Jenksismyhero

I think a President shouldn't have a problem stating motive when the motive is clear and has been admitted. The fact that he does so in one situation, without facts to support, and actively chooses not to in another, despite having proof of it, for fear of some kind of illogical response, to me, is ludicrous.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Feb 19, 2015 -> 03:00 PM) Do you guys tip on take out orders? Nope. edit: I take that back. I'll occasionally drop change in a tip jar if there is one. That's it though.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Feb 19, 2015 -> 02:15 PM) Its actually a great comparison. The reason why ISIS is a different threat is that they could destabilize the region. The reason I pointed to WWI is because the region where the assassination occurred, the Balkans, was considered the "powder keg of Europe." If you look at the Middle East with a variety of different countries backed by different proxy powers, you could have a similar result where ISIS destabilization leads to a much larger war where countries such as Israel, Iran, US and Russia are eventually dragged in to support their regional allies. Going to war with ISIS isnt about beheading people, its about protecting borders of allies, most specifically Iraq/Saudi Arabia, but partially Israel as well. There is a reason why the US is extremely involved in the Middle East and not so much in areas dealing with Boko Haram. It isnt about body counts, its about the potential long term impact of ISIS on the Middle East, and what the fall out could be if they were successful. Again, they dont just want to stop where they are at, they want to take Saudi Arabia and other areas too. Strange Sox, Thats just opinion. In my opinion there is no way that letting ISIS succeed in the Middle East will ever result in "good" for the US. Yeah but ISIS has no allies or treaties to protect their allies.

QUOTE (illinilaw08 @ Feb 19, 2015 -> 02:00 PM) Based on the Atlantic article about ISIS, however, it appears part of the reason ISIS is a different animal is their aims are regional - ie, building a caliphate in the Middle East. So based on that, one could argue that they are less of a threat to the US than Al Qaida ever was. Unlike Al Qaida, ISIS is a threat that the regional powers in the Middle East (Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, even Iran) have to take seriously. I don't think it's just regional. They've already made it global by killing Americans, Japanese, Britians, Frenchman and I think Australians (?). It's the true jihad movement, not the "soft" jihad OBL started. (i'm not saying they will get global, but clearly their aim is to kill every non-Muslim, including Muslims that don't practice their version of Islam.)

QUOTE (Tex @ Feb 19, 2015 -> 02:00 PM) What exactly is the problem? I believe the problem is people are being murdered. What problem are we pretending doesn't exist? You are arguing how to define the word random. Attacking and killing John Lennon was not a random act. The person singled him out. Someone who starts shooting inside a school is killing random people. But you are rejecting that definition of random. Does it really make a difference? Again, read. It's not a complex thought. Obama refuses to state that ISIS is killing people because of their religious beliefs. His admn has a whole policy on that because of a fear of offending other Muslims and perpetuating an anti-Muslim sentiment. At home, that "policy" is ignored when it involves domestic race/religious issues. He's more than happy to call black victims of white crime victims of racism/hate. He'll conclude that a white person that kills 3 brown people did it because of racism/religious intolerance with no evidence supporting it. Clearly he's not afraid of offending anyone or perpetuating the "white people hate blacks/muslims" myth here at home. It's broad v. specific. It's taking a stand versus not taking a stand. It's a double standard. If there was some legitimate reason for doing so, maybe i'd be ok with it. But I don't see an issue with calling a spade a spade. ISIS killed people based on their religious beliefs. The victims may have been random, but the targeted group was not. Why is it harmful to point that out?

QUOTE (Tex @ Feb 19, 2015 -> 01:55 PM) So you believe white cops should be compared to ISIS? Come on man, you're better than this. Read.

This is all sort of moot anyway since Obama did put boots on the ground. Or, erm, "security analysts" or whatever he called them.

