Separated at birth: alternative medicine and climate change denial

As a colleague and I corresponded about my support for the scientific consensus on CO2 driven climate change, I realized I was replaying fifteen year old conversations about the alternatives to science-based medicine. Homeopathy consumers have a lot in common with cosmic ray climate enthusiasts.

One common thread is a skepticism about the value science, and particularly the value of the scientific establishment.

Some believe that science simply doesn't apply. "Healing fields", they say, cannot be detected by science; indeed scientific analysis may destroy them. Herbal remedies are safe because Nature loves us. Yahweh promised us the Earth, so it's impossible for us to render it (transiently) inhospitable.

This version of anti-science is uninteresting. These arguments can't be refuted for the same reasons that we can't disprove the existence of unicorns and leprechauns.  There's no measure for resolving disagreements; these are theological disputes.

Another form of argument grants that the scientific method is effective, but claims that the scientific establishment is corrupt and untrustworthy. This is more interesting because it's at least partly true. Over the past twenty years we've learned about the effects of publication bias, particularly when corporations with strong financial interests (ex: Pharma) control the publication of research results. We've seen some spectacular scientific frauds, and we've seen a trend to "me too" research that gets safe grants but produces small results. During the Bush years, we saw loyalists suppress scientific results their bosses disliked.

Alas, there's no evidence the amateurs are reliable; most seem driven by the same passions that power crank cosmologists. Even if they were angels, furthermore, by their nature these amateurs bypass scientific evaluation and challenge. They cannot be judged because they're not in the game.

Sure, the scientific program is imperfect, but, when it comes to understanding the world, there are no alternatives. The process of iterating on internally consistent models that make testable predictions, and revising those models when predictions fail, has transformed human history. It is the only guide we have to developing better medicines, understanding the universe, or predicting the consequences of CO2 accumulation.

The denialists do have a point, even if they don't fully recognize it. We can and should improve the machinery of science. Requirements to publish data obtained through public investments, registries of studies to ensure negative and unfavorable results are published,  and (more challenging) reforms to grant programs and academic tenure are some of the improvements seen over the past decade.

Science tells us Homeopathy's effects are mediated by belief, not molecules. Science tells us that CO2 accumulation will change the earth's climate; and that these changes will be extremely disruptive for a crowded planet with fixed borders.

Maybe in ten years science will tell us that solar cycles are more important for our 21st century climate than CO2 accumulation. Maybe science will tell us that spinal manipulations do change the immune system. Maybe, but probably not.

Update 5/14/11: I've rewritten parts of the first few paragraphs.

What if Blogger died and nobody noticed?

For the first time in quite a while, Blogger died hard ...

Blogger Buzz: Blogger is back

... during scheduled maintenance work Wednesday night, we experienced some data corruption that impacted Blogger’s behavior. Since then, bloggers and readers may have experienced a variety of anomalies including intermittent outages, disappearing posts, and arriving at unintended blogs or error pages. A small subset of Blogger users (we estimate 0.16%) may have encountered additional problems specific to their accounts. Yesterday we returned Blogger to a pre-maintenance state and placed the service in read-only mode while we worked on restoring all content: that’s why you haven’t been able to publish.  We rolled back to a version of Blogger as of Wednesday May 11th, so your posts since then were temporarily removed. Those are the posts that we’re in the progress of restoring...

Blogger was down for over 20 hours. When it came up some of my draft posts were missing, but they are back now.

During the outage Blogger was slow to update status.blogger.com, but, they were pretty good at posting updates to Twitter.  It's a significant failure, but every company gets those. The failure by itself isn't that interesting.

What's more interesting is how little notice the outage got in the blogs I read. Blogger died, and aside from Blogger users tweeting furiously, nobody seemed to notice.

Google Chromebook - disappointing, but a glimmer of hope

Google's long, long delayed "Chromebook" is out.

... Google Launches Chromebooks with Samsung and Acer: Tech News and Analysis

Acer’s Chromebook will start at $349, and Samsung’s model will be priced $429 for its WiFi model and $499 for a model with 3G connectivity...

