Mick, my friend, I am afraid that you are totally and completely mistaken when you say

"First, any soul, on any continent, that was alive and old enough to care about the news during the Vietnam/birth of the Hippies/Age of Aquarius, knows damn full well that the it became the universal "peace" sign. Any attempt, IMO, to act otherwise is disengenuous

I, personally, me, myself, was totally unaware that the CND logo had metamorphed into the universal Peace logo, and I do and did try to keep abreast of the news. It may seem incredible to you that there are people unaware of the more universal current symbolism, but that is in fact the case.

After this thread, however, that is probably no longer the case !

Thank you Ted, for acknowledging that the OP was an honest enquiry.

When I looked at the Google logo on Xmas Day, I thought "Whaaaat ?? Shit, that's a bit controversial", hence my starting this thread.

I now realise that, as I said on an earlier post, it was just a case of two nations separated by a common symbol, and that the matter has now been cleared up.

I did however and still do take grave exception to the thread being described as a "load of crap" and "this shit".

My opening post, from my perspective, and from the perspective of many UK members of a certain vintage , was a perfectly valid observation.

One wishes that clarification could have been achieved with less rancour, or indeed rancor, but there you go ...