Friedman Responds to GM: Thomas Friedman answers his critics at General Motors (sort of) in this Newsweek interview: “GM also says in that blog that they sell more cars that get 30 miles a gallon than anybody. That’s true. They also sell more Hummers that get 11 miles a gallon than anybody. GM says they’re really working on fuel efficiency. But look at the cars they offered under the $1.99-a-gallon giveaway program: not one of their most fuel-efficient cars is included. If you’re really about encouraging people to buy your most fuel-efficient cars, why wouldn’t you include at least one of them in the offer?”

I actually agree with Friedman on a gasoline tax, which I have mentally filed under ideas too obviously sensible to ever be implemented in the U.S. The fact that most politicians reacted to the gas crisis by calling for a reduction in taxes—“Increase demand, that’ll solve the shortage problem”—tells you how likely a tax is.

But I was particularly amused by his answer to the last question, in which he says he never runs out of column ideas. Neither would I if my job involved having a single idea every couple of years, turning it into a book and then writing 50 columns about that same idea.