.com) and various recruiting websites for armed services (e.g., goarmy.com). The United States Department of Defense and its subsidiary organizations typically use the .mil sTLD instead of .gov.

Eligibility
U.S.-based government organizations and publicly controlled entities are eligible to obtain a .gov domain. This includes federal, state, local, or territorial government, as well as any tribal government recognized by the federal government or a state government.

To register a .gov domain, an authorization letter must be submitted to CISA. The signer of the letter differs by entity type, but it is typically an agency's head, chief information officer (CIO), or highest-ranking or elected official.

Historically, only U.S. federal government agencies were allowed to register a .gov domain. In May 2002, GSA proposed a change that would open registration to state, local, and tribal governments in the U.S., a change that went into effect in March 2003.

In November 2019, before the transfer of .gov to CISA, GSA's authorization process was shown to be weak after someone impersonated the mayor of Exeter, Rhode Island in an authorization letter and successfully gained control of exeterri.gov. In response, GSA said it had implemented additional fraud prevention controls, and CISA advocated for transferring the TLD from GSA.

Policy
The DOTGOV Act requires that CISA maintain requirements that “minimize the risk of .gov internet domains whose names could mislead or confuse users”. These include:

 * Requested names must correspond with the requesting entity's organization's name or services.
 * Generic terms are reserved for federal agencies, though generic words can be combined with state or local municipality names.
 * Most non-federal domain types require a two-letter United States postal abbreviations or state name equivalent, though exceptions are made. Rules have been established for municipalities whose names are unique, who are well-known, or that are among the most populous cities and counties in the nation.

The Act also requires that .gov domains not be used for political campaign or commercial purposes, and that domains are registered only by authorized individuals.

.gov has been used to serve certain policy goals. As an action following Executive Order 13571, President Barack Obama restricted executive branch agencies from registering new .gov domains in an attempt to eliminate unnecessary, redundant, or outdated sites. US government agencies used the .gov registrar to make it easy for new registrants to opt-in to HTTPS preloading and to make it easier for the public to report potential security issues.

Use by states and territories
, all states, the District of Columbia, and all territories except for the Northern Mariana Islands have operational domains in gov:

International equivalents
While the use of gov as a top-level domain is restricted to the United States, several other countries have second-level domains of the same name or similar semantics for governmental purposes, including:

title: .gov


text:
Porsche 550

The Porsche 550 is a racing sports car produced by Porsche from 1953 until 1956. In that time only 90 Porsche 550s were produced, and they quickly established dominance in the 1.1- and 1.5- liter classes. The Porsche 550 is a mid-engine car with an air-cooled four-cylinder engine, following the precedent of the 1948 Porsche 356/1 prototype designed by Ferry Porsche. The mid-engine racing design was further developed with Porsche's 718 model; its advantages led to it becoming the dominant design for top-level racing cars by the mid-1960s.

The Porsche 550 has a solid racing history; it won the Nürburgring Eifel Race in May 1953, the first race it entered. The 550 Spyder usually finished in the top three in its class. Each Spyder was designed and customized to be raced.

A 1958 Porsche 550A Spyder sold at auction in 2018 by Bonhams for $5,170,000 (£4,115,763); it was the highest price for a 550 at auction.

Engine and transmission
The Type 550/550 A is powered by an all aluminium 1498 cc (85 x 66 mm) naturally aspirated air-cooled 4 cylinder boxer engine known as the "Fuhrmann Engine" (Type 547). Its valvetrain uses double overhead camshafts on each cylinder bank, driven by vertical shafts, actuating 2 valves per cylinder. The engine is equipped with twin 2-barrel Solex 40 PII sandcasted carburetors and dual ignition. In its first version it produced 110 PS at 6200 rpm and a maximum torque of 121 Nm at 5000 rpm.

The engine of the 550 is mounted in front of the rear axle making it mid-engined. This gives it a more balanced weight distribution, and allows for largely neutral handling. On the other hand, the low mass moment of inertia about the vehicle's vertical axis can lead to a sudden, difficult to control rotation of the car. Ferdinand Porsche had pioneered this design layout with the Auto Union Grand Prix car of the 1930s.

The first 550 had a fully synchronized 4-speed gearbox. Starting in 1956, a 5-speed gearbox was used, but its first gear only had to start and (like the reverse gear) had to be placed over a barrier and not synchronized. Excessive slip to the drive wheels in corners was prevented by a limited slip differential.

History

Inspired by the Porsche 356 which was created by Ferry Porsche, as well as Spyder prototypes built and raced by Walter Glöckler starting in 1951, the factory decided to build a car designed for use in auto racing. The Porsche 550 Spyder was introduced at the 1953 Paris Auto Show. The 550 was very low to the ground, in order to be efficient for racing. In fact, former German Formula One racer Hans Herrmann drove it under closed railroad crossing gates during the 1954 Mille Miglia.

Racing history
The first three hand-built prototypes came in a coupé with a removable hardtop. The first (550-03) raced as a roadster at the Nurburgring Eifel Race in May 1953 winning its first race. Later that year the 550 took class wins in the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Carrera Panamericana; the Carrera Panamericana win was commemorated with the Carrera branding for later Porsches with performance options. From 1953 to 1957, the Porsche works team evolved and raced the 550 with outstanding success and was recognized wherever it appeared. The silver Werke cars were painted with spears of different colors on the rear fenders to aid recognition from the pits. Hans Herrmann’s particularly famous ‘red-tail’ car No 41 went from victory to victory. For such a limited number of 90 prototype and customer builds, the 550 Spyder was always in a winning position, usually finishing in the top three results in its class. During its tenure with the works team it was challenged only twice among the smaller cars at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, with a 1.5-liter OSCA MT4 finishing ahead but disqualified in the 1954 race and a 1.1 liter Lotus Eleven trailing the 1.5 liter winning 550 by one lap in the 1957 race. The 1956 version, the 550A with a lighter and more rigid spaceframe chassis, gave Porsche its first overall win in a major sports car racing event, the 1956 Targa Florio. During this era Porsche was the first car manufacturer to get race sponsorship, which was through Fletcher Aviation, who Porsche was working with to design a light aircraft engine and later Telefunken and Castrol.

