It's impossible to overestimate people's capacity for stupidity.

You can take that truism to the bank.

In fact, people are taking that truism to the bank in Brink armored trucks. You don't want to know how many Dummies 101 books I've purchased. My first one was WordPerfect for Dummies. Then there was the Corel WordPerfect for Dummies. Then I coughed up money for the Word 2000 for Dummies while passing up umpteenth other "...for Dummies" books, including Excel 2000 for Dummies, PowerPoint for Dummies, Visio 2000 for Dummies.

The authors of these computer books made "for Dummies" a registered trademark. Otherwise I guarantee you there would be "Life for Dummies," "Childrearing for Dummies," "House-buying for Dummies," and on and on.

This morning we want to move beyond self-help and talk …