Because 9/11 Truthers are Retarded

Cross posted from the book of Faces:

A 9/11 Truther just told me that the planes slamming into the towers wouldn't have had much effect, because the planes are primarily thin aluminum, just like a beer can. He even helpfully provided weights (fully loaded 747: 395,000, fuel load: 120,000lbs). My response, with names redacted to protect the retarded (my response incidentally also ignores the structural framework of the aircraft):
At approximately 22 miles an hour, the plane would have the same energy as approximately 6.3 pounds of TNT (note that I used the Truther's figures, and subtracted fuel from the equation).
At the estimated 402 miles per hour that the Twin towers were hit at, (an eminently reasonable estimate, because that's the usual fight speed of such an aircraft), it would have about same energy as just over a ton of TNT. Assuming a 45% loss of energy as per the Truther's figures again, we still have approximately 1167.46 pounds of TNT.
If I throw a f*cking beer can at your head at 400 miles an hour, it doesn't matter that it's a f*cking beer can. In fact, it's beer canness makes it worse for your head, because it's going to come apart and dump all of that energy into your witless dome. And even the skull of a 911 truther isn't thick enough to survive that. The same principle applies to the twin towers and the aircraft.

Add fuel to the mix, and the kinetic energy equation gets worse. Then the fuel catches fire and burns at a temperature that robs the steel of it's structural strength.

Incompetent or Dishonest- Pick One

Well, this is an infuriating gem.

Money Quote:

In one note from the documents, the FBI writes that Clinton said she did not know what the marking (C) — used to denote classified information deemed "confidential" — meant. When presented with an email chain using the (C) mark, Clinton "speculated it was referencing paragraphs marked in alphabetical order," according to the report.

Everyone who handles classified information - that would be most of the military and a fair percentage of the Federal workforce - receives training on how to recognize classified material. The lowliest Seaman/Private/Airman is expected to know how this as part of their job. For Clinton, a woman who is a former First Lady, a former US Senator, and who was, at the time the Secretary of State, this is either inexcusable incompetence or blatantly dishonest. Dealing with classified information correctly is one of the BASIC job requirements of being SECSTATE, and something that she should have known how to do from her time as a Senator, and have gotten exposure to during her time as First Lady. This is roughly equivalent to your electrician not knowing that what DC and AC stand for.
Either she's too incompetent to be a good president, or too dishonest. Pick one, because there is no third option for her.

WTF Marvel?

I mean, really, what the FUCK ARE YOU HIGH ON! My comments are in Italics.

In a shocking twist, Steve Rogers always has been and will continue to be a member of the evil group
Sure, he wears red white and blue on the outside, but on the inside? It turns out Steve Rogers, a.k.a. Captain America, supports the evil, former Nazi organization, Hydra.
Marvel comics introduced the shocking twist Wednesday morning when Captain America: Steve Rogers #1 went on sale — and it turns out there have been hints that this was coming for a long time. TIME spoke with Marvel executive editor Tom Brevoort about the decision, the clues and why Hydra’s rhetoric sounds an awful lot like that of a certain presidential candidate.

This is seriously a stupid idea. What the heck made you think that this was a good idea? Drunken sailors have better decision making skills than you do.

TIME: How did Marvel decide to make Steve Rogers a secret Hydra operative?
Tom Brevoort: Nick Spencer, who is the writer of the series, pitched us the story as part and parcel of restoring Steve to his youth and vigor. In the comics, he’s been old for awhile. The super soldier serum that was keeping him young had been broken down, so for the 75th anniversary, Nick had this notion that we were going to restore him. But then we went into this other story about Hydra, and this is only the tip of the iceberg.

Wait, that's your reason? You think that this is going to restore Captain America? You obviously don't live in the same world that I do, because this sounds more like destroying Captain America than anything else.

If readers go back and look at older comics, will this hold up?
It will. Issue 2 kind of winds the clock back a little bit and lays out exactly how and why things are the way they are. And it lays out a roadmap for where things are headed in the future. At this point, I don’t want to say too much definitively because I want people to read the comic books. But people will be able to connect the dots and follow the trail of breadcrumbs.