The 550 was also raced by privateers, who kept the type in competition after the works team had moved on to the 718 in 1957. The 550 was both a road and track car and it was common for privateers to drive it to the race track, race it, then drive it home.

Each Spyder was assigned a number for the race and had gumballs positioned on doors, front and rear, to be seen from any angle. On some 550s owned by privateers, a crude hand written number scrawled in house paint usually served the purpose. Cars with high numbers assigned such as 351, raced in the 1000 mile Mille Miglia, where the number represented the start time of 3.51am. On most occasions, numbers on each Spyder would change for each race entered, which today helps identify each 550 by chassis number and driver in period black and white photos.

Its successor from 1957 onwards, the Porsche 718, commonly known as the RSK was even more successful. The Spyder variations continued through the early 1960s, the RS 60 and RS 61. The Porsche Boxster S 550 Spyder is a modern mid-engined sports car that pays tribute to the 550; the Spyder name was effectively resurrected with the RS Spyder Le Mans Prototype.

James Dean's 550
One of the first 90 Porsche 550s built was James Dean's, numbered 130 (VIN 550-0055), which was involved in a collision at the CA Rte. 46/41 Cholame Junction on September 30, 1955, resulting in Dean's death.

As Dean was finishing up Giant's filming in September, 1955, he suddenly traded in his 356 Porsche Super Speedster at Competition Motors, for a new 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder on September 21, and immediately entered the upcoming Salinas Road Race event scheduled for October 1 and 2.

A contemporary of Dean, the rising actor Tom Pittman also died prematurely when he crashed his Spyder over a cliff in 1958.

Replicas
The 550 is among the most frequently reproduced classic automobiles.

Complete Formula One World Championship results
* Indicates a Formula Two entry

title: Porsche 550


text:
Porsche Typ 754 T7

The Porsche Typ 754 T7, also known as the T7 Prototype or 695, is a prototype automobile built by Porsche in 1961. It would later become the Porsche 911. The front end is very similar to the 911, but the rear is somewhat different. Also, unlike the 911, the T7 had four seats. The T7 was developed from the Porsche 356 by Ferdinand Alexander Porsche, and has a wheelbase that is 100 mm longer (up to 300 mm longer in early designs). It has a top speed of 200 km/h.

The car is currently on display at the Porsche Museum, Stuttgart.

title: Porsche Typ 754 T7


text:
Nonsense

Nonsense is a form of communication, via speech, writing, or any other symbolic system, that lacks any coherent meaning. In ordinary usage, nonsense is sometimes synonymous with absurdity or the ridiculous. Many poets, novelists and songwriters have used nonsense in their works, often creating entire works using it for reasons ranging from pure comic amusement or satire, to illustrating a point about language or reasoning. In the philosophy of language and philosophy of science, nonsense is distinguished from sense or meaningfulness, and attempts have been made to come up with a coherent and consistent method of distinguishing sense from nonsense. It is also an important field of study in cryptography regarding separating a signal from noise.

Literary

The phrase "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously" was coined by Noam Chomsky as an example of nonsense. However, this can easily be confused with poetic symbolism. The individual words make sense and are arranged according to proper grammatical rules, yet the result is nonsense. The inspiration for this attempt at creating verbal nonsense came from the idea of contradiction and seemingly irrelevant and/or incompatible characteristics, which conspire to make the phrase meaningless, but are open to interpretation. The phrase "the square root of Tuesday" operates on the latter principle. This principle is behind the inscrutability of the kōan "What is the sound of one hand clapping?", where one hand would presumably be insufficient for clapping without the intervention of another. [Editor’s note: It is possible to imagine a context where case-sensitive word-strings such as “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously” could be meaningfully used as a passphrase to decrypt a digital file. This one counterfactual suggests that both literary meaning and nonsense are dependent upon the particular “language-game” in which words (or characters) are used or misused. (See Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, §23.]

Verse
Jabberwocky, a poem (of nonsense verse) found in Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll (1871), is a nonsense poem written in the English language. The word jabberwocky is also occasionally used as a synonym of nonsense.

Nonsense verse is the verse form of literary nonsense, a genre that can manifest in many other ways. Its best-known exponent is Edward Lear, author of The Owl and the Pussycat and hundreds of limericks.

Nonsense verse is part of a long line of tradition predating Lear: the nursery rhyme Hey Diddle Diddle could also be termed a nonsense verse. There are also some works which appear to be nonsense verse, but actually are not, such as the popular 1940s song Mairzy Doats.

Lewis Carroll, seeking a nonsense riddle, once posed the question How is a raven like a writing desk?. Someone answered him, Because Poe wrote on both. However, there are other possible answers (e.g. both have inky quills).

Examples
The first verse of Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll;

The first four lines of On the Ning Nang Nong by Spike Milligan;

The first verse of Spirk Troll-Derisive by James Whitcomb Riley;

The first four lines of The Mayor of Scuttleton by Mary Mapes Dodge;

Oh Freddled Gruntbuggly by Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz; a creation of Douglas Adams

Philosophy of language and of science
In the philosophy of language and the philosophy of science, nonsense refers to a lack of sense or meaning. Different technical definitions of meaning delineate sense from nonsense.

Wittgenstein
In Ludwig Wittgenstein's writings, the word "nonsense" carries a special technical meaning which differs significantly from the normal use of the word. In this sense, "nonsense" does not refer to meaningless gibberish, but rather to the lack of sense in the context of sense and reference. In this context, logical tautologies, and purely mathematical propositions may be regarded as "nonsense". For example, "1+1=2" is a nonsensical proposition. Wittgenstein wrote in Tractatus Logico Philosophicus that some of the propositions contained in his own book should be regarded as nonsense. Used in this way, "nonsense" does not necessarily carry negative connotations.

