Obsolete

The questions over whether the London attacks were suicide bombings or not have not been answered yet. Although this report is from the Daily Moron, not the most reliable source, it's worth quoting:

Why did they buy return train tickets to Luton? Why did they buy pay & display tickets for cars? Why were there no usual shouts of 'Allah Akhbar'? Why were bombs in bags and not on their bodies?

THE London bombers may have been duped into killing themselves so their secrets stayed hidden.

Police and MI5 are probing if the four men were told by their al-Qaida controller they had time to escape after setting off timers. Instead, the devices exploded immediately.

A security source said: "If the bombers lived and were caught they'd probably have cracked. Would their masters have allowed that to happen? We think not."

The evidence is compelling: The terrorists bought return rail tickets, and pay and display car park tickets, before boarding _ a train at Luton for London. None of the men was heard to cry "Allah Akhbar!" - "God is great" - usually screamed by suicide bombers as they detonate their bomb.

Their devices were in large rucksacks which could be easily dumped instead of being strapped to their bodies. They carried wallets containing their driving licences, bank cards and other personal items. Suicide bombers normally strip themselves of identifying material.

Even this hypothesis that they were tricked has problems. If the first three bombs all went off at the same time, as is thought, why did the bus bomber's not? Does this point to the first three being activated by an outsider, possibly by mobile phone, who knew that the bus bomber was not ready to detonate his explosives? The fact that the car at Luton was left with explosives in it has been troubling me. It seems to make very little sense to leave such an obvious lead for the police to find.
If anything, this points to a whole trail of incompetence in the bombers planning.
The fact that newspapers still seem to believe that Osama bin Laden or his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri order such attacks show they have not yet recognised the autonomous nature of the new extremist groupings. These groups are not a part of al-Qaida, they just share its murderous philosophy, and are if anything, just copying their lead.

On the home front, here's even more news to be cheerful about: 'New anti-terror measures outlaw camp recruits'

A new package of counter-terrorism measures which will be proposed by the government on Monday would outlaw those who provide or attend terrorist training courses in Britain or abroad and make it a criminal offence to describe those who carry out suicide bombings as martyrs.

Evidence that somebody was involved in terrorist training could include the discovery of bomb-making instructions, attempts to acquire certain chemicals and accessing terrorist-related websites.

The bolding is mine. The first is an infringement of free speech. While no one should call these deeply deluded people martyrs, why should such a stupid remark be made illegal? In this country we have dealt with the BNP and its also-rans for decades. We've never felt the need to outlaw them. Why should we now that those who are making those remarks are Muslims instead of Christians?
The second is even wider. We've already had the botched "ricin" plot, which was nothing of the sort, and just plans which would have undoubtedly failed. Just what websites will be classed as "terrorist-related"? We've also already faced the prospect of prisoners not being allowed to see new evidence held against them under terrorism laws, and demonstrators at an arms conference being stopped and searched under the Terrorism Act. How do we know that these new laws won't be a new excuse for further attacks on the internet and individuals who have done nothing wrong or are just exercising their rights? The wider the government puts the boundaries on new laws, the more chance the innocents will be implicated and tried as "terrorists".