You've apparently been reading comics from another universe. Captain America is Hydra's GREATEST enemy. He has, over the course of his career as Captain America, singlehandedly prevented Hydra from achieving world domination multiple times, under several different leaders. That's some real dedication as a double agent there - keeping cover, even when it would be better for your side if you dropped it. Stop trying to justify yourselves, because there's no way that this will "Hold up", and if you actually believe that it will you're either stupid, on drugs, or delusional.

How long has this been in the works?
Almost since the beginning of when Nick started writing the Captain America titles, which would have been the end of 2014. So right around there the conversations first started about this. It’s been in the works for more than a year.

So that's how long it takes to come up with a plan to destroy a classic character.

What does this mean for the Marvel Universe?
It means on the most fundamental level that the most trusted hero in the Marvel universe is now secretly a deep-cover Hydra operative, a fact that’s really only known to the readers and to him. That makes every interaction he has with anyone take on a second layer, a second meaning.

I'd say it means that the Marvel Universe has officially jumped the shark. It also means that I'm very glad that Marvel Studios and Marvel Comics aren't the same thing anymore, because the Captain deserves better than this.

In the comic the Red Skull of Hydra talks about “criminal trespassers” who “make a mockery” of America’s borders and calls the refugees in Germany an “invading army” bringing “fanatical beliefs and crime” to Europe. Obviously, this hate speech is nothing new for the organization, but it sounds like rhetoric we’ve been hearing this election. Is that purposeful?
We try to write comics in 2016 that are about the world and the zeitgeist of 2016, particularly in Captain America. Nick Spencer, the writer, is very politically active. He’s a Capitol Hill head and following this election very closely. So we can talk about political issues in a metaphoric way. That’s what gives our stories weight and meat to them. Any parallels you have seen to situations real or imagined, living or dead, is probably intentional but metaphorically not literally.

While I'll grant that Donald Trump is an authoritarian asshat, anyone who considers the bullshit that he spouts "hate speech" needs to grow a pair. He's not Hitler 2.0 (despite his populism, nationalist rhetoric, and past support for gun control). He's not the next Mao, Pol Pot, Stalin, or Mussolini either. He IS rude, intentionally offensive, crude, authoritarian, eminent domain abusing, and overall something of a fraud. But he's not Hitler, and his rhetoric isn't hate speech. If you really want hate speech, I suggest you read what Al Jazeera has to say about Jews.

What are we supposed to think about the fact that someone literally named Captain America now supports these beliefs?
Again, I don’t want to say anything too definitively because we’re laying out the story. But we want to push that button. There should be a feeling of horror or unsettledness at the idea that somebody like this can secretly be part of this organization. There are perfectly normal people in the world who you would interact with on a professional level or personal level, and they seem like the salt of the earth but then it turns out they have some horrible secret — whether it’s that they don’t like a certain group of people or have bodies buried in their basement.
You should feel uneasy about the fact that everything you know and love about Steve Rogers can be upended.

We'll you've succeeded there. I'm horrified and uneasy that anyone would be willing to butcher a classic, much loved, well defined character like that.

To ask the blunt question, is this a gimmick?
Every single month whether it’s a run of the mill month for Captain America or an extraordinary month, our job is to put him in situations that place that character under some degree of pressure and see how he reacts to that. And hopefully our readers are surprised, shocked, elated, see something of themselves, learn something about themselves. To say it’s a gimmick implies that it’s done heedlessly just to shock. The proof is always going to be in the execution. So you’ll have to read the rest of the story to see.
But I certainly believe it’s not a gimmick. It’s a story that we spent a long time on, that’s compelling and captures the zeitgeist of the world. It will make readers wonder how the heck we’ll get out of this.

Yes. It's a fucking gimmick. 
Everyone involved in this, from the writer on up, needs to commit seppuku. Or at least check themselves into a mental institution so that the rest of us don't have to deal with their stupidity.