Disguised Epistemic Nonsense
In Ludwig Wittgenstein’s later work, Philosophical Investigations (PI §464), he says that “My aim is: to teach you to pass from a piece of disguised nonsense to something that is patent nonsense.” In his remarks On Certainty (OC), he considers G. E. Moore’s “Proof of an External World” as an example of disguised epistemic nonsense. Moore’s “proof” is essentially an attempt to assert the truth of the sentence ‘Here is one hand’ as a paradigm case of genuine knowledge. He does this during a lecture before The British Academy where the existence of his hand is so obvious as to appear indubitable. If Moore does indeed know that he has a hand, then philosophical skepticism (formerly called idealism) must be false. (cf. Schönbaumsfeld (2020).

Wittgenstein however shows that Moore’s attempt fails because his proof tries to solve a pseudo-problem that is patently nonsensical. Moore mistakenly assumes that syntactically correct sentences are meaningful regardless of how one uses them. In Wittgenstein’s view, linguistic meaning for the most part is the way sentences are used in various contexts to accomplish certain goals (PI §43). J. L. Austin likewise notes that "It is, of course, not really correct that a sentence ever is a statement: rather, it is used in making a statement, and the statement itself is a 'logical construction' out of the makings of statements" (Austin 1962, p1, note1). Disguised epistemic nonsense therefore is the misuse of ordinary declarative sentences in philosophical contexts where they seem meaningful but produce little or nothing of significance (cf. Contextualism). Moore’s unintentional misuse of ‘Here is one hand’ thus fails to state anything that his audience could possibly understand in the context of his lecture.

According to Wittgenstein, such propositional sentences instead express fundamental beliefs that function as non-cognitive “hinges”. Such hinges establish the rules by which the language-game of doubt and certainty is played. Wittgenstein points out that “If I want the door to turn the hinges must stay put” (OC §341-343).[6] In a 1968 article titled “Pretence”, Robert Caldwell states that: “A general doubt is simply a groundless one, for it fails to respect the conceptual structure of the practice in which doubt is sometimes legitimate” (Caldwell 1968, p49). "If you are not certain of any fact," Wittgenstein notes, "you cannot be certain of the meaning of your words either" (OC §114). Truth-functionally speaking, Moore’s attempted assertion and the skeptic’s denial are epistemically useless. "Neither the question nor the assertion makes sense" (OC §10). In other words, both philosophical realism and its negation, philosophical skepticism, are nonsense (OC §37&58). Both bogus theories violate the rules of the epistemic game that make genuine doubt and certainty meaningful. Caldwell concludes that: “The concepts of certainty and doubt apply to our judgments only when the sense of what we judge is firmly established” (Caldwell, p57).

The broader implication is that classical philosophical “problems” may be little more than complicated semantic illusions that are empirically unsolvable (cf. Schönbaumsfeld 2016). They arise when semantically correct sentences are misused in epistemic contexts thus creating the illusion of meaning. With some mental effort however, they can be dissolved in such a way that a rational person can justifiably ignore them. According to Wittgenstein, "It is not our aim to refine or complete the system of rules for the use of our words in unheard-of ways. For the clarity that we are aiming at is indeed complete clarity. But this simply means that the philosophical problems should completely disappear" (PI §133). The net effect is to expose a “A whole cloud of philosophy condensed into a drop of grammar” (PI p222).

In contrast to the above Wittgensteinian approach to nonsense, Cornman, Lehrer and Pappas argue in their textbook, Philosophical Problems and Arguments: An Introduction (PP&A) that philosophical skepticism is perfectly meaningful in the semantic sense. It is only in the epistemic sense that it seems nonsensical. For example, the sentence ‘Worms integrate the moon by C# when moralizing to rescind apples’ is neither true nor false and therefore is semantic nonsense. Epistemic nonsense, however, is perfectly grammatical and semantical. It just appears to be preposterously false. When the skeptic boldly asserts the sentence [x]: ‘We know nothing whatsoever’ then:

“It is not that the sentence asserts nothing; on the contrary, it is because the sentence asserts something [that seems] patently false…. The sentence uttered is perfectly meaningful; what is nonsensical and meaningless is the fact that the person [a skeptic] has uttered it. To put the matter another way, we can make sense of the sentence [x]; we know what it asserts. But we cannot make sense of the man uttering it; we do not understand why he would utter it. Thus, when we use terms like ‘nonsense’ and ‘meaningless’ in the epistemic sense, the correct use of them requires only that what is uttered seem absurdly false. Of course, to seem preposterously false, the sentence must assert something, and thus be either true or false.” (PP&A, 60).

Keith Lehrer makes a similar argument in part VI of his monograph, “Why Not Scepticism?” (WNS 1971). A Wittgensteinian, however, might respond that Lehrer and Moore make the same mistake. Both assume that it is the sentence [x] that is doing the “asserting”, not just the philosopher’s misuse of it in the wrong context. Both Moore’s attempted “assertion” and the skeptic’s “denial” of ‘Here is one hand’ in the context of the British Academy are preposterous. Therefore, both claims are epistemic nonsense disguised in meaningful syntax. “[T]he mistake here” according to Caldwell, “lies in thinking that [epistemic] criteria provide us with certainty when they actually provide sense” (Caldwell p53). No one, including philosophers, has special dispensation from committing this semantic fallacy.

“The real discovery,” according to Wittgenstein, “is the one that makes me capable of stopping doing philosophy when I want to.—The one that gives philosophy peace, so that it is no longer tormented by questions which bring itself in question…. There is not a philosophical method, though there are indeed  methods, like different therapies” (PI §133). He goes on to say that “The philosopher's  treatment of a question is like the treatment of an illness” (PI §255).

Leonardo Vittorio Arena
Starting from Wittgenstein, but through an original perspective, the Italian philosopher Leonardo Vittorio Arena, in his book Nonsense as the meaning, highlights this positive meaning of nonsense to undermine every philosophical conception which does not take note of the absolute lack of meaning of the world and life. Nonsense implies the destruction of all views or opinions, on the wake of the Indian Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna. In the name of nonsense, it is finally refused the conception of duality and the Aristotelian formal logic.