A price of $150 would be interesting. $100 without batteries would be exciting. $350 and up is just sad. My prognostication rep just took a big hit.

This is more interesting ...

Google Chrome Blog: A new kind of computer: Chromebook

... we’re also announcing Chromebooks for Business and Education. This service from Google includes Chromebooks and a cloud management console to remotely administer and manage users, devices, applications and policies. Also included is enterprise-level support, device warranties and replacements as well as regular hardware refreshes. Monthly subscriptions will start at $28/user for businesses and $20/user for schools.

Completely outsourcing all IT services, including hardware support, isn't pathetic -- especially for public schools. So there's a glimmer of hope for the ChromeOS, but I bet the Parental Controls will be a disaster.

See also:

• The $80 ultra-portable - in unexpected form (9/10)
• Computing for the rest of us: The iPad and the ChromeBook (1/10)
• The $125 Barbie B-Smart Netbook of 2011 (1/09)
• Squeezed 2009: Netbooks, Android and Microsoft

Florida's emergent solution to medicine's failure - high mortality assisted care

Florida's years of GOP misrule have produced libertarian innovations in the care of the aged ...

Investigation Finds Dozens Of Questionable Deaths In Florida Assisted Care : NPR

... A year-long investigation by The Miami Herald and WLRN has turned up at least 70 questionable deaths in Florida assisted living facilities over the last decade. Herald investigative reporter Mike Sallah reads a list of deaths culled from thousands of state documents ...

... We found deaths resulting from residents being deprived of their medication, and from residents being over-medicated. The cases stretched from Miami to the Florida Panhandle. Questionable deaths occurred in both 100-bed facilities and 6-bed facilities. And in almost all 70 cases, there were few or no consequences for caretakers. Florida, once a national leader in policing assisted living facilities, has fallen behind in enforcement, our investigation shows ....

High mortality assisted care facilities are an emergent solution to a failure of modern medicine -- our bodies now outlive our brains. It's even cheaper than railing-free cruise ships [1].

For my own longterm care, I'm looking for a lock-free facility built on a 600 foot cliff with a view. Emily and I call this "a room with a view".

[1] My cruise ships would only accept advanced reservations for and by people with fully intact judgment. Until, that is, we went public and had trouble meeting analyst expectations ...

What Barack said to Paul

"Thanks for coming Professor Krugman. I appreciate the disguise; you make a convincing janitor."

"No problem Mr. President.  I don't understand the secrecy though. Everyone knows I'm a critic, why all the mystery?"

"Well Paul, if this were the usual consultation, there'd be no need for deniability. This is different. What I'm going to tell you now can never be repeated. In fact, nobody will be able to show you were ever here. All records of this visit have been removed."

"Well, I'm all ears. What's up?"

"I think you need to know the truth. Sure, you know I've been using you. You know the GOP hates you Paul; if you don't like me that helps with [censored] "independents".

Don't look so shocked Paul. You need to hear this.

The truth is that I think you're right. Yeah, sure, you're an academic, but you're closer to the mark than anyone else."

"But ... but... then why don't you push for more deficit funding? Why leave Bernanke to twist in the wind?"

"Well Paul, have you looked at Congress lately? They're worse than dull, they're delusional. It's not just them, the voters are even worse. Have you seen many think I was born in Kenya, or who think Osama died ten years ago, or who don't believe CO2 has anything to do with climate?

Truth is Paul, we're not smart enough for neo-Keynsian economics. We won't save a surplus, and we won't spend against a deficit. We're just not that smart. Come on Paul, admit it. You must see it too."

"I ... I ... I always wanted to believe, to believe people were better ... if only I could show them ... I ... *sob* ..."

"There, there Paul. Don't feel so bad. It's just the way it is. At least you don't have to get elected.

I've got to go now. I need to stop the GOP from destroying the world economy, we've got a hit squad closing on Zawahiri, and I need to ask Hawaii to release a notarized copy of my birth certificate ..."

Pay for performance: the problem with 3rd grade reading incentives

With physicians, world destroying CEOs, Texas teachers and every salesman since the dawn of commerce, Goodhart's Law says you get the behaviors you measure and incent.

