In “Has Bitcoin Succeeded?,” Alt-M, December 23, 2020, Larry White of George Mason University has a nicely nuanced piece on, as will not surprise you if you read the title, whether Bitcoin has succeeded. As Larry says, the answer depends on the goal. As a widely used private alternative to government fiat money, it has not succeeded yet. As an asset that has gained in value, it has succeeded wildly.

Hoover Institution fellow Victor Davis Hanson ends 2020 discussing the vocabulary of Wokespeak, America’s “Animal Farm” media and its post-election flipping of political good and bad, President Trump’s proclamation on the 850th anniversary of Saint Thomas Beckett’s martyrdom, Red China’s global social-media propaganda campaign to promote lockdowns, and the effort by school progressives to ban Homer and other dead white male authors.

Last week, President Trump granted 49 pardons and commutations. This brings his total number of grants of clemency to 94. The new grants confirm a judgment we made six months ago (after Trump had granted clemency to 34 people): The clemency system is dominated by insider access to the president and almost exclusively serves the president’s personal and political goals and whims.

Author Michael Blastland talks about his book The Hidden Half with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Blastland argues that the deeper you delve into science, medicine, astrophysics--pick a topic--the more you realize there is a lot we don't understand. Things we can't explain. Blastland believes we would all do well to admit that and stop pretending that everything is knowable and every problem solvable.