National Seppuku

Yesterday our nation committed Seppuku. Rather than picking a candidate with a record of standing up to the establishment and of being at least somewhat pro-liberty - even if he has some serious issues - the Republicans have picked a lifelong crony capitalist, anti-gun, eminent domain abusing felonious democrat to oppose a lifelong corrupt, anti-gun, sexual predator enabling, felonious democrat (because Bernie doesn't stand a chance, and even if he did, he's a lifelong delusional batty socialist, and almost as bad as the other two).

Trumpeters, you are a bunch of freaking idiots. Trump's record is just as liberal as Hillary's, but with fewer dead people and leaked secrets, and more eminent domain abuse and fraud. You've given us an election where the best option is going to be whoever the Libertarians put forth (probably Gary Johnson). And all because you wanted to stick it to the establishment. Too bad that you just cut your nose off to spite your face. At best we're going to get four years of stupid. At worst, Hillary or Trump will start a civil war or revolution and we'll end up killing each other in the streets. Go home and dream of blood and fire. You deserve it.

Ex-ATF Agent Doesn't Know Firearms

Color me surprised.

What’s missing from Heller is a comparison of guns at the time the Second Amendment was written and now. Had the Framers time-traveled to a contemporary gun store, they probably would have been astonished at just how lethal firearms would become. They might have even graced the Second Amendment with an additional clause that placed limits on the madness.
But they didn’t. Neither did the Heller justices, who completely ignored the stark contrast between then and now. One wishes that a law clerk looked up Section 921(a)(16) of the Gun Control Act of 1968, which exempts weapons with antique ignition systems or that do not use fixed ammunition – in other words, the guns of the Framer’s era – from the definition of “firearm.”

For someone who was supposed to enforce firearms law he doesn't seem to know firearms or their history all that well. After all, the Cookson repeater (a flint-lock lever action), the Belton Flintlock, and Girondoni Air rifle were all in existence at the time.
Also - using the Gun Control Act of 1968 to justify his interpretation of the constitution is pretty stupid, given that the GCA isn't a part of the Constitution and post dates it by over 150 years.

The Inanities of Anti-Gunners

I came across an anti-gun blog post the other day. It was really quite inane. Consider this quote:

"Gun ownership isn’t some inalienable right granted by God. Remember, the Constitution was written by men coming out of a long and bloody war near the end of the 18th century. It was written for their time.

It also included the “right” to own a human being."

And she's not the only one who feels this way - some of the comments are just as ignorant and foolish:

"Indeed! And it’s already an amendment. So….it can be amended"

I of course, responded:

It did not actually include the right to own a human being. It did prevent any slave import bans before 1808 (And a ban on importation did take effect then https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_Prohibiting_Importation_of_Slaves). For the purposes of representation, it did count “three fifths of all other persons” (Having previously mentioned “free Persons” and “Indians not taxed”).

There is no mention of a “right” to own slaves, and the only part of the Constitution that might be construed to grant that right is the 9th Amendment,

“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

And it doesn’t say anything about owning slaves. In fact, the 9th amendment works better as an argument against slavery (even without the 13th amendment) that it does as an argument for slavery.

A word to the wise among anti-gunners: Don't try to use the Constitution to justify your argument unless you've actually read the Constitution and can pull a direct quote to try justifying your argument. Otherwise you just look stupid.

"Putting Weapons Back On the Street"

From CNN:

New laws force police to put guns back on the street

Well that's one heck of a charged headline. The implications of blood in the streets and dead police officers are par for the course as far as the anti-gun agenda goes. There are a few other real gems in the article, such as:

"My job is to keep my officers safe," said Fred Fletcher, the police chief of Chattanooga, where there have been more than 100 shootings this year. "To send them out to face the same guns they risked their lives to get off the street is a big concern."
While some law enforcement officials support the sale of confiscated guns, a number of police chiefs like Fletcher are speaking out against the practice -- arguing that the risk of selling a gun back to a criminal far outweighs the amount of money they could make.

