The Time Bandits, a film by Monty Python's Terry Gilliam, is perhaps the underrated comedy in Hollywood history. Evil and Benson One of the film's most important characters was Evil, played with panache by the late, great David Warner, who uttered what instantly became my favorite line from the movie: "Oh Benson, dear Benson, you are so mercifully free from the ravages of intelligence." Naturally, Benson being Benson, and failing to realize it wasn't a compliment, thanked Evil for the brutal insult. The phrase implies contradiction, doesn't it? We humans normally think of intelligence as an asset, not a liability, and yet "ravages" means to lay waste by plundering or destroying. Naturally, the beauty of Evil's choice of words is the truth in them. However, when I think of "the ravages of intelligence" I don't normally have Benson in mind, it's this guy: economist Paul Krugman. It would be silly for me to claim that Krugman is totally free from the ravages of intelligence, because the man has been proclaimed an economics genius and awarded a Nobel Prize, which in theory is supposed to be a prestigious honor. In practice, the Nobel Prize has become something of a politically correct joke, but it does give the winner instant credibility. Mr. Krugman has leveraged that award into a pretty sweet gig as a New York Times columnist, where he continues to be wrong in most of his predictions. On the other hand, Mr. Krugman is on record as offering any number of stupid, even indefensible opinions to his devoted readers. In truth, I could make this article … [Read more...]