Turns out the same thing is true of 9yo girls.

My daughter's 3rd grade class has an "advanced reading" program. Each book read earns points; the "harder" the book, the more the points. This means that weak readers get discouraged fast. Keen competitors though, can wrack up the points.

That includes my girl. She's reading day and night to beat the 5th and 6th grade girls.

Problem is, she doesn't need to practice reading. Math yes, soccer sure, playing with her friends is fine too -- but we done got 'nuff readin.

Incentive programs always have perverse consequences.

Cancer in whales, dinosaurs and birds

Whales have amazing defenses against cancer. It's one reason they're able to get so big...

... Caulin and Maley argue that when animals evolve to larger sizes, they must evolve a better way to fight against cancer. It’s possible that a blue whale simply has a souped-up version of our own defenses. We have proteins that monitor our cells for over-eager growth, for example; they can kill or zombify cells that on the road to cancer...

Caulin and Maley suggest that nature has carried out this experiment as well. We have one copy of a gatekeeper gene called TP53, for example. Elephants–which are at a greater risk for cancer–have a dozen copies of the same gene.

.... Scientists could look at closely related species that span a big range of sizes, searching for telling differences in their cancer defences. Whales and dolphins would be a good pick, since blue whales are 2,000 times bigger than the petite Commerson’s dolpin.

But such an undertaking would have to overcome a lot of inertia in the world of cancer research. Cancer biologists don’t look to big animals as models to study–which is one reason there’s not a single fully-sequenced genome of a whale or a dolphin for scientists to look at...

Maybe scientists don't need to look at whales. Dinosaurs were big for a long, long time. Sure, they're pretty small now, but maybe they kept some of the cancer defenses that let them grow big. We just need to study cancer in small but long-lived dinosaurs, like parrots. Maybe we'll find relics of the defenses T-Rex had, and find a way to use those ...

Sympathy for the devil: Anything good in RyanCare?

One year ago, against enormous resistance, Barack Obama and his allies muscled RomneyCare, aka the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, into law. It will come into full effect by 2014 assuming the GOP doesn't get complete control of Congress in 2012 (even if they do, the ACA will survive albeit with much less coverage for the poor and disabled).

The ACA was very much a political compromise. A Democratic controlled Congress was barely able to pass a GOP designed health care reform bill against hysterical GOP opposition.

Nobody is happy with RomneyCare, though I believe it was the best that could be done in for our time. A lot of palms had to be greased to get it through (I suspect the AMA was paid off with a CPT deal).

These days the GOP is talking a lot about RyanCare, which has some remarkable resemblances to RomneyCare. Sadly, like RomneyCare, and unlike McCain's half-hearted proposals, both plans keep health care insurance tightly coupled to employment.

The differences between RyanCare and RomneyCare are predictable. The ACA provides support for the poor and the weak and protects people with disabilities and illnesses. RyanCare does not ...

Consensus and Conflict in Health System Reform — The Republican Budget Plan and the ACA | NEJM Health Policy and Reform

...  The Republican plan offers additional (often inadequate) assistance only to very poor elderly and disabled persons, and to very-low-income pregnant women and families with children. The ACA, by contrast, offers assistance to uninsured Americans with incomes as high as 400% of the poverty level.

Second, the plans differ in the protection they afford against health-status–based discrimination. The Republican Roadmap assures guaranteed issue, requires risk adjustment among insurers, and offers high-risk pools, but the ACA prohibits insurers from varying coverage or premiums on the basis of health status and bans preexisting-condition exclusions altogether...

Like RomneyCare, RyanCare puts healthcare firmly into a large corporate framework. This isn't surprising, large corporations have robust control of their ecosystem. This isn't to my tastes.

There are three poles of service provision in the US - diverse market, corporate, and government. My preference for service provision is "diverse market" - small business, large business all with active competition. My second choice, and it's rather a distant second, is governmental provision. My last choice, far behind the other two, is provision of goods and services strictly through large minimally competitive corporate entities. Both RomneyCare/ACA and RyanCare drive all healthcare provision towards large minimally competitive corporation. There's more regulation in the ACA, and less regulation in RyanCare. In the case of Verizon/AT&T/Goldman Sachs like corporate entities lack of regulation is not a feature.

