Open new tab in Chrome extensions

I'm trying to write a simple google extension that will upon clicking "ctrl+alt+x" search for the selected text in google.

This is my mainfest:

{

  "name": "A jQuery Chrome extension",

  "version": "0.1",

  "description": "Use jQuery to build Chrome extensions",

  "content_scripts": [

    {

        "matches" : ["http://*/*"],

      "js": ["jquery.js", "jquery.hotkeys.js", "content.js"]

    }

  ],

  "background_page": "background.html",

  "permissions": [

    "tabs"

  ]

}

And this is my content.js:

$(document).bind('keydown', 'alt+ctrl+x', function() {



    var selectedText = window.getSelection().toString();



    if (selectedText)

    {

        var googleQuery = "http://www.google.com/search?q=" + selectedText;

        alert(googleQuery);

        chrome.tabs.create({"url" : googleQuery});  

        alert(googleQuery);

    }

});

The code works until the line for opening a new tab (the first alert pops up but not the second). I just can't seem to get it working. What am I missing?