Cobbler, stick to thy last

Google – corporate motto: “Do No Evil” – has been giving the world an interesting public demonstration of ethical Twister as it defies the US Govt on national security, but caves to the Chinese on censorship. Another red letter day for the West’s decadent cultural relativism. Google is lauded to the skies for taking a stand on civil liberties in its own country (where no gulags await its chief executives), but when faced with the determination of a foreign dictatorship to keep their befuddled masses safely corralled within the party line it folds faster than Superman on laundry day.

Nietzsche warned us that “if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you”. Now we at Vertucon (corporate motto: “An Evil Corporation”™) have a lot of time for Nietzsche. For a start, he’s German, and so pretty much guaranteed to be evil. But even the Tooth Fairy would have to give him some credence on this point. It’s axiomatic in physics too that every interaction, even observation, involves a change in both parties - a subtle drawing together, an unconscious compromise. Well, Google just compromised. Maybe China did too, but there’s umpty-two billion of them, and only a few thousand bucktoothed geeks at Google. When an asteroid swings past Jupiter, who do you think moves more?

Since Teddy Roosevelt’s time, Democracy has been accepted by the super-rich as the price they paid for stability and prosperity. If the Chinese go on like this, and succeed in creating a rich, free-market totalitarianism, how long before all our cherished rights and liberties are withdrawn from us here? Yet the Dems, MoveOn.org, Michael Moore and all those other crusading fatheads let the story die without comment. Like the British at Singapore, the Left have all their guns pointing in the wrong direction.

But fear not. While we at Vertucon normally take a relaxed view of others’ indiscretions, even we have our standards. For a start, Red China is ruthless and oppressive in its pursuit of total world domination, and frankly we don’t need the competition. In any case, tho’ it might be a bit unfashionable in today’s post-modern world, we take this whole Good and Evil thing very seriously at Vertucon. Demarcation should be observed. They don’t build any Doomsday Machines, and we don’t rescue kittens from canals or feed the homeless (unless it’s with the aforementioned kittens, which is a special case). So when a bunch of supposedly goody-two-shoes hippies like Google start sucking up to the ChiComs we have a right to feel that they are stepping onto our turf.

There’s no love lost between us anyway. We’re neighbours in that dusty, dessicated corporate parking lot known as Silicon Valley, and their employees are forever nicking all the best spots in the car park. Also they keep rearranging the letters of our motto, which wouldn’t be so bad if they were actually any good at anagrams. So far the best attempts they could come up with are PREVARICATION LOON, NAPOLEON AIR VICTOR, and COVARIATE LOIN PORN (which admittedly is probably very funny if you’re a Googly maths wonk). We would’ve done the same to theirs but they have fewer letters, and also dreaming up anagrams is too much like hard work.

So instead we’re just going to incinerate them with a giant frickin’ laser. Little do they know that, as they pore over their nerdy algorithms, our revenge draws ever nearer. No man knoweth the hour – but it shall be soon, soon…

Note to self: sell all Google stock before Thursday lunchtime.


Google headquarters yesterday, as seen from space. Just ignore those crosshairs, guys…