Overall RyanCare is, in some ways, an improvement on healthcare of 2008. It's a huge step backwards from the ACA. There's only one aspect of it for which I have some mild sympathy ...

... vouchers limit federal expenditures by shifting the risk of inflation in health care costs to the states, Medicare beneficiaries, and ordinary Americans ...

Vouchers are not necessarily evil. There are some voucher plans worth considering ...

A Comprehensive Cure: Universal Health Care Vouchers - Emanuel and Fuchs - Brookings Institution

... The Universal Healthcare Voucher System (UHV) achieves universal health coverage by entitling all Americans to a standard package of benefits comparable to that received by federal employees. Enrollment and renewal are guaranteed regardless of health status, as is the individual's right to buy additional services beyond the standard benefits with aftertax dollars. Health plans would receive a risk-adjusted payment based on their enrollment. UHV is funded entirely by a dedicated value-added tax (VAT) with the rate set by Congress. A VAT of approximately 10 to 12 percent would insure all Americans under age 65 at a cost no greater than current public and private health care expenditures.

UHV offers true universality, individual choice, effective cost control, and competition based on quality of care and service. To foster accountability and efficient administration, the voucher system creates a National Health Board and twelve regional boards with a governance structure and reporting requirements similar to the Federal Reserve system. ... UHV is relatively simple compared with other reforms that have similar objectives. Most importantly, it is congruent with basic American values: equality of opportunity and freedom to pursue personal goals.

Ezekiel Emanuel's UHV system looks now like a cross between RomneyCare and RyanCare. It would have been intensely disruptive, it is not necessarily corporate friendly and it would have severed health care coverage from employment. In a world where the GOP had not gone insane, and where corporations were less powerful, the UHV might have been a compromise solution.

Disruption is what we need, and markets can be good at that. Governments, and especially large corporations are much better at stasis. The ACA is much better than RyanCare, but the disruption it promises will be mediated by large, powerful, senator-owning corporations. That's not going to go well.

Generation gap: Bin Laden and the Chatterbox cafe

After seeing The King's Speech at the local discount theater, I'm showing Emily 'Triumph of The Will' on my iPhone over beer and hard cider at the Chatterbox Cafe. Leni Riefenstahl, that monster of Will, did love clouds.

We'd just gotten to Hitler's drive along the rows of adoring blond women and children when our waitress says bin Laden is on TV.

It's the run up to Obama's speech ...

We watch the speech - alone. The Chatterbox is pretty busy, lots of 20 somethings. The Karaoke bar is particularly rowdy. One young woman comes over, she is mildly interested. The staff are curious too, but busy. That's about it though. We're the only ones to watch the speech.

They are young. They have grown up with the Forever Wars. As adults, they've mostly known the Great Recession.

They don't remember the way we do. For them it's all very far away, and not all that interesting. They don't remember the world we lost, a much better world than the one we have now ...

Malice, incompetence, and happy accidents

Napoleon said "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence."
That is true, but incomplete.

I would say as well "Never ascribe to incompetence that which is adequately explained by the happy accident of emergent malice."

Update 5/4/11: Dilbert 2011-05-04 says it all in 3 panels.

The undiscovered world is all around us

Wonderful essay about the 2002 discovery of a new insect order (the Mantophasmatodea). In a few years they went from unrecognized fossil specimens to being seen almost everywhere ...

Rob Dunn blogging for Sci Am: Man discovers a new life-form at a South African truck stop:

... What was required to discover the Mantaphasmatodes, whether the species on top of the Massif or the species at the truck stop, was the realization that no one else knew what they were. Once that realization was made, discovering them was both easier and more interesting. Until then, the Mantaphasmatodes, like much of life, seemed (wrongly) likely to be known by some expert in a university somewhere. Yet they were not known, just as most of life is not known.

