As anyone who has browsed blogdom knows by now, the FBI is taking copious amounts of heat for refusing to characterize last Thursday's LAX ticket counter shooting as an act of terrorism. I suspect the problem may be that, after last September 11, the threshold for "terrorism" has been raised. What we need, therefore, are several different categories below actual terrorism.
Nuisance-ism: Where the perpetrator makes a terrorist-like threat but doesn't carry it out. This would be the terrorist's equivalent of a crank phone call, but higher on the scale than Bart Simpson's calls to Moe's Tavern ("I'd like to speak to Miss Huggenkis, first name Amanda."). Pretty much everything al Qaeda has said it would do since 9/11 would qualify as nuisance-ism.
Tantrum-ism: Where the perpetrator commits an act that would be terrorism if the purpose were political, but because it's just a personal rage episode, it doesn't qualify for the Big T. An alternate term for this would be the now-obsolete "going postal".
Freedom Fighter-ism: Where the group perpetrating violence for extremist political purposes has been deemed "okay" by some authoritative entity, such as Reuters or the U.S. State Department.
Stupidity: Where a group of would-be terrorists are allowed to run around loose in this country because some idiot federal judge decides calling them "terrorists" is unconstitutional.
PC-ism: Where a bunch of left-wingers who agreed with Bill Clinton that Rush Limbaugh was indirectly responsible for OKC, suddenly decide that left-wing violence isn't an issue unless Paul Krugman threatens to kill the SEC chairman.
Tourism: Where perfectly innocent people travel with no plans of doing anything wrong -- but if they're going through an American airport they are presumed guilty of plotting terrorism.
Errorism: Where the nation's foremost law enforcement agency insists that an act of terrorism wasn't.