I tip 17-18% as a standard. Maybe once in my life have I tipped like 2 bucks, and that was maybe the worst experience at a restaurant in my life (took forever to get service, wrong drink order, wrong food order, 45 minutes for the check, etc.). Similarly i've probably tipped more than 20% on only a few occasions, usually when drunk and too lazy to do the math. At bars I find tipping asinine. Why should I give an extra dollar on an 8 dollar beer that a bartender spent 3 seconds pouring and 10 steps delivering? I still do it, begrudgingly, or I do the standard tip 5 bucks at the start and not tip again if i'm staying for a few drinks. If you're making me an actual drink, fine, maybe you deserve the tip, but not for beer.

I think OKC got a lot better. But I'm not clear who they got. #twittergasm.

Heat get Dragic according to Woj. They might be fun in the playoffs.

ISIS also appears to be a completely different animal than the others. They make Al Qaeda look like a street gang.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 19, 2015 -> 01:16 PM) back-to-back-to-back-to-back failures costing trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives over about 13 years doesn't seem all that small scale, and Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and now Syria were never going to develop into a legitimate "large scale" threats to the United States. Americans were killed by the people we were going after/may go after in those countries, or at least some of them, no? Isn't that enough?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 19, 2015 -> 12:26 PM) And you're acting like there's no potential reason behind it and discarding the most obvious potential reason because you don't like it. One might even say you're burying your head in the ground regarding their recruiting techniques and successes. QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Feb 19, 2015 -> 12:12 PM) I can totally understand being sensitive about calling these guys Muslims or Islamic followers or whatever without qualifying it to add that they are an extreme subset that should be differentiated from the hundreds of millions of Muslims out there that don't follow the nonsense they follow. I get that. I get that we should be careful about referring to Muslims generally. But this strategy logically doesn't work to that end. Not being factual and purposefully muddling the facts in an attempt to prevent that sort of viewpoint is irresponsible, just like the opposite - claiming something is a hate crime/racist based on the fact that the victims were brown and the murderer was white - is also irresponsible. No, i've pretty thoroughly explained my position here. I just find the strategy pretty nonsensical. I have yet to hear how being truthful about deliberate attacks and not random acts of violence will lead to more Muslims joining ISIS' cause. There's also the double standard in his responses that I find troubling.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 19, 2015 -> 12:13 PM) Bombing them = pretending a problem doesn't exist? Acting like these guys are performing random acts against random people IS pretending a problem doesn't exist, whether you drop bombs on them or not.

I can totally understand being sensitive about calling these guys Muslims or Islamic followers or whatever without qualifying it to add that they are an extreme subset that should be differentiated from the hundreds of millions of Muslims out there that don't follow the nonsense they follow. I get that. I get that we should be careful about referring to Muslims generally. But this strategy logically doesn't work to that end. Not being factual and purposefully muddling the facts in an attempt to prevent that sort of viewpoint is irresponsible, just like the opposite - claiming something is a hate crime/racist based on the fact that the victims were brown and the murderer was white - is also irresponsible.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 19, 2015 -> 12:03 PM) There's a big difference in this case. Saying that we're in a "holy war" or whatever people want him to say against Daesh could easily be viewed as making them even more legitimate as a religious group and as a direct adversary of the United States...helping their recruiting. Calling out cops in that case hopefully wouldn't encourage more angry white people to found police forces. Why does he have to go to the extreme and say we're in a holy war? Why can't he just be factual? And at this point how are they not a legitimate group? They have a name. Its members perform these acts under that name. That strategy is just burying your head in the sand and pretending a problem doesn't exist.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 19, 2015 -> 11:40 AM) ISIS is targeting Christians, Jews, Muslims, Yazidis, basically anyone they come across. I don't know that Christians are any more threatened as a group than anyone else who isn't a radical Islamic millenialist are. So in a narrow sense, yeah, they're driven by anti-Christian sentiments, but they're also equally driven by a lot of other things. "Random" isn't exactly the right word, but focusing on discrete ethnic groups might limit understanding what is really driving them. The scope of their ethnic cleansing is pretty broad. Fine, still doesn't prevent him from saying they were attacks against non-Muslims, or people who don't follow their perverted view of Islam. They're not just "random" acts of violence, no matter how you want to qualify it.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Feb 19, 2015 -> 11:34 AM) Do you have the actual quotes? I can guess at the strategy behind it, but without seeing exactly what was said its mere speculation. I linked The Atlantic article that went over it all. The yahoo story from a couple of pages ago also goes over it. This isn't a question of IF Obama said this or IF his words were taken out of context, it's whether the admitted White House policy of being vague about this stuff is appropriate.