It was only recently that it was discovered that mice sing to each other. It was not so very long ago that it was discovered that clouds are filled with bacteria. What else remains to be known? Nearly everything....

After reading the essay, I recommend a visit to the Brandberg Massif via Google Maps/Earth. Be sure to turn on the photos and wikipedia layers.

Peak Oil: One of my better predictions

In May of 2007, as oil prices rose, I drew a line along a graph of gasoline prices ...

Gordon's Notes: Gasoline prices: refining or secular trend - the 11 year chart

I was wondering the other day, how much gasoline costs in Europe. It's about $3.40 a gallon in the Twin Cities, and over $5.00 a gallon in Canada, but what about in France or Germany? Have gas prices reached the "magic" $7.00 a gallon mark? I'd long imagined that was a price point that would change consumer choices about where to work and live, and what to drive....

Is the effect entirely due to refining capacity, as some suppose? If so, wouldn't the effect differ between the US and Europe?

... If we accept the trend then French gasoline will be $13.50 @ 2013 and $27 @ 2019. I wonder how close this is to the "tipping point" where the ROI on petroleum storage starts to become persuasive.

Without adjusting for income in any way, it's noteworthy that US gasoline is now as expensive as French gasoline @ 2001 and French gasoline today is nearing the "magic" $7/gallon mark....

It was remarkable that despite very different tax systems, prices rose in parallel.

In 2007 the GOP's explanation for rising prices was inadequate refining capacity. That might have contributed, but it was clearly a minor effect. The Left's explanation was evil speculators; but in this case any speculators would be our friends (even if they are producers who keep oil in the ground).

By July of 2007 I figured that once gasoline hit $5 a gallon it would begin to change what Americans did. I based that on the Canadian example. I estimated that would happen in 2011. By August of 2008 I made my Peak Oil call. The means I expected demand of light sweet crude would exceed supply until oil hit around $200 a barrel and resource substitution really kicked in (meaning we bake the planet with high CO2 fuels).

Then the roof fell in. In the teeth of the Great Recession oil prices retreated to June 2007 levels. They fell back about 1 year.

The Great Recession grinds on (screw the technical definition, feels like a recession to us). Even so, gas prices in MSP are back to almost $4/gallon. By August we may make my $5/gallon prediction.

After the summer season gas prices will fall. If China's bubble bursts in 2012 and their Great Recession begins our gas prices will fall probably bounce around $4/gallon for a year or so. Otherwise gas prices will head for $8-10/gallon in the US by @ 2017.

This is a good time to be investing in energy efficient high speed rail, public transit systems, and bicycle lanes. We'd be rethinking a lot of our assumptions. I am confident Minnesota's GOP controlled legislature will do the right thing.

Yeah, I'm joking.

More today from Ezra Klein ...

If only speculation explained gas prices - Ezra Klein - The Washington Post

... James Hamilton, an energy economist at UC San Diego, has studied not only the current oil prices, but the 2007-2008 run-up, in great detail...

.. If you read Hamilton’s detailed paper (pdf) on that period — no one can accuse him on not looking seriously at the numbers — you’ll hear about two major forces in the oil market, both of which are scarier, in the long-run, than speculators. On the supply side, Saudi Arabia. On the demand side, China. And caught between them, the global economy, and our wallets.

Traditionally, Hamilton says, Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest producer of oil, would smooth out spikes in demand. But around 2007, Saudi Arabia stopped. They left oil in the ground, assuming they could sell it for more later...

But that was 2007-2008. Is Saudi Arabia part of the story now? It appears so. Not only did they slash production in March, but they’re freaking everybody out by offering accounts of their production volume that don’t make any sense.

On the demand side, China — and other developing nations, but mostly China — is the 800-pound gorilla in the room. “China was a net exporter of petroleum up through 1992, and its imports were still only 800,000 barrels a day in 1998,” writes Hamilton. “By 2007, however, China’s net petroleum imports were estimated to be 3.7 mbd, making it the world’s third-largest importer and a dominant factor in world markets.”...

