You have a cold; accept it

Dave Ross Commentary – Listen: You have a cold; accept it

There it is: gay soldiers will get to serve in the military without having to pretend they’re not gay.

And as these things go the change came pretty fast. Only took 18 years for Congress to acknowledge the truth.

Which clears the way for us to move on to the NEXT exercise in mass education, which erupted just this week in the pages of Live Science with an article headlined “Echinacea Discredited as a Cold Treatment.”

This caught my eye because whenever I get a cold, it’s very public — due to the effect on my voice — and I can’t tell you how many times wonderful, well-meaning people have recommended Echinacea, or some other gag-inducing herbal remedy which is supposed to make it all better.

What I find is, every cold remedy takes about ten days to work. Over-the-counter pills, ten days. Hot soup, ten days. Tap water, ten days. Oatmeal bath, ten days. Mud poultice and Australian scalp massage — ten days.

As for Echinacea — the latest study divided 719 patients between Echinacea (derived from the purple CONEflower) and a placebo. The subjects then documented their symptoms, and the bottom line: The Echinacea-takers reported that on average their symptoms cleared up about 8 and a half hours sooner, an effect so small, it was probably chance.

In other words, the science says that Americans should just SAVE the ONE HUNDRED MILLION dollars a year that they now spend ingesting crushed CONE-flowers.

Because it’s about as likely to affect your cold as it is your sexual orientation.

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