QUOTE (Tex @ Feb 19, 2015 -> 11:27 AM) Which is more important, calling out ISIS or stopping them from recruiting more soldiers with anti-American sentiment? It seems that slowing the creation of new hate groups would be a good idea. There are still plenty of randomness about the murders. They aren't targeting specific people, they are crimes of opportunity. They don't want a specific Christian, anyone would do. If they find this person and not this person, no big deal, any random person will fill their needs. If they find them here and not there, no big deal taking them from any random spot is fine, and more terrifying. If you know they are only attacking churches, then stay out of churches, but their locations, times, etc are random. Yes, some aspects are not random, but to say 100% not random is giving them too much credit for long term planning. I'd like an argument for how saying "these ISIS terrorists deliberately targeted non-Muslims, in this case [Christians/Jews]" will incite these f***ing crazy assholes to hate us more than just saying these are "random" attacks. For the third time, i'll bring up my analogy that no one has responded to: White cops are targeting black teens and killing them. They admit that's what they're doing. The President doesn't bring up hate crimes or racism, he says it was just random acts of violence for fear of pissing off police/making people distrust the police more. Your response is, oh well, that's fine. Right? No, not a chance. And I wouldn't like that either.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Feb 18, 2015 -> 07:38 PM) Well its completely irrelevant. We arent fighting ISIS because they behead people. Im not sure what Im supposed to be mad about? I wouldn't call it "mad," just upsetting. When he talks about terrorist acts committed by Islamic groups like ISIS he's fearful of labeling them or talking about them in a factual way. We have terrorists specifically targeting a group of people (Christians or Jews) and he calls them "random" acts of violence. There was nothing random about either attack. They were both deliberate and the perpetrators admitted that. Yet here at home he has no problem saying a crazy white guy that killed 3 brown people did so specifically because they were brown and Muslim with no basis for doing so. Edit: just call a f***ing spade a spade, that's all i'm asking.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Feb 18, 2015 -> 05:32 PM) http://news.yahoo.com/the-fight-against-ex...-171017296.html Now that they're listening to Jenks and Fox News, what will conservatives have to complain about with this admin? Seems like they've finally reversed course to take his advice. Yeah that justification still doesn't require him to call specific acts of violence against Jews or Christians "random." I can get, I suppose, not wanting to say these terrorists are actually Muslims following Islam, but not admitting that they are targeting specific religious groups is moronic.

I could have sworn studies show that how nice and attentive you are means very little In the tip that people give. I think This American Life did a podcast on it.

No one else is at least critical of that? Seriously? Not at least an internal "yeah that's pretty f***ed up?"

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 18, 2015 -> 03:12 PM) Why? Because it is true? It is much easier to be good when you have an even better superstar attracting attention. I would swear to this day that Scottie Pippen wouldn't have been a Hall of Famer if he hadn't of played with Michael Jordan. Totally disagree. He was exceptional the year Jordan was retired (PER of 23 and 22 those seasons). Tons of all-defensive teams and all-nba teams. I think he would have been great anywhere with his defense and passing.

Is it really frowned upon to confront cheap tippers? Is that a fireable offense? I would think most managers would back their staff if they're getting a 2% tip. 10-12%? Ok you're just an asshole. 15-20% average and acceptable. But 2? If I were the manager I would jump in (I say this not knowing a thing about the restaurant biz and ignoring that margins are incredibly thin).