Patel - the Value of Nothing

Pickings were slim at the airport today. There were the usual Friedman/Tipping Point style books, but I'd rather read the dictionary than another of those. Raj Patel's "The Value of Nothing", an examination of externalities from a neo-Marxist perspective, looked at least novel.

I got something out of the book. I now know that while I'm a filthie commie Rationalist by GOP standards, I'm a long way from people like Klein, Patel, and others of the Hard Left. We have substantial agreement on ends, but their means read like a recipe for flail. Not coincidentally I feel the same way about Marx - sympathy for the ends, no value to the means.

I also found an unattributed quote in the 2009 book, inserted as though Patel wrote it ...

There are two novels that can transform a bookish fourteen year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish daydream that can lead to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood in which large chunks of the day are spent inventing ways to make real life more like a fantasy novel. The other is a book about orcs.

In March 2009 John Rogers, in his blog Kung Fu Monkey, [1] wrote:

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

I hope this is a mistake, but although it's been noted elsewhere the error has never been corrected.

Reading Patel, I'm reminded that the Hard Left shares some of my thoughts on emergent corporate entities. I will claim a significant distinction however. Patel and his kin see these emergent entities as rapacious and destructive. I see them as powerful but simple minded, with interests that usually align with civilization and sometimes even with "the weak". They are humungous beasts that walk the "realer than real" world of Finance, but they are not predators. They are coopetitors with humans -- and there's a chance that we can steer them ...

Update and [1]: When I first wrote this I was puzzled by attributions to John Rogers, when Kung Fu Monkey was the only source I could find. John Rogers contributes to KFM and wrote the original quote. So it should be attributed to John. Thanks to an Anonymous comment for the clarification. I really should have figured this out on my own!

Update 4/28/11: Good news on the citation. Patel noted the mistake a year ago and posted on it. Thanks Nick for the comment.

Rework reviewed

I wanted to like Rework by Fried and Hannson, but I feel like I overpaid.

To say it's a short book is an understatement. This is pretty much it:

• Simplicity is the only winning formula.
• Don't hire until quality falls.
• A successful private company can get by with very few employees by outsourcing utility functions (details on this may be in their other book)
• Meetings are bad, but distributed teams need to get together every three months or so. Evidently whatever those teams do together is not "meeting". Whatever "meeting" is.
• True productivity works with a balanced 45-50 hour week -- but when you're doing a startup you should sacrifice sleep and keep your day job.
• You can make money by reselling the detritus of corporate activity, like this book.
• Cash flow is king, be positive early.
• Build enough to sell, then build what you need to keep selling.
• Customers can't tell you what they need.
• Don't fear customers graduating from your services (but I wager they don't make it easy for customers to migrate their data).
• Don't surrender ownership early -- wait until you're a proven company.
• Only hire talented writers - regardless of the position

The book isn't worthless. About two thirds of it feels right, which is better than the average business book. On the other hand, I don't buy average business books.

I'd recommend a pass on this one. Do pick it up at the library or a used book store. $8 would be a fair price.

Montreal and Minneapolis: Unremarked differences

I grew up in Canada, but most of my adult life has been spent in the US. I'm more American than Canadian, but I keep in touch with the old country.

Moving back and forth between Minneapolis-St Paul (MSP) and Montreal (YUL) so many things are similar that the differences can come as a surprise. Some of the smaller differences are most interesting.

Of course there are the differences we all know about, such as the two Ms: "Medicare" [1] and the Metric system. Both came in during my childhood. For a poor kid in Quebec in Medicare was a flaming miracle. These two are obvious and large differences [4], but I doubt either would pass in today's Canada. I wonder if Canada and the US were more different forty years ago.

Montreal is poorer overall, but only relatively - it's obviously a wealthy region. Although inequality seems to be growing, it's still far less skewed than the land of the GOP. Education in particular is much less of a local responsibility. Public schools and buildings are spartan everywhere in Montreal, but luxurious in MSP's wealthier suburbs. Overall Montreal's non-historic structures are more minimalistic, more built to budget than similar places in MSP. Concentrations of poverty are also less severe than in MSP [3].