Cryptography
The problem of distinguishing sense from nonsense is important in cryptography and other intelligence fields. For example, they need to distinguish signal from noise. Cryptanalysts have devised algorithms to determine whether a given text is in fact nonsense or not. These algorithms typically analyze the presence of repetitions and redundancy in a text; in meaningful texts, certain frequently used words recur, for example, the, is and and in a text in the English language. A random scattering of letters, punctuation marks and spaces do not exhibit these regularities. Zipf's law attempts to state this analysis mathematically. By contrast, cryptographers typically seek to make their cipher texts resemble random distributions, to avoid telltale repetitions and patterns which may give an opening for cryptanalysis.

It is harder for cryptographers to deal with the presence or absence of meaning in a text in which the level of redundancy and repetition is higher than found in natural languages (for example, in the mysterious text of the Voynich manuscript).

Teaching machines to talk nonsense
Scientists have attempted to teach machines to produce nonsense. The Markov chain technique is one method which has been used to generate texts by algorithm and randomizing techniques that seem meaningful. Another method is sometimes called the Mad Libs method: it involves creating templates for various sentence structures and filling in the blanks with noun phrases or verb phrases; these phrase-generation procedures can be looped to add recursion, giving the output the appearance of greater complexity and sophistication. Racter was a computer program which generated nonsense texts by this method; however, Racter's book, The Policeman’s Beard is Half Constructed, proved to have been the product of heavy human editing of the program's output.

title: Nonsense


text:
Porsche 718

The Porsche 718 is a series of one- or two-seat sports-racing cars built by Porsche from 1957 to 1962. An open-wheel single-seat model was developed for Formula racing.

Details
The 718 was a development of the successful Porsche 550A with improvements made to the body work and suspension. The car's full name is 718 RSK, where "RS" stands for RennSport (sports-racing) and the "K" reflects the shape of the car's revised torsion-bar suspension. It had a mid-engined layout and used the 142 hp 1.5-litre Type 547/3 quad-cam engine introduced in the 550A.

718 RSK Mittellenker
In 1957 the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) changed their rules to allow cars with enveloping bodywork to compete in Formula races. That year Porsche entered three 550/1500RS Spyders in the German Grand Prix Formula Two (F2) event. Changes to the cars were minimal, being limited to removing the passenger seats and spare tires.

For 1958 Porsche fielded a modified 718, called the RSK Mittellenker (centre-steer), for F2 events. The bodywork for this car was only slightly different from the sportscar model, but the single seat was now in the centre of the cockpit, with the steering wheel, pedals, and shift lever relocated to accommodate the change and a fairing enclosing more of the cockpit opening. Jean Behra drove the car to a win at the F2 event at Reims that year. At the German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring, driver Edgar Barth placed sixth overall and second in his class. At the Berlin Grand Prix at AVUS the car won both its heat and the F2 class in the hands of driver Masten Gregory.

718/2
In 1959 Porsche unveiled the prototype of a narrow, open-wheeled car called the Porsche 718/2 that married the 718's mechanicals with a more traditional single-seat Formula body. The unpainted car was entered in the 1959 Monaco Grand Prix, where driver Wolfgang von Trips qualified twelfth, but crashed on the second lap of the race. At Reims driver Joakim Bonnier finished third. For 1960 the production 718/2, starting with chassis number 718201, received revised bodywork, a 6-speed transaxle, and a wheelbase extended by 100 mm. A total of five cars were built. Some of these four-cylinder cars were later raced in F1 under the 1962 1$1/2$ litre formula.

In October 1958 the FIA had announced another change to the regulations for Formula One (F1). Beginning in the 1961 season, engine capacity would be limited to the same 1.5 litres as in Formula Two. This meant that Porsche could use their 718/2s almost unchanged in F1.

RS 60
For the 1960 season the FIA made changes to the regulation regarding the windscreen and cockpit size. These rules changes together with a larger (1.6-litre) Type 547/3 engine, developing 160 hp and a new double wishbone rear suspension brought about the RS 60 model. The RS 60 brought Porsche victory at the 1960 12 Hours of Sebring with a car driven by Hans Herrmann and Olivier Gendebien. 1960 also saw Porsche win the Targa Florio with Hans Herrmann being joined on the winner podium by Jo Bonnier and Graham Hill. The RS 60 also ensured that Porsche successfully defended their European Hill Climb Championship for the third year in a row.

RS 61
For 1961 the model name was changed to "RS 61" although it was almost identical to the RS 60. An RS 61 won the European Hill Climb Championship.

W-RS
The W-RS version was developed in 1961. Initially fitted with a 4-cylinder engine, the car was later fitted with Porsche's air-cooled Type 771 2.0 L flat-eight engine which produced 240 hp. A W-RS finished 8th at Le Mans in 1963. The W-RS continued Porsche's success in the European Hill Climb Championship with Edgar Barth claiming the title in 1963. Porsche would go on to win a European Hill Climb Championship every year until 1982, a total of 42 titles.

The W-RS continued racing until 1964 when it was replaced by the 904.

718 GTR Coupé
A Coupé version was developed from the RS 61. Initially fitted with a 4-cylinder engine, this car was also upgraded to an 8-cylinder F1 derived engine which produced 210 hp. The car was also fitted with disc brakes. A GTR Coupé enabled drivers Jo Bonnier and Carlo Maria Abate to win the Targa Florio in 1963 once more.

Endurance / sportscar racing
The 718 made its racing debut at the 1957 24 Hours of Le Mans driven by Umberto Maglioli and Edgar Barth. The car failed to finish the race due to an accident.

In 1958, the RSK Spyder #29 (1.6-litre engine) finished third overall at Le Mans guided by Jean Behra and Hans Herrmann. Right after them, in fourth place overall and first in class came the RSK #31 (1.5-litre engine), piloted by Edgar Barth and Paul Frère. Jean Behra also drove one of the cars home finishing second at the Targa Florio (an FIA World Sportscar Championship race from 1955–1973).

In 1959, the car, driven by Edgar Barth and Wolfgang Seidel, achieved overall victory at the Targa Florio for its first time. A 718 also won the European Hill Climb Championship in both 1958 and 1959. A 718 RS60 won the Targa Florio again in 1960.

