"Of all the loyalty points in the U.S., one-third of them go unused," Nakamura said. "So what if you could spend all of those points at an existing point of sale? Bitcoin is just one of those stores of value. Although we are leading with bitcoin right now, we are thinking a lot more generally about all of this value you have every day."

The organization’s current campaign is for The Water Project, and has a fundraising goal of $10,000 in bitcoin. Gallippi said BitGive kicked the campaign off with 2BTC from the main fund and is encouraging the bitcoin community to contribute.

Progress is currently beyond 75% of the target so far, she said, adding:

“Now that we’re getting close to meeting our goal we’re finding a place to put the funding. They [The Water Project] basically build new wells for schools or for communities in Kenya and other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.”

200? Can't be true, it's much and much more. Many are probably not on the list.

Vacations and Vocations
As the president golfs the days away, Senator Paul puts his medical skills to use on behalf of others.

By Kevin D. Williamson

President Barack Obama is spending his vacation golfing on Martha’s Vineyard. Hillary Rodham Clinton is spending her vacation in the habitual Clintonian mode, making a vulgar spectacle of herself in the Hamptons. Joe Biden, not that anybody cares, is off to Grand Teton.

Senator Rand Paul, on the other hand, is spending his vacation in Guatemala, performing eye surgeries on poor children who need care. (Eliana Johnson wrote about the trip here.) As the Washington Post points out, this is not a new thing for the senator-surgeon; on this trip, he saw two patients he’d first treated 15 years ago.

For once, the Washingtonian term “optics” is entirely apt.

Senator Paul will come out of his vacation looking pretty good. Given the political class’s endless appetite for self-serving theater, I found myself wondering why President Obama, Mrs. Clinton, or Vice President Biden did not choose to spend their vacations in a similar way, offering to put their skills and abilities to use on behalf of others. And then I realized that this was a deeply stupid question on my part.

What the hell would they do?

...

BEIJING, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Defense Ministry here on Saturday urged the U.S. side to stop close-in surveillance of China, and create a sound atmosphere for bilateral military ties.

The ministry spokesman Yang Yujun said in a statement that one U.S. anti-submarine plane and one patrol aircraft flew to an airspace about 220 kilometers east of China's Hainan Island to conduct close-in surveillance Tuesday morning, and then a Chinese fighter jet took off to make regular identification and verification.

Commenting on relevant criticism made by the U.S. side, Yang said that was "totally groundless," as the Chinese pilot, with professional operation, kept the jet within a safe distance from the U.S. aircraft.

It was U.S. massive and frequent close-in surveillance of China that endanger the two sides' air and marine security, and is the root of accidents, he said.

China urged the U.S. side to abide by international law and international practice, respect concerns of the coastal countries, and properly deal with the differences between the two sides on air and marine security issues, he said.

Yang said that the U.S. side should follow the principle of non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation, take concrete actions, reduce and finally stop close-in surveillance of China, so as to create a sound atmosphere for bilateral military ties.

US Senator Rand Paul likes to spend his vacations helping people to see better. Last week, the Kentucky senator (an ophthalmologist) was on a humanitarian mission, performing pro bono eye surgery in Salama, Guatemala.

And while some Guatemalans are sure to have better vision as a result, Americans are starting to envision the possibility he could be president.

Polls conducted by NBC News and Marist College last month showed him either winning or tied against leading Republican rivals in both the Iowa and New Hampshire presidential primaries.

This is not an aberration; Paul, who was elected in 2010, has long polled well in these important early states.

It's too early to make any serious predictions, but winning the first two primary contests would potentially set him up as a juggernaut for the Republican presidential nomination. As the Washington Post's Aaron Blake observed: "No non-incumbent Republican presidential candidate has won both states since they were granted first-in-the-nation status in 1976. Not one."

Rand Paul Warns Dems What Will Happen if They Nominate ‘War Hawk’ Hillary Clinton

by Matt Wilstein | 4:55 pm, August 22nd, 2014

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) shared some harsh words about potential 2016 opponent Hillary Clinton in this preview of an interview he taped for this week’s Meet the Press. Wearing his surgical scrubs while on a medical mission to Guatemala, Paul predicted what would happen if Democrats decide to nominate a “war hawk” like Clinton in the next presidential election.

“If you wanna see a transformational election, let the Democrats put forward a war hawk like Hillary Clinton, and you’ll see a transformation like you’ve never seen,” Paul said, foreshadowing how he plans to run against the former secretary of state.

In another clip released by NBC Friday, Paul made his first on camera comments about the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri.“One of the best things they’ve done so far in Ferguson, was send an African American police officer down there to talk to people in the community,” Paul told NBC’s Chris Jansing. “Now, it hadn’t worked completely, I’ll admit that. But it’s a better way than shooting tear gas at people in their front yard.”

Watch both videos below, via NBC News:

Rand’s Latin American Campaign Stop
It was the first foreign trip of the 2016 presidential campaign.

By Eliana Johnson


Consider it the first foreign trip of Rand Paul’s presidential campaign. That’s not how the Kentucky senator characterized the six days he spent in Guatemala this week, most of them performing free eye surgeries in the small, impoverished city of Salama, but he didn’t need to.

The trip was marked by all of the trappings of a politician on the ascent. Paul was accompanied by his top political advisers, personal friends, his ad men, several reporters, and even by cameras from the conservative activist group Citizens United, which is in the process of filming a documentary about him. The senator and his aides were ferried from one location to another by an armored caravan and accompanied at all times by an armed security detail. Media reports were embargoed until he left the country mid-day Thursday.

Paul, who practiced ophthalmology in Bowling Green, Ky., before mounting his senatorial bid in 2010, has always cast himself as a doctor first and a politician second. Over the past four years, that calculation has clearly shifted, though Paul is loath to admit it.

“I don’t think it’s either or, that I do one or the other,” he says.

Americans have never elected a president with a medical degree, and Paul, who is fashioning himself as a new type of Republican, isn’t shy about the qualities he thinks a doctor would bring to the Oval Office. “I personally think that if we got rid of all the lawyers and replaced them with all the doctors our country would be much better off,” he says, sitting on an examination table and clad in medical scrubs, “because doctors are “problem-solvers who don’t get caught up in partisanship.”

The police is just doing what the government demand them of doing. Enforcing the law.

Targeting them is short sighted. A long term solution is to vote all incumbents out and put free marketers/libertarians into office.

Rick Perry has publicly said he will welcome bitcoin trading in texas.

We need to support governor like him.