 Do they not run background checks? You know, the same background checks that every FFL has to run when they sell someone a weapon?

... For those police departments that sell the guns, some only sell to federally-licensed gun dealers, which include everything from online gun emporiums to brick-and-mortar firearm stores. Other law enforcement agencies sell the guns directly to the public through auctions, often at a steep discount compared to what the gun would cost new from a gun store. Safeguards, such as background checks, are required. But that's not always enough.

 Oh, so they do use background checks. Just like FFLs. I'm still waiting to see how this is different from the business that a gun store does - in which used guns are sold for a significantly lower price than new.

... This kind of transaction, known as a straw purchase, is illegal. Garant, who pleaded guilty to making the straw purchases, was sentenced to a year in prison. Meanwhile, the Duluth Police Department told CNNMoney that it has suspended the sale of firearms "until our department develops sound strategies in keeping firearms from individuals who are ineligible to lawfully possess them."
"A gun that should have been destroyed instead was sold back to the public," said Hennepin County Sheriff Richard Stanek, who oversaw the investigation of the shooting. "This is the worst nightmare that could have happened."

You know, a straw purchaser would have been able to do the exact same thing to an FFL. They are literally complaining something that their policies concerning selling guns off or destroying them will have no effect on.

...As a result, a number of Arizona law enforcement agencies have started selling seized guns. And major departments like Phoenix have discontinued buyback programs altogether -- which had previously resulted in the destruction of thousands of guns.

 Buyback programs are about as useful as tits on a boar hog anyway. There are three types of people who sell guns to buyback programs: People who don't want guns anyway, but ended up with one for one reason or another, Criminals trying to get rid of evidence/broken guns, and Gun Owners scamming the system by selling low quality improvised guns/broken guns to make a profit. Most of the guns destroyed by buybacks are pieces of shit that nobody cares about.

..."What's really concerning is the political power of some of these groups that at end of the day are more focused on getting guns on the streets than getting them in the right hands," said Austin, Texas Police Chief Art Acevedo.

 The right hands? It's impossible to keep criminals from getting guns. They steal them from legitimate gun owners. They conduct straw purchases. They make their own. They buy them on the black market. No department's policy on sale or destruction of seized firearms is going to have an effect upon crime. Spare me the stupidity.

Lion Fools

The whole deal with Cecil the Lion is just plain ridiculous. The amount of vitriol aimed at a dentist for killing a lion was just astounding. Serial killers don't get that sort of response. The extradition requests from Zimbabwe, one of the most corrupt nations on Earth, the protesters outside of his office, all because he shot a lion. Well, the extradition request is gone now, because the dentist's papers were all in order.

For anyone still freaking out over the whole thing, he shot a lion. Not a human, a lion. Your response might be justified if he'd shot, say, Mother Teresa or Mahatma Gandhi. It is not justified for a lion.

Of all the scams I've heard of...

This one takes the cake.
Stealing money from a radical, brutal, and well armed Muslim terrorist group, while living in an area known for Islamic terrorists, in a country with highly corrupt police just doesn't seem like a great idea. Especially since Russian control of Chechnya is notoriously bad, so there's even more incentive for the cops to look the other way while the terrorists break out the torture tools.

WTF?

So, this happened:

"He shot it once, nothing happened," said Cruisito's friend Selena Aguila to CBS Denver. "He shot it twice, nothing happened. Then, he shot it the third time and we heard a big bang."

And you didn't think to stop him? Was your opinion of him so low, that you didn't mind the fact that he was pointing a loaded firearm at his head and pulling the trigger? Not everyone knows the four rules, but there are certain things that are obviously not kosher, such as playing Russian Roulette. I sincerely hope that anyone who would call themselves my friend (an admittedly sparse field) would at least do something to keep myself from earning a Darwin Award nomination (or, alternately, committing suicide) right in front of them!

Without more details, it's impossible to know how much time his "friend" had to stop him, but it certainly sounds like he had enough time to prevent a needless death.