Montreal's automotive infrastructure is abysmal. Despite the astounding collapse of a major bridge [2], MSP's roadways are much better. There's now a desperate traffic paralyzing catch-up roadway rebuilding in Montreal so it's fortunate that Montreal has a vastly better public transit system than MSP. On the other hand MSP is now extending its light rail transit system. The two are converging.

Other smaller similarities and differences are perhaps more interesting. [4] Both Montreal and MSP have very extensive bicycle trail systems that have expanded over the past ten years. In last year's rankings Montreal was rated #1 in North American and Minneapolis was #2 (take that Portland!). That's despite climates that are wintery (MSP) and miserable (Montreal) [5].

Accessibility is a very big difference. MSP is largely accessible; most of the city can be navigated in a wheelchair and most of the restaurants and private businesses are accessible. That's not a local virtue, it's a legacy of the astounding American Disabilities Act of 1990. Montreal is almost completely inaccessible. It's an vast gap to MSP's advantage, and seems little remarked on in Montreal. You don't want to have physical disability in Montreal.

It's not just physical disabilities that are a problem in Montreal. I have a good understanding of the 'special needs' experience in MSP and some knowledge of how Montreal performs. I guesstimate MSP is about twenty to thirty years ahead of Montreal in its care of cognitive disability in school age children. I see convergence here too however. Montreal seems to be improving, and Minnesota is regressing. Still, like physical disabilities, MSP is curiously ahead of Montreal in the management of cognitive disabilities.

Both cities have good and bad restaurants, but only Montreal has pastries. Sure, MSP has places that sell excellent bread (including baguettes) but you can't buy a pastry in MSP.

Ok, I admit, there are places in MSP that claim to sell "pastries", but the best of them are weak sugary things that would disgrace a Montreal strip mall. The Bagel-gap isn't quite as wide, but it's still there. These are puzzling market failures.

The case of the Aero bar is even stranger. My daughter loves these mundane chocolate bars, but they are sold only in Canada. There has never been a serious modern attempt to sell them into the US market. Strange.

There's one last curious distinction that is personally annoying. In MSP most cafes and libraries have open public WiFi access. Even many McDonald's have it. The entire city of Minneapolis has a WiFi network (though it's not free). In Montreal I have a hard time finding any access at all; even Starbucks charges for access here. I suspected liability or regulatory differences, but that doesn't seem to explain the difference. I wonder now if it's because of the monopolistic Canadian telecom industry, and if open WiFi will disappear in the US as our market consolidates.

Will these gaps close over the next 30 years? I suspect so. The US will, very slowly, go metric in many ways, though perhaps not in temperature. Aero bars will surely come to MSP before I die, though pastries may take longer. The Bagel gap will close, already MSP does well with bread. The US and Canadian health care systems will probably converge on some messy compromise. Open WiFi will disappear everywhere. Montreal will have to do something about accessibility as its population ages. Both cities will become more cosmopolitan, less pale, more multilingual.

The worlds will continue to converge.

[1] How'd the US system for care of the elderly get the same name as Canada's universal coverage? Some time I'll have to research the etymology.
[2] After all the investigations it looks like the primary cause was a manufacturing error. 
[3] By US standards MSP is relatively enlightened, which means by Nordic standards MSP is the first circle of Hell.
[4] Languages differ of course. Montreal is predominantly French with a lot of English (still), MSP is predominantly English with a growing Spanish segment. Both cities look very pale to me, but MSP is a shade less melanin-deficient. Montreal is historically Catholic and now largely indifferent, St. Paul is historically Catholic (and French) and still somewhat religious. Minneapolis is historically Lutheran, now indifferent. Both are river cities, Montreal has the St. Lawrence, MSP the Mississippi. Both were French/English meeting places.
[5] Montreal has the worst climate of any city outside of maybe Moscow. It's not the cold, it's the frequent freeze/thaw cycles, the endless cloud, the slush ... Yech. Growing up in Montreal is why I think MSP's climate is wonderful, which appalls my native colleagues.
[7] Open WiFi nets are a favorite haunt of traders in illegal pornography.