The List Issue: Best and Worst

Richard Corliss needs to get a life. A Romanian horror film among his best of the year? If I want to get depressed, all I have to do is watch CNBC. Seriously, we are in a deep recession, and the world is suffering. Please get out of those artsy theaters, visit the multiplex, have some popcorn and find us a funny movie.
Edward Shute, GULPH MILLS, PA., U.S.

As usual, this feature was smart, irreverent and entertaining. Maybe you could also have added “Top 10 Magnifying-Glass Manufacturers?” Type as small as that is usually found at the bottom of legal documents.
Robert Wilson, PORDENONE, ITALY

Paying More for Gas, Voluntarily
With his proposal for broad new energy taxes, Michael Kinsley gets my vote for insight of the year [Dec. 22]. I don’t like high gas prices any more than the next guy, but I would rather put the money to good use in the U.S. than send it to OPEC. The American people have demonstrated beyond a doubt that they can and will get by with less gas if there is a compelling reason in the form of a higher price at the pump. The enormous, unstated side benefit of Kinsley’s proposal is a huge step toward energy independence. Who did not enjoy seeing the OPEC ministers being forced to reduce production because of reduced demand in the U.S. and worldwide? I wonder if our elected representatives will have the courage to pursue Kinsley’s idea.
Richard Parins, SARASOTA, FLA., U.S.

Kinsley falls prey to Frederic BaStiat’s broken-window fallacy. Just as a broken window creates work for the glazier at the expense of the window owner, money that Kinsley hopes to inject into the economy must first be taken out of it. Add in collection costs and the usual political malfeasance, and we have a net loss to the economy. There’s more: Kinsley argues that last summer’s high oil prices were essentially a tax on consumers; the money just went to oil companies instead of the government. But he forgets that oil companies do not have control over their prices. If they did, then why would oil prices ever drop? Kinsley’s logic does not follow.
Ryan Young and Drew Tidwell, Competitive Enterprise Institute, WASHINGTON

Getting Out of Afghanistan
Re Joe Klein’s “The Aimless War”: all the soldiers pictured with the article have the same haunting, tired, stressed, bewildered, questioning, faraway look [Dec. 22]. It is evident by the look in these soldiers’ eyes that they are all asking, “What the hell is going on, and why are we here?” A better title for this story couldn’t have been found.
C.D. Rinck Sr., MISSION, KANS., U.S.

Klein proposes that victory in Afghanistan requires, among other things, cracking down on opium growing, correctly pointing out that sales of this crop are an importance source of finance to terrorism. Yet cracking down on production has never proved effective, as years of effort in Columbia have proved. The only real solution is to decriminalize drug use. Outlawed drugs cannot be regulated, and profits go directly to the enemies of society. Illicit users find it harder to seek treatment, for fear of prosecution, and are at greater risk of losing legitimate sources of income, leading to increased criminality in society.
Glenn Lawyer, LUXEMBOURG