Also:

A 17-year-old teen in Colorado was killed when he allegedly loaded a single bullet into a cylinder revolver and started playing a one-man game of Russian roulette, reports CBS Denver.

Revolvers have cylinders. Who knew?
Anyone want to take bets on how this 17 year old got his hands on a revolver (21 to buy handguns, 18 to buy pistols), and killed himself being childish with it (despite being at an age when he really should have known better)? I'd give it a 3:1 chance that the revolver wasn't acquired legally, because there's no way he bought that himself.

There's one born every minute...

Someone must actually believe this BS. That is the only reason I can think of why anti-Israel regimes keep on spouting the idea that the Holocaust was a hoax.

Self-defense vs Vigilantism

From Fox:

Wisconsin sheriff urges residents to arm themselves

...The ad has generated sharp criticism from other area officials and anti-violence advocates. The president of the Milwaukee Deputy Sheriffs' Association, Roy Felber, said it sounds like a call to vigilantism...

Self-Defense:

1: a plea of justification for the use of force or for homicide

2: the act of defending oneself, one's property, or a close relative 

 

Vigilante:
: a member of a volunteer committee organized to suppress and punish crime summarily (as when the processes of law are viewed as inadequate); broadly : a self-appointed doer of justice 

 

 

All definitions come from Merriam-Webster.

 

How then is this vigilantism?

...In the 30-second commercial, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke Jr. says personal safety is no longer a spectator sport.
"I need you in the game," he says.
"With officers laid off and furloughed, simply calling 911 and waiting is no longer your best option," he adds. "You can beg for mercy from a violent criminal, hide under the bed, or you can fight back. ... Consider taking a certified safety course in handling a firearm so you can defend yourself until we get there."

Sheriff Clarke is not advocating vigilantism, but self-defense. If he was asking for people to patrol, looking for crimes to stop, without being a member of a legal law-enforcement organization, that would be vigilantism. It is not vigilantism when someone assaults another person or yourself with a deadly weapon and you use a gun to defend that other person or yourself. It is vigilantism to go out looking for that sort of thing. Before people start talking about something, perhaps it would be best if they did a little research?

 

Constitution Outdated? I don't think so!

From CBS:

Professor: Take our country back, from the Constitution

  Original article tabbed and bolded:

I've got a simple idea: Let's give up on the Constitution.

 And what makes you think that this is a good idea?

I know, it sounds radical, but it's really not. Constitutional disobedience is as American as apple pie.
For example, most of our greatest Presidents -- Jefferson, Lincoln, Wilson, and both Roosevelts -- had doubts about the Constitution, and many of them disobeyed it when it got in their way.

Thank you for pointing that out. You're right that many presidents often disobeyed the Constitution, and that many of them had doubts about it. Let's go over your examples, shall we?
Jefferson: An Anti-Federalist, the party originally in opposition to the Constitution - and which only agreed to the Constitution on the condition that the Bill of Rights be added.
Lincoln: A Republican, engaged in Constitutionally questionable activities to keep the United Stated, United. Article One, Section Ten of the Constitution has a list of things that the States are not allowed to do. It is the only part of the Constitution that places limits upon the powers of the individual states. Secession is not on the list of powers prohibited to the states. Its important to remember that the South seceded because of state's rights and slavery (Confederate Constitution), and Lincoln contested the issue because he didn't want the Union to break apart (which is why the Emancipation Proclamation is kind of a joke - It only applied to the seceding states, which Lincoln had absolutely no control over at the time it was written).
Woodrow Wilson, on the other hand, instituted the draft to fight WWI, and afterwards fought with the Senate to join the League of Nations, the the even less effective precursor to the absolutely corrupt and ineffective UN.
FDR takes the cake, so I'll summarize: Social Security, Medicare, the rest of the New Deal, the draft during WWII. There is a reason why, after he died, the 22nd amendment was easily passed and ratified. He stacked the Supreme Court so that they would rule in his favor. He was elected for an unprecedented four terms and gained so much power that when he died, everyone else took immediate action to ensure no one could gain that much power ever again.
In conclusion, one of the examples took care of his objections to the constitution by amending it, one of them abused his power to hold the Union together, and two of them violated the Constitution for personal power. The Constitution didn't cover everything, but it's nice to know that when abuse of power happens, it is a violation of the Constitution.