In 1961 Masten Gregory and Bob Holbert piloted a 718/4 RS Spyder to a class win at Le Mans. In 1963, Porsche got another Targa Florio victory, with a 718 GTR Coupé, making it three wins at that event for a 718 car.

Formula Two
Porsche made their F2 debut with victories at Reims and AVUS in 1958. In 1959 other RSK's were converted for single seater racing and at the XV B.A.R.C. '200' at Aintree in 1960 Porsche scored a 1–2–3 victory with Stirling Moss, Jo Bonnier and Graham Hill all in 718s. The feat was repeated again later in the year at the race at Zeltweg, Austria.

Formula One
Formula One switched to a 1.5-litre formula in 1961 and Porsche entered three 718s for Dan Gurney, Hans Herrmann and Jo Bonnier. Gurney scored three 2nd places (France, Italy and United States) taking him to 4th place in the Drivers' Championship. For 1962, Porsche entered a new car, the Porsche 804 in Formula One.

Carel Godin de Beaufort, a privateer, entered a 718 in F1 between 1961 and 1964. He was killed driving his 718 during practice for the 1964 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring.

title: Porsche 718


text:
Porsche 901

Porsche 901 was the name originally intended for the Porsche 911.

By the early 1960s, Porsche project design numbers had reached into the 800s. For instance, Porsche's 1962 F1 model was called Porsche 804.

At the Internationale Automobil-Ausstellung (Frankfurt Motor Show) in Frankfurt in September 1963, Porsche presented its successor to the Porsche 356 as the 901. It took several more months until the cars were manufactured for sale to customers. Between 14 September and 16 November 1964, 82 cars were built and the 901 was presented in October at the 1964 Paris Auto Salon. Officially the 901s already constructed were used for testing and for exhibitions, and Porsche sold none to private customers. Nevertheless, several of the cars retained by Porsche at that time appear to have made it to private ownership subsequently: in 1988 number 20 was discovered and completely restored by Kurt Schneider and his wife, Lori. In 2010, it was reported that car number 37 was owned by a Porsche specialist named Alois Ruf.

The 901 was renamed after French car maker Peugeot objected to Porsche using any three digit number where the middle number was 0, asserting ownership of the naming rights in key markets, and having already sold many models with that scheme. Porsche responded by simply replacing the middle 0 with a 1, calling the car the Porsche 911. This also affected other Porsche models, which were primarily intended for racing but also sold as road legal cars. In those cases, Porsche kept the internal part number of 90x, but used a unique name for marketing, selling the Porsche 904 as the Carrera GTS and the Porsche 906 as the Carrera 6. Porsche enthusiasts continue to refer to these cars by their three digit design numbers.

Later, Porsche introduced pure racing cars which were not sold for road use, and did not compete with any road-going Peugeot. These carried the design numbers Porsche 907, Porsche 908, and Porsche 909. Additionally, the 901 number is used among Porsche enthusiasts as shorthand to identify the aluminum five-speed transmission used in early 911s; the part number for these transmissions used an 11 digit code that began with 901 as did many other parts on the early cars. Later 911s from 1969 used a different magnesium case and a part number beginning with 911.

title: Porsche 901


text: User:Hadal

title: User:Hadal


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New York Times Co. v. Sullivan

New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision ruling that the freedom of speech protections in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution restrict the ability of public officials to sue for defamation. The decision held that if a plaintiff in a defamation lawsuit is a public official or candidate for public office, then not only must they prove the normal elements of defamation—publication of a false defamatory statement to a third party—they must also prove that the statement was made with "actual malice", meaning the defendant either knew the statement was false or recklessly disregarded whether it might be false. New York Times Co. v. Sullivan is frequently ranked as one of the greatest Supreme Court decisions of the modern era.

The underlying case began in 1960, when The New York Times published a full-page advertisement by supporters of Martin Luther King Jr. that criticized the police in Montgomery, Alabama, for their treatment of civil rights movement protesters. The ad had several inaccuracies regarding facts such as the number of times King had been arrested during the protests, what song the protesters had sung, and whether students had been expelled for participating. Based on the inaccuracies, Montgomery police commissioner L. B. Sullivan sued the Times for defamation in the local Alabama county court. After the judge ruled that the advertisement's inaccuracies were defamatory per se, the jury returned a verdict in favor of Sullivan and awarded him $500,000 in damages. The Times appealed first to the Supreme Court of Alabama, which affirmed the verdict, and then to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case.

In March 1964, the Court issued a 9–0 decision holding that the Alabama court's verdict violated the First Amendment. The Court reasoned that defending the principle of wide-open debate will inevitably include "vehement, caustic, and...unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials." The Supreme Court's decision, and its adoption of the actual malice standard, reduced the financial exposure from potential defamation claims and frustrated efforts by public officials to use these claims to suppress political criticism. The Supreme Court has since extended Sullivan higher legal standard for defamation to all "public figures". This has made it extremely difficult for a public figure to win a defamation lawsuit in the United States.

Background
On March 29, 1960, The New York Times carried a full-page advertisement titled "Heed Their Rising Voices", paid for by the Committee to Defend Martin Luther King and the Struggle for Freedom in the South. In the advertisement, the Committee solicited funds to defend Martin Luther King Jr., against an Alabama perjury indictment. The advertisement described actions against civil rights protesters, some of them inaccurately, some of which involved the police force of Montgomery, Alabama. Referring to Alabama "official authority and police power", the advertisement stated: "They have arrested [King] seven times. ... ", whereas he had been arrested four times; and that "truckloads of police ... ringed the Alabama State College Campus" after the demonstration at the State Capitol, whereas the police had been "deployed near" the campus but had not actually "ringed" it and had not gone there in connection with the State Capitol demonstration. Although the Montgomery Public Safety commissioner, L. B. Sullivan, was not named in the advertisement, Sullivan argued that the inaccurate criticism of actions by the police was defamatory to him as well because it was his duty to supervise the police department.

