Jack Layton, Canadian Leader |
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Jack Layton, Canadian Opposition leader, died on the 22nd of August. His funeral on the 27th was suggested by several people as a global event because of the huge outpouring of love from the Canadian people, and indeed people elsewhere. Layton was one of the most loved politicians we have seen, and some suggested his funeral would arouse the same kind and depth of emotion as that for Princess Diana in 1997. Because of an overlap with the formal event of Hurricane Irene, this could not be included in the formal series. Quotes from his wife and from Layton himself give a bit of the flavor of the man: "Let us not look behind us, lets look forward look at what we can accomplish together to make sure Jacks voice is not silenced. I think that's a good way to celebrate his life" -Olivia Chow "My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world. All my very best" - Jack Layton The event suggested by several people was the cortege and funeral which took place on August 27 from 11 to 4 pm in Toronto. This turns out to be on the same day, overlapping with the landfall of Hurricane Irene. While this means it cannot be included in the formal series, we will include the result in the informal explorations. It is an interesting case, and a remarkable graph, which may well be important for its symbolic value.
It is important to keep in mind that we have only a tiny statistical effect, so that it is always hard to distinguish signal from noise. This means that every "success" might be largely driven by chance, and every "null" might include a real signal overwhelmed by noise. In the long run, a real effect can be identified only by patiently accumulating replications of similar analyses.
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