This, my friends, is an *actual* coup.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-27517591Thailand coup d'etat as military seizes power
Thailand's military has announced it is taking control of the government and has suspended the constitution.
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On Tuesday the army imposed martial law. Talks were then held between the main political factions, but the army announced the coup on Thursday.
Political party leaders, including opposition leader Suthep Thaugsuban, were taken away from the talks venue after troops sealed off the area.
Troops have reportedly fired into the air to disperse groups of rival supporters.
The broadcast media have been told to suspend all normal programming.
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No vague non sequiturs of cookies or phone calls. No President taking three days to pack up his valuable oil painting collection and then flying away in his own fleet of helicopters. No votes by the legislative body to remove the abdicating president. No immediate scheduling of new elections to replace said abdicating president.
Nope, just a real, live, actual coup d'état. Army comes in, forcibly removes the people in power against their will, suspends the constitution and declares themselves in charge.
Words matter.
= new reply since forum marked as read
The eternal posting of the Authoritarians book links, (as if most of us have not read and digested it years ago) to describe DUers who just don't agree with the cult mindset to be a bit much, too. Because only the Pauls are for 'freedom.' Humm, do I need a or 
icon here?
EDIT: About the crypto thing, are they saying you're dead? Or just mysterious? Or only half something or the other? And don't most of those terms indicate you are being paid by the government to uh, oppress freedom loving spirits here?
So that the American spring brigade can see how it's done. Use it as a training video.
It makes me wonder if the American spring's overwhelming success over the weekend had anything to do with the equally overwhelming success of the tea party candidates on Tuesday.
It's a trifle different, but the difference is important. The government has been overthrown, but the chief of state remains.
You're right: Words matter. 
For example, what the U.S. is doing in Syria now. It seems there are many variations on what may be considered coups. Here is a list of regime changes and coups.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_United_States_foreign_regime_change_actions
Covert United States foreign regime
change actions
1949 Syrian coup d'état
1953 Iranian coup d'état
1954 Guatemalan coup d'état
1959 Tibetan uprising
1961 Cuba, Bay of Pigs Invasion
1963 South Vietnamese coup
1964 Brazilian coup d'état
1973 Chilean coup d'état
1976 Argentine coup d'état
1979–89 Afghanistan, Operation Cyclone
1980 Turkish coup d'état
1981–87 Nicaragua, Contras
2011–present Syrian uprising
The United States has been involved in and assisted in the overthrow of foreign governments (more recently termed "regime change"without the overt use of U.S. military force. Often, such operations are tasked to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Regime change has been attempted through direct involvement of U.S. operatives, the funding and training of insurgency groups within these countries, anti-regime propaganda campaigns, coups d'état, and other activities usually conducted as operations by the CIA. The United States has also accomplished regime change by direct military action, such as following the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989 and the U.S.-led military invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Some argue that non-transparent United States government agencies working in secret sometimes mislead or do not fully implement the decisions of elected civilian leaders and that this has been an important component of many such operations,[1] see plausible deniability. Some contend that the U.S. has supported more coups against democracies that it perceived as communist, becoming communist, or pro-communist.[1]
The U.S. has also covertly supported opposition groups in various countries without necessarily attempting to overthrow the government. For example, the CIA funded anti-communist political parties in countries such as Italy and Chile; it also armed Kurdish rebels fighting the Ba'athist government of Iraq in the Second Kurdish-Iraqi War prior to the Algiers Agreement.
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