Because Alabama law denied public officers recovery of punitive damages in a libel action on their official conduct unless they first made a written demand for a public retraction and the defendant failed or refused to comply, Sullivan sent such a request. The Times did not publish a retraction in response to the demand. Instead, its lawyers wrote a letter stating, among other things, that "we ... are somewhat puzzled as to how you think the statements in any way reflect on you," and "you might, if you desire, let us know in what respect you claim that the statements in the advertisement reflect on you."

Sullivan did not respond but instead filed a libel suit a few days later. He also sued four African-American ministers mentioned in the ad: Ralph Abernathy, S.S. Seay Sr., Fred Shuttlesworth, and Joseph Lowery.

The Times subsequently published a retraction of the advertisement upon the demand of Governor John Patterson of Alabama, who alleged the publication charged him with "grave misconduct and ... improper actions and omissions as Governor of Alabama and ex officio chairman of the State Board of Education of Alabama." When asked to explain why there had been a retraction for the Governor but not for Sullivan, the Secretary of the Times testified: We did that because we didn't want anything that was published by the Times to be a reflection on the State of Alabama and the Governor was, as far as we could see, the embodiment of the State of Alabama and the proper representative of the state and we had by that time learned more of the facts which the ad purported to recite and, finally, the ad did refer to the action of the state authorities and the Board of Education presumably of which the Governor is the ex officio chairman ... However, the Secretary also testified he did not think that "any of the languages in there referred to Mr. Sullivan."

The jury returned a verdict for Sullivan and awarded him $500,000 in damages. The state supreme court affirmed on August 30, 1962, saying "The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution does not protect libelous publications". The Times appealed to the United States Supreme Court.

Constitutional law scholar Herbert Wechsler successfully argued the case before the United States Supreme Court. Louis M. Loeb, a partner at the firm of Lord Day & Lord who served as chief counsel to the Times from 1948 to 1967, was among the authors of the brief of the Times.

Decision
On March 9, 1964, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous 9–0 decision in favor of the Times that vacated the Alabama court's judgment and limited newspapers' liability for damages in defamation suits by public officials.

Opinion of the Court
Justice William J. Brennan Jr. authored the Court's opinion, and five other justices joined it. The Court began by explaining that criticizing government and public officials was at the core of the American constitutional rights to freedom of speech and freedom of the press. "The general proposition that freedom of expression upon public questions is secured by the First Amendment has long been settled by our decisions. The constitutional safeguard, we have said, 'was fashioned to assure unfettered interchange of ideas for the bringing about of political and social changes desired by the people.' ... '[I]t is a prized American privilege to speak one's mind, although not always with perfect taste, on all public institutions.' ... The First Amendment, said Judge Learned Hand, 'presupposes that right conclusions are more likely to be gathered out of a multitude of tongues, than through any kind of authoritative selection. To many, this is, and always will be, folly; but we have staked upon it our all.'" The Court said that because of these core American free-speech principles, it would have to consider Sullivan's defamation claims "against the background of a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials."

With this background, the Court framed the case around the question of whether this American constitutional commitment to free speech required loosening traditional defamation laws. "The present advertisement, as an expression of grievance and protest on one of the major public issues of our time, would seem clearly to qualify for the constitutional protection. The question is whether it forfeits that protection by the falsity of some of its factual statements and by its alleged defamation of respondent." In answer, the Court held that the advertisement's inaccuracies did not remove its free-speech constitutional protections. The Court reasoned that "erroneous statement is inevitable in free debate, and ... must be protected if the freedoms of expression are to have the breathing space that they need ... to survive". It concluded that the importance of safeguarding the "breathing space" created by the First Amendment's protections required giving constitutional protection to "erroneous statements honestly made". The Court analogized Alabama's libel law to the infamous Alien and Sedition Acts passed in the late 1790s during the presidency of John Adams. It reasoned that a broad interpretation of libel laws that protected government officials from criticism would produce situations similar to those under the Alien and Sedition Acts, which had been historically criticized.

Because of the importance of free debate about public officials, the Court held that it was not enough that Alabama's libel law—like most libel laws in the English common law tradition—allowed defendants to use the truth of their defamatory statements as a defense. Instead, the Court held that under U.S. law, any public official suing for defamation must prove that the defendant made the defamatory statement with "actual malice". "The constitutional guarantees require, we think, a federal rule that prohibits a public official from recovering damages for a defamatory falsehood relating to his official conduct unless he proves that the statement was made with 'actual malice' – that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not." The Court said that besides proving "actual malice", the First Amendment's protections also imposed two other limitations on libel laws. First, a public official seeking damages must prove that the defendant's defamatory statement was about the official individually, not about government policy generally. Second, unlike in traditional common law defamation lawsuits where the defendant had the burden to prove that his or her statement was true, in defamation suits involving American public officials the officials must prove that the defendant's statement was false.

International comparisons
The rule that somebody alleging defamation should have to prove untruth, rather than that the defendant should have to prove the truth of a statement, stood as a departure from the previous common law. In England, the development was specifically rejected in Derbyshire County Council v. Times Newspapers Ltd and it was also rejected in Canada in Hill v. Church of Scientology of Toronto and more recently in Grant v. Torstar Corp. In Australia, the outcome of the case was followed in Theophanous v. The Herald & Weekly Times Ltd, but Theophanous was itself overruled by the High Court of Australia in Lange v Australian Broadcasting Corporation (1997) 189 CLR 520.

50th anniversary
In 2014, on the 50th anniversary of the ruling, The New York Times released an editorial in which it stated the background of the case, laid out the rationale for the Supreme Court decision, critically reflected on the state of freedom of the press 50 years after the ruling and compared the state of freedom of the press in the United States with other nations. The editorial board of The New York Times heralded the Sullivan decision not only as a ruling which "instantly changed libel law in the United States", but also as "the clearest and most forceful defense of press freedom in American history." The board added:

"The ruling was revolutionary because the court for the first time rejected virtually any attempt to squelch criticism of public officials—even if false—as antithetical to 'the central meaning of the First Amendment.' Today, our understanding of freedom of the press comes in large part from the Sullivan case. Its core observations and principles remain unchallenged, even as the Internet has turned everyone into a worldwide publisher—capable of calling public officials instantly to account for their actions and also of ruining reputations with the click of a mouse."

