The Nightman Cometh wrote: I can explain some ridiculously insignificant level of the variance with my independent variables, so I have to suggest what some other variables could be.

TenuredVulture wrote:Negative results are still results. A good hypothesis is good because of its theoretical foundation, not because the data support it. .

State party Chairman Pat Mullins accused the media of covering “war on women” attacks more aggressively than the problems with Obamacare.

“This year, our message couldn’t break through and we paid a price,” he said.

Mullins mocked post-election analysis that said Cuccinelli was too conservative for a changing state.

“This is false narrative by false prophets,” he said. “Republicans do not win when we are mini-Democrats or Democrat Lite.”

After watching Democrats effectively run the “war on women” playbook the past two cycles, there was agreement among Virginia activists that GOP candidates must address issues like abortion differently. But there is disagreement about what exactly that means, and there are not widespread calls to back off from the platform’s strong opposition to abortion.

Trying to keep the focus on pocketbook issues and afraid of giving the attacks more oxygen, for much of the year Cuccinelli avoided forcefully responding to suggestions that he would take away the pill, make it more difficult to get divorced and limit abortions.

RNC national committeeman Morton Blackwell said the party must more “effectively respond to campaigns of vilification” in the future.

“There was nothing wrong about his political match with the voters of Virginia,” Blackwell said of Cuccinelli. “It would have been helpful if Ken had not, through much of the campaign, gone silent on his pro-life and other traditional values positions.”

Several conservative loyalists expressed contempt for moderate Republican Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, who dropped out of the Republican race for governor after Cuccinelli maneuvered to change the way the nominee would be picked from a primary to a convention. Bolling stayed officially neutral but maneuvered behind the scenes to help McAuliffe.

Bolling, who did not attend the gathering, wrote an op-ed for the Richmond Times-Dispatch last week that laid out five steps to revitalize the GOP. One of them was to stop selecting nominees at party conventions, which tend to settle on more conservative candidates.

“While such conventions might empower a few thousand of the most strident voices within our party, they effectively lock out other voices that should be heard,” he wrote. “They too often result in the nomination of candidates who simply can’t get elected when judged by a broader Virginia electorate.”

Many from the Bolling wing of the party cite the 10-point loss of E.W. Jackson, who came out of nowhere to win the nomination for lieutenant governor at a May convention despite a history of controversial remarks, as reason to return to a primary system for picking nominees.

“Obama’s so close to death that Terry McAuliffe is about to buy a life insurance on him,” Mullins joked. “I’m looking forward to taking the gloves off!”

KIEV, Ukraine — After a night of clashes with protesters in Independence Square, security forces appeared to pull back Wednesday from the central plaza in Kiev where demonstrators have been rallying against the government of President Viktor F. Yanukovich for more than two weeks.

The police had taken control of a large section of the square and brought in front-end loaders and other heavy equipment to clear it. But by 11 a.m., the police presence had dwindled and pedestrians were walking freely through the square.

The interior minister, Vitaliy Zakharchenko, issued a statement on Wednesday saying the overnight crackdown had been needed to ease traffic congestion in Kiev and promised that there would be no dispersal of the protesters in the square.

“No one infringes on citizens’ rights to peaceful protests,” he said. “But we cannot ignore the rights and legal interests of other citizens.”

People first took to the streets nearly three weeks ago, in anger over Mr. Yanukovich’s sudden decision to scuttle far-reaching political and free-trade agreements with the European Union that had been in the works for more than a year and that he had promised to sign.

The storming of the plaza was especially surprising because Tuesday had largely been a day of consultations and discussions among senior officials. The talks with Western diplomats had focused heavily on Ukraine’s acute financial troubles; a deepening cash crunch could leave the country broke within months.

Ukraine remains caught in a tug of war between Europe and Russia, which are vying for political sway over the country’s future. Both are both deeply wary of putting up cash, however, given the uncertain political situation and Mr. Yanukovich’s long track record of playing East against West, most recently with his move on the accords.

In rejecting the accords, Mr. Yanukovich said he could not accept conditions of an accompanying rescue package from the International Monetary Fund. He was also under heavy pressure from the Kremlin, which threatened draconian trade sanctions if Ukraine signed the trade pact with Europe. If Mr. Yanukovich thought he was making a clever maneuver, stringing along the European Union while he extracted a better deal from Russia, the plan exploded when protesters rushed into the streets.

“Yanukovich was playing a game where he thought he could maneuver the E.U. and Russia to his benefit,” said Stephen Sestanovich, a Russia expert and a senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations. “The whole idea was to get both sides to pay.”

Instead, he now has no deal with anyone. Russia has indicated some willingness to help, potentially with a combination of lower gas prices, the refinancing of existing debt and, perhaps, a small bridge loan, but not until the political turmoil has been resolved.

MOSCOW — President Vladimir V. Putin exerted new control over Russia’s state news media on Monday, dissolving by decree one of Russia’s official news agencies, RIA Novosti, along with its international radio broadcaster as he continues a drive to strengthen the Kremlin’s influence at home and abroad.