To be clear, I don't think we should give up on everything in the Constitution. The Constitution has many important and inspiring provisions, but we should obey these because they are important and inspiring, not because a bunch of people who are now long-dead favored them two centuries ago.

 Just propose amendments, like everyone else.

Unfortunately, the Constitution also contains some provisions that are not so inspiring. For example, one allows a presidential candidate who is rejected by a majority of the American people to assume office. Suppose that Barack Obama really wasn't a natural-born citizen. So what?

There is a reason for that one. If Obama isn't a natural-born citizen, he will no doubt have sympathies for his place of birth, which, if his place of birth is hostile to the US, could very well lead to the US getting walloped because of the Chief Executive's sympathies.

Constitutional obedience has a pernicious impact on our political culture. Take the recent debate about gun control. None of my friends can believe it, but I happen to be skeptical of most forms of gun control.
I understand, though, that's not everyone's view, and I'm eager to talk with people who disagree.

That's good.

But what happens when the issue gets Constitutional-ized? Then we turn the question over to lawyers, and lawyers do with it what lawyers do. So instead of talking about whether gun control makes sense in our country, we talk about what people thought of it two centuries ago.

What they thought about it two centuries ago was that it is a necessary right for us to remain a free people, and therefore required protection (at least, the Anti-Federalists thought it needed protection - Turns out, they were right) .

Worse yet, talking about gun control in terms of constitutional obligation needlessly raises the temperature of political discussion. Instead of a question on policy, about which reasonable people can disagree, it becomes a test of one's commitment to our foundational document and, so, to America itself.

It provides an extra layer of protection to an absolutely necessary right. I'll take a guarantee of a right over rationality in a discussion.

This is our country. We live in it, and we have a right to the kind of country we want. We would not allow the French or the United Nations to rule us, and neither should we allow people who died over two centuries ago and knew nothing of our country as it exists today.

They might not know anything of our country as it currently exists, but they don't rule our country so it doesn't matter. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land, but in the end, its all about limiting the power of those who rule, not ruling our nation.

If we are to take back our own country, we have to start making decisions for ourselves, and stop deferring to an ancient and outdated document.

 An ancient and outdated document that protects your rights and limits the powers of government so that it can't take them away.

Ammunition foolishness

An acquaintance of mine told me that the way to stop gun violence would be through a massive ammunition tax. Apparently he's never heard of reloading, and doesn't realize that this would simply be the catalyst that creates a massive black market for ammunition.

Why I hate the UN

The UN is a hotbed of despotism, anti-semitism, cronyism, and deception.
The UN Human Rights council includes Cuba, China, many other countries where human rights are a low priority, and until recently, Libya.  This Council has recommended a boycott on American companies that do business in Israel and the areas of "Palestine" that Israel occupies.

Their officials decry our free speech, speak out against one of our candidates, and send election observers here - some of whom come from countries where Stalin's famous quote "Its not those who vote who count, but those who count the votes" is the reality.

The UN is not our friend or ally. They are not an institution which believes in human freedom. At the beginning the UN included the Soviet Union as a permanent member of the security council, with full veto power. While the US is also a permanent member of the security council, and thus enjoys that same veto power, it must be realized that whatever the UN did before the fall of the USSR had to meet the approval of the Soviet Politburo, or they would veto it. Communist China, the People's Republic of China, is also a permanent member of the UN security council. The USSR is gone, but the PRC remains. We must not allow the UN to push us around. Let us stop funding the UN and begin to use our own veto power too prevent it from doing anything harmful to our republic, just as the Soviets once did, and the Communist Chinese still do.
Why don't we take the money that we send to the UN, which fails more than it succeeds at keeping the peace (As the Tutsi can attest) and give it to our military, which actually does something useful - protecting us from those who would take our freedom. Let us stop caring what the "International Community" thinks about our candidates for higher office. Romney and Obama aren't running for President of the World. They're running for President of the US, and the freedom, safety, and prosperity (in that order) of their constituency should be all they care about.