In a 2015 Time magazine survey of over 50 law professors, both Owen Fiss (Yale) and Steven Shiffrin (Cornell) named New York Times v. Sullivan "the best Supreme Court decision since 1960," with Fiss noting that the decision helped cement "the free-speech traditions that have ensured the vibrancy of American democracy" and Schiffrin remarking that the case "overturned the censorial aspects of the law of libel and made it far easier in what’s left of our democracy for citizens—including the Fourth Estate—to criticize the powerful."

Later developments

 * Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, 388 U.S. 130 (1967) held that public figures who are not public officials may still sue news organizations if they disseminate information about them which is recklessly gathered and unchecked.
 * Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323 (1974): Actual malice not necessary for defamation of private person if negligence is present.
 * Time, Inc. v. Hill, 385 U.S. 374 (1967). Extension of actual malice standard to false light invasion of privacy tort.
 * Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46 (1988): Extending standard to intentional infliction of emotional distress.
 * Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co., 497 U.S. 1 (1990): Existing law is sufficient to protect free speech without recognizing opinion privilege against libel claims.

Further developments
In February 2019, the Supreme Court denied a petition brought by Katherine McKee, one of the women that accused Bill Cosby of sexual assault, which claimed that Cosby had leaked a letter that permanently damaged her reputation, and had sought civil action against Cosby on this matter. Lower courts rejected her case based on New York Times Co., stating that she "thrust herself to the forefront of a public controversy", making her a limited public figure and requiring the higher standard of malice to be demonstrated. The denial by the Supreme Court did not include a vote count, but Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the solitary opinion on the case, agreeing that denial was appropriate per New York Times Co., but stating that he believed that decision of New York Times Co. was made wrongly. Thomas wrote "If the Constitution does not require public figures to satisfy an actual-malice standard in state-law defamation suits, then neither should we".

In March 2021, federal judge Laurence Silberman called on the Supreme Court to overturn New York Times v. Sullivan, stating that the New York Times and The Washington Post are "virtually Democratic Party broadsheets". Silberman's dissent also accused big tech companies of censoring conservatives and warned that "Democratic Party ideological control" of mainstream media may be a prelude to an "authoritarian or dictatorial regime" that constitutes "a threat to a viable democracy".

Judge Silberman's dissent produced significant public discussion of Sullivan and potential reforms. Many conservative-leaning outlets endorsed Silberman's criticisms of Sullivan. Most liberal-leaning outlets and several moderate conservatives condemned Silberman's decision for its tone and the substantive idea of loosening defamation standards. However, some liberal scholars and a Harvard Law student writing in the Wall Street Journal embraced significant reforms to Sullivan.

In the July 2021 denial of certiorari in Berisha v. Lawson, Justice Thomas dissented and reiterated his opposition to New York Times v. Sullivan. Justice Neil Gorsuch also questioned the usefulness of NYT v. Sullivan when applied to today's media and social media. Thomas reiterated his stance against the New York Times v. Sullivan decision in the Court's denial to grant certification in October 2023 to hear a case brought by Don Blankenship claiming defamation from news agencies; Thomas argued in a dissent to the denial that NYT v. Sullivan allows news agenices to "cast false aspersions on public figures with near impunity".

On March 19, 2023, The New York Times published a story reviewing the original advertisement and the legal case.

title: New York Times Co. v. Sullivan


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Porsche 904

The Porsche 904 is an automobile which was produced by Porsche in Germany in 1964 and 1965. This coupe, manufactured from 1963 to 1965, was street-legal under road traffic laws, allowing it to be driven not only on race tracks but also on public roads.

The car was used by the factory team in the Sports Car World Championship from 1964 to 1966. Additionally, numerous private teams raced the Porsche 904 in these international series as well as in national championships, such as the German Automobile Circuit Championship, specifically in the 2-liter GT class.

The Porsche 904 achieved significant success, winning the 2-liter GT category in the Manufacturer's World Championship in 1964 and 1965, and it also won the prototype class in 1964.

History
After having withdrawn from Formula One at the end of the 1962 season, Porsche focused again on sportscar racing. The 904 debuted late in 1963, for the 1964 racing season, as a successor to the 718, which had been introduced in 1957. Porsche designed the GTS variant to compete in the FIA-GT class at various international racing events. The street-legal version debuted in 1964 in order to comply with group 3 appendix J homologation regulations requiring a minimum of 100 road-going variants be sold by the factory. Porsche produced one-hundred and six 904s at four or five a day with a list price of US$7245 (FOB Stuttgart). Orders far exceeded the one hundred car requirement to satisfy homologation rules and more cars could have been sold. The 904 marked the beginning of a series of sportscars that culminated in the dominant 917.

Engine
The 904's mid-engine layout was inherited from the 718, also known as the RSK (Rennsport = racing, kurz = short), the factory's leading race car. It was powered by the 1966 cc Type 587/3, four-cam flat four-cylinder engine producing 180 hp, "probably the most complex four-cylinder" ever. It drove a five-speed transmission with a standard 4.428:1 final drive, with available 4.605, 4.260, 3.636, and 3.362 ratios.

Begun as the Type 547, its development began in 1953, when the previous VW-based 1100 cc flat-four, used in the contemporary 356 and rated at 38 hp, hit the limit of its potential. Porsche realized it needed something all-new. The brainchild of Ernst Fuhrmann, later technical director, it was hoped to achieve an "unheard of" 70 hp per 1 l, relying on hemispherical combustion chambers and 46 mm-throat 46IDA2 two-choke Weber carburetors to generate 112 hp from the 1500 cc four-cam engine. The 1.5 liter weighed 310 lb dry, eventually producing 180 hp. A complex design that proved "very taxing" to build and assemble, but very durable, it was used in 34 different models, including 550 spyders, 356 Carreras, and F2/1s.