The decision shutters a decades-old state-run news agency widely viewed as offering professional and semi-independent coverage, while putting a reconstituted news service in the hands of a Kremlin loyalist. Since returning for a third time as president last year, Mr. Putin has taken several steps that critics have denounced as a strangulation of political rights and open debate, concentrating power in an ever tighter circle of allies.

Mr. Putin’s presidential chief of staff, Sergei B. Ivanov, said the decision to close the news service was part of an effort to reduce costs and make the state news media more efficient. But RIA Novosti’s report on its own demise said the changes “appear to point toward a tightening of state control in the already heavily regulated media sector.” Its executive editor, Svetlana Mironyuk, the first woman to lead the agency, appeared before her stunned colleagues and apologized for failing to preserve what she called the best news organization ever built by state money, according to a video recording of the meeting.

The two agencies will be absorbed into a new state media organization known as Rossiya Sevodnya, or Russia Today. In a separate decree, Mr. Putin appointed Dmitry K. Kiselyov as executive director of the organization. Mr. Kiselyov, a television executive and host, is an avowed pro-Kremlin figure who has provoked controversy with starkly homophobic remarks and virulent commentary suggesting foreign conspiracies are threatening Russia.

The decrees caught the agencies’ employees, its executives and even some government officials by surprise. Mr. Putin made the changes without prior notice or public debate, as is often the case here. His decree said that the new agency would focus on providing news about Russia to an international audience; the agency’s directors will be directly appointed by the president’s office.

The Nightman Cometh wrote:Thanks everyone, I appreciate you guys taking the time to write a few things up. I have a good idea of where I could go now.

And to clarify, I knew it was fine I didn't get any real positive results. I can explain 18% of the variance in defense spending with one of my models. I just have to make other theoretical explanations do the leg work in my paper now (which is the part that I thought was the pain in the ass about this). That and the fact that my excel keeps crashing. smh at microsoft products on macs.

pacino wrote:no soul-searching for Virginia GOP after losing every race:

State party Chairman Pat Mullins accused the media of covering “war on women” attacks more aggressively than the problems with Obamacare.

TenuredVulture wrote:You're doing it wrong. And why aren't you using SPSS or some other tool more appropriate than Excel for this?

TenuredVulture wrote:

The Nightman Cometh wrote:Thanks everyone, I appreciate you guys taking the time to write a few things up. I have a good idea of where I could go now.

And to clarify, I knew it was fine I didn't get any real positive results. I can explain 18% of the variance in defense spending with one of my models. I just have to make other theoretical explanations do the leg work in my paper now (which is the part that I thought was the pain in the ass about this). That and the fact that my excel keeps crashing. smh at microsoft products on macs.

You're doing it wrong. And why aren't you using SPSS or some other tool more appropriate than Excel for this?

Luzinski's Gut wrote:Ok, coming into my bailiwick here.

Some factors to consider:

1. Threat/War - a consistent threat from a peer competitor, such as the USSR, will ensure higher expenditures on the military. War is an obvious answers, you'll see a punctuated equilibrium during the WWI, WWII, Korean, and Vietnam wars.

2. GDP is a decent one...

3. Political affiliation of the President

4. Majority political party in Congress

5. Money spent on lobbying by defense related companies, this trend came into play after the Cold War ended and the threat from the USSR evaporated.

6. Levels of taxation in support of the war. These can be broken down into personal tax increases and everything else (corporate, special taxes such as the one levied in the Spanish-American War on telephone and telegraph communications).

7. Deficit spending on defense.

8. % of discretionary spending on Defense

The Nightman Cometh wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:

The Nightman Cometh wrote:Thanks everyone, I appreciate you guys taking the time to write a few things up. I have a good idea of where I could go now.

And to clarify, I knew it was fine I didn't get any real positive results. I can explain 18% of the variance in defense spending with one of my models. I just have to make other theoretical explanations do the leg work in my paper now (which is the part that I thought was the pain in the ass about this). That and the fact that my excel keeps crashing. smh at microsoft products on macs.

You're doing it wrong. And why aren't you using SPSS or some other tool more appropriate than Excel for this?

Wait, I'm doing what wrong? Using excel or something else?

Excel is what we were taught and are expected to use, this was not a personal choice to run regressions at all let alone through excel.

traderdave wrote:

Luzinski's Gut wrote:Ok, coming into my bailiwick here.

Some factors to consider:

1. Threat/War - a consistent threat from a peer competitor, such as the USSR, will ensure higher expenditures on the military. War is an obvious answers, you'll see a punctuated equilibrium during the WWI, WWII, Korean, and Vietnam wars.

2. GDP is a decent one...

3. Political affiliation of the President

4. Majority political party in Congress

5. Money spent on lobbying by defense related companies, this trend came into play after the Cold War ended and the threat from the USSR evaporated.

6. Levels of taxation in support of the war. These can be broken down into personal tax increases and everything else (corporate, special taxes such as the one levied in the Spanish-American War on telephone and telegraph communications).

7. Deficit spending on defense.

8. % of discretionary spending on Defense

I understand that these are probably variations on a theme but could public opinion work as a variable (like a consumer sentiment figure)? How about the number of veterans in Congress?

A Case for the Oxford Comma in One Screenshot