Sources:

U.N. Official Warns: Electing Mitt Romney Means ‘Democratic Mandate for Torture’

UN Affiliate Will Monitor U.S. Elections

Texas sparks international row with election observers

Pillay: Hatred, free speech don't mix

U.N. Human Rights Council Calls for Boycott of U.S. Companies

 http://freebeacon.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/UN-Report-Sept-2012.pdf

UNITED NATIONS HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL (Current Membership)

Freedom in the World 2012

You're doing it Wrong...

Let us have a thought exercise shall we?
Imagine that you live in a place with no law enforcement with your family
Imagine that your family has some major problems. Imagine that your next door neighbor might be inclined to intervene if things get too bad. Imagine that the next door neighbor is a Black Belt in a serious combat oriented martial art. Pretend that rather than telling him to stay out of your business, you beat up his daughter in front of him to send the message.

That's essentially what's going on between Syria and Turkey.

From Fox News:

Syria's cross-border salvos send a message to Turkey, West to keep away

 Syria's cross-border attacks on Turkey in the past week look increasingly like they could be an intentional escalation meant to send a clear message to Ankara and beyond, that the crisis is simply too explosive to risk foreign military intervention.
With Turkey eager to defuse the crisis, the spillover of fighting is giving new life to a longshot political solution, with the Turks floating the idea of making President Bashar Assad's longtime vice president, Farouk al-Sharaa, interim leader if the president steps aside.
.......
The most recent flare-up between Syria and Turkey started Wednesday, when a shell fired from Syria slammed into a house in the Turkish border village of Akcakale, killing two women and three children. That set off the most serious and prolonged eruption of violence along the frontier since the uprising began nearly 19 months ago.
Although it was not clear whether Wednesday's shelling was intentional, Turkey responded swiftly by firing back and convening parliament for a vote that authorized further cross-border military operations if necessary.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan cautioned Damascus not to test Turkey's "limits and determination." But the Syrian shelling has continued every day — leading many observers to conclude the acts are intentional provocation.
"It's not an accident. You can't send shells across the border by mistake five days in a row," said Mustafa Alani, a Middle East analyst of the Geneva-based Gulf Research Center, just hours before Syrian shelling struck Turkey for a sixth day.
........
According to Alani, escalating the crisis serves as a reminder to NATO, Turkey and the West that Syria's civil war can inflame the region with lightning speed. The threat of a spillover is likely to pressure Western powers into drafting a political solution, part of which could involve Assad's exit from power, rather than his being toppled by force.

The apparent "logic" behind the attacks is that Turkey doesn't want a war. Just because they don't want a war doesn't mean that they won't start one to protect their citizens. Just because the hypothetical Black Belt neighbor doesn't want to kill anyone won't prevent him from kill you if you start beating up on his daughter right in front of him.

We'll see how Turkey responds to this, but if given the Syrian response to their attempts to resolve this peacefully, this is looking like it could flare into a real war.

Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi scoffed at Davutoglu's proposal, saying it reflects "obvious political and diplomatic confusion and blundering."
"Turkey isn't the Ottoman Sultanate; the Turkish Foreign Ministry doesn't name custodians in Damascus, Mecca, Cairo and Jerusalem," al-Zoubi said Monday.

al-Zoubi should count himself lucky that he isn't dealing with the Ottoman Empire - the only person who outmatched them for ruthlessness during their time was Vlad the Impaler of Wallachia - because they'd probably find something creative to do with him and the government he represents. As it is, if the modern Turks decide to go to war, they'll probably settle for a 5.56 mm hemorrhage.