Chassis
The 904 was the first Porsche to use a ladder chassis and fibreglass body, appearing more like a specialist racing car than the modified sports cars typical at the time, and was painted white. The fibreglass body was bonded to its steel chassis for extra rigidity, and achieved a drag coefficient of 0.34. While many German race cars had used unpainted aluminium bodies since the famous 1934 Silver Arrows, most 904s were painted silver, the modern German national racing color. Unusually for Porsche, the two-seater bodies were provided by contractors, which would later become standard practice among race car builders. The 904's fibreglass body was made by spraying chopped fibreglass into a mold, the amount sprayed often varied in thickness over the shape of the car and as a result the weight of the various cars was somewhat inconsistent. Race-prepared four-cylinder 904s weighed in at approximately 1,443 pounds (655 kg) and the low weight gave the 904 the ability to accelerate to 60 mph from a standstill in less than six seconds (using the standard rear gear, which was typical at Sebring) and to reach a top speed of 160 mph (with the 3.362 ratio). Frontal area was only 14 ft2.

Suspension
The Porsche 904 rode on coil springs (the first Porsche not to use trailing arm front and swing axle rear suspension), with unequal-length A-arms in front. The wheelbase was 90.5 in, track front and rear 51.7 in, height 42 in, and ground clearance of 4.7 in on 15 in wheels. Brakes were 275 mm discs at the front and 285 mm at the rear.

904/6
To satisfy demand, forty 1965 models were produced, some featuring a variant of the 911's flat-six. Due to the weight issues of the first generation plastic body, the 904's successor, the 1966 906 or "Carrera 6", was developed with a tubular space frame covered with an unstressed, lighter fiberglass body.

904/8
A few factory race cars were fitted with a flat eight-cylinder power plant derived from the 1962 804 F1 car, the 225 hp 1962 cc Type 771, which used 42 mm-throat downdraft Weber carburetors. The Type 771s, however, suffered a "disturbing habit" of making their flywheels explode.

Body
For the European Hill Climb Championship in 1965, Porsche developed a successor to the 1964 Porsche 718 RS 61 Spyder. The 904 Bergspyder, based on the Coupé 904/8, was given chassis numbers that began with the 906. Therefore, the car is also sometimes called the 906/8 Bergspyder, Although the race car was most commonly known as the 904 Bergspyder and was technically based on the 904 coupé.

From the coupé, the developers carried over the steel box frame and put on a light open plastic body. The Bergspyder was not a beauty and visually showed no relationship to the aerodynamic coupé. The car was flat especially shorter at the front and because of the missing roof and the shorter windshield as the series 904. However, this made the car around 120 kg lighter than the coupé, with a weight of 570 kg.

During the European Championship season 1965, the body was changed several times. For example, the windshield on model number 906 004 was shortened and flattened. Later, the Bergspyder received again a lighter and rounded at the front and aerodynamically improved car body.

A total of five copies were produced, of which three were destroyed in accidents. In the European Hill Climb Championship, Gerhard Mitter piloted the Bergspyder to an overall victory at the hill climb Rossfeld in 1965. The 904 Bergspyder was replaced at the end of 1965 at the hill climb Ollon-Villars by the Porsche 906 Spyder Mountain.

Suspension
The chassis and suspension were taken over without major changes from the 904 coupé. Due to the low weight and the unadjusted suspension of the 904, the Bergspyder was very difficult to drive.

Engine and transmission
The Bergspyder is powered by the air-cooled 2-liter eight-cylinder boxer engine used in the type 771. This engine had its first use in 1962 in the Porsche 718 RS 61 [21] and already had a Bosch injection system for mixture preparation. The valves were operated by two overhead camshafts with vertical shaft drive. The engine delivered up to 191 kW (260 hp) at 8,800 rpm and had a compression ratio of 10.5: 1. The car had a top speed of around 260 km/h (161 mph).

Technical specifications

 * Engine (904 Coupé)
 * Drivetrain layout: mid-engine RWD
 * Engine type: flat-four
 * Bore × stroke: 3.62 in × 2.91 in
 * Displacement, ci/cc: 120/1966
 * Compression ratio: 9.8:1
 * Max SAE net horsepower: 198 hp
 * Specific output, hp per liter: 100.7
 * Weight to power, lbs per hp: 5.4
 * Transmission: five-speed manual

Performance

 * Drag coefficient: 0.34
 * 0–60 mi/h: <6 seconds
 * Top speed: 160 mi/h

Modern day replicas
Modern day replicas of the 904 are currently being produced by a number of companies, including Martin and Walker in the UK and Chuck Beck and Dennis Frick at Europa Macchina in the US.

Racing
Making an inauspicious debut at Sebring in 1964, where it suffered clutch trouble, "a four-cylinder 904 took an astounding first overall" at the Targa Florio. It went on to a third at the Nürburgring and a perfect finish at Le Mans. Both times, all five starters finished, placed in the top twelve overall, among many much more powerful cars. 904s showed remarkable durability; they "almost always" finished, and at Reims in 1964, a customer car fresh from Stuttgart, driven to the track, went on to win without the need for any spares at all. For 1964, 904s racked up a 1–2 at the Targa Florio and class wins at Spa, Sebring (co-driven by Briggs Cunningham and Lake Underwood), the Nürburgring, Le Mans, Watkins Glen, Zandvoort, Canada, and the Paris 1000 Kilometer, in the process taking SCCA's C-Production and E-Sports Racing titles. In addition, it won rally events including the Tulip, Munich-Vienna-Budapest, Geneva, and "highly acclaimed" Alpine Rally. For 1965, results were "equally impressive", seeing wins at the Spanish, Rossfeld, Hellbronner, and Gaisburg rallies, as well as a class win and second overall in the Monte Carlo Rally which saw just 22 finishers in the points, out of 237 starters. In addition, 904s won their class at the Monza 1000 Kilometer, Targa, Spa, Daytona Continental, Le Mans, and Zandvoort, among others, repeating their E-Sports title win and adding an SCCA E-Production championship.

title: Porsche 904