Smiley Face & King's Cross

That London bombing incident sucked any way you slice it. I learned about it here in the midwest listening to the Marky Marc's on AAR about an hour or two before my brother-in-law did toiling away in his office a few block's away from one of the bomb sites. After the incident, he went out during lunch and didn't notice any real difference in activity. Apparently the London Olympics selection spread through the grapevine faster than the bombing news -- at least in some circles.

I also heard since from my family that many people seemed befuddled how "clean skins" could do this kind of attack. Word also that the men had planned to distribute the bombing locations in the pattern of a cross (i.e. "burning" and emanating from King's Cross); however the temporary shutdown of one of the tube lines thwarted the realization of this plan.

This last part sounded familiar. Is it possible that the men from Leeds learned some creative symbolism from other "homegrown" terrorists:

CNN/May 9, 2002 Accused mailbox bomber Lucas Helder told authorities he was planting pipe bombs in a pattern to show a happy face during his five-state weekend spree.

I couldn't find anybody else making this correlation, but I can imagine if someone would resort to suicide bombing, doing a copy-cat of some home-grown lillywhite, clean-skinned American youth would not seem out of the ordinary.

Incidentally, here is how far the Wisconsin yute got:
This story, although only a couple of years old, has faded from view largely because as David Neiwert from Orcinus argues; asymmetric threats don't worry us.