American extremists seek history re-write

Who would have thought it? Web search engine giant Google rightly marked 50 years of spaceflight with a terrific Sputnik-decorated version of their logo last week, but now it seems right wing commentators in the US feel this is the start of a slippery descent into Communist takeover for the successful company.

In an article picked up by the Los Angeles Times, WorldNetDaily described the re-design as "celebrating communism", blithely ignoring the fact that it was the 'Communists' who were the first into space and the Americans a measly second.

If America had got a satellite into orbit first, I'm sure Google would have put that on the logo, and I bet that come 21 July 2009 they may well do something to mark the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing (that was by Americans, in case anyone from WorldNetDaily ever reads this).

Sadly, it seems the criticism is simply part of a much wider agenda on the part of some narrow minded factions within the US who seem hell-bent on trying to ensure Americans only think about certain things and return to the kind of blinkered isolationism it revelled in before the First World War. It was a naive view then, and highly dangerous now.