Ahhhh, now that's more like it! Regular viewers may recall that when the first sets of single-processor Power Mac G5 user benchmarks started surfacing a few weeks back, the results were... well, good, we suppose, but definitely nothing to make you lose control of your bodily functions. Well, grab a mop, folks (ewwww!), because now that dual 2.0 GHz G5s are starting to arrive here and there (well, there, anyway-- we don't expect to have one here for a good long while, yet), new benchmark scores are showing up, and they're a lot more in line with the change-of-drawers levels of performance that Steve Jobs promised during the G5 launch party.

MacRumors notes that PS7Bench scores from one lucky dual G5-totin' cowpoke just popped up on the 'net and have been added to the comparison chart at ChaosMint; Apple's barnburner beat out all other listed systems in 15 out of 21 tests, and turned in a final cumulative time of 95.1 seconds, which is a 24% improvement over the single-processor 3.06 GHz Pentium 4 system. Sadly, there isn't a dual-processor Xeon system on the charts for a more appropriate comparison, but a thread in the Ars Technica forums notes that the dual G5's normalized PS7Bench score is 547; that's the highest score by far on the provided comparison chart of 85 other systems, representing a 12% boost over the dual 3.06 GHz Xeon (overclocked from 2.4 GHz) that just got unceremoniously stomped into second place. Zow-ie.

Just to give you a sense of how the G5's Photoshop performance compares to other Macs you may have encountered, compare the dual 2.0 GHz G5 score of 547 to that of a dual 1.42 GHz Power Mac G4 (338), a 1 GHz 17-inch PowerBook G4 (196), and a 700 MHz iBook (74). Starting to feel an aching sensation in your wallet? Yup, us too. Especially since we fully expect even better scores once Panther is prowling the scene, and ones even better still when the next big revision of Photoshop is further optimized for the G5.

Of course, not everyone sits glued to Photoshop 24 hours a day, so it's nice to see that Accelerate Your Mac! has some benchmarking results from a dual 2.0 GHz G5 engaged in slightly less Adobesque activities. Right now most of the charts focus largely on the difference between the G5's stock Radeon 9600 graphics card versus a retail 9800 unit, so they aren't terribly useful from a processor performance angle, but some of the tests are indeed relevant-- although mostly to underscore the fact that Apple should really update QuickTime Pro and iMovie to use dual processors. On top of that, it's also nice to see the G5 turning in Quake 3 frame rates of up to 367.3 frames per second. Pardon us while we make a small "eep" sort of noise and get very quiet for a while.

Say, you know how Steve's keynote on Monday was in Paris? Well, we did a little research, and apparently it wasn't in the Paris in Texas, the one in Illinois, the one in Kentucky, the one in Tennessee, the one in Maine, the one in Arkansas, the one in Iowa, the one in Michigan, the one in Idaho, or even the one in Missouri. It turns out that this Paris is in some whole other country-- one called "France." Go figure. And after a bunch more digging, we found out that this "France" country is in something called "Europe," so in hindsight, it's pretty surprising that a European version of the iTunes Music Store reportedly didn't even get a mention from His Steveness when he was onstage a few days ago.

Of course, the French press weren't going to let him off that easy, and Reuters reports that, when grilled on the subject later, Steve cited ickiness in the negotiations with record labels as the reason for the hold-up, saying "I think we'll do it next year." Well, okay, next year is only three and a half months away-- but The Guardian claims that "record industry sources insist the store is unlikely to appear before next spring." If true, that would make it more like six months, which is a fair chunk of waitage, if you ask us. Worse yet, faithful viewer Tuner Equalizer point out a MacNN article claiming that Steve actually said the iTMS Europe launch is still "at least another ten months" away, although no source is given.

Ten more months? Holy yikes, evidently those European recording industry execs play some serious hardball-- and are seemingly impervious to the effects of the Jobsian Reality Distortion Field. But MacNN has another theory that's worth kicking around a bit. Given that Apple released new iPods the week before the Stevenote, it's not too much of a stretch to assume that Apple expected to make an even bigger music-related announcement last Monday. That announcement never came, as if something squelched it in the intervening week. Well, guess what else happened during that stretch of eight days? That's right, The Beatles' record label got all lawsuity and contract-breachy up in Apple's face. MacNN apparently feels that the alleged additional ten-month wait for the iTMS to go European is the direct result of Apple's upcoming "exhausting new court battle" with Yoko, Paul, George's estate, and Ringo.

Of course, MacNN is probably completely off-base when it blames The Beatles/Apple Records for the iTMS delay. For one thing, we can't really see a direct correlation between Beatleriffic litigation and the iTMS, given that the vast majority of Beatles recordings aren't even available in the U.S. version of the iTMS in the first place-- or from any other legitimate digital download service, for that matter. Secondly, if the idea is that Apple is now holding off on expanding any aspect of its music business because the courts might rule that it's in breach of contract, that's silly; Apple would do what any company would do, which is proceed normally unless Apple Records were to secure an injunction preventing them from doing so pending the case ruling. Heck, even if Apple loses, it's just going to wind up chucking another $35 million or so at Apple Records. It wouldn't affect the iTMS in the least.

Thirdly, as anyone who tunes into this show with any regularity already knows, it's actually All Motorola's Fault™.

Still edgy about the Department of Homeland Security signing a $90 million contract with Microsoft to stick software riddled with security holes in front of 140,000 government employees, but clinging to hope for a more secure future because of the government's newfound openness to using Mac OS X, as evidenced by that operating system's inclusion in its Technical Reference Model? Heck, for that matter, still trying to untangle the syntax in that previous sentence in way that actually makes sense? Well, hope springs eternal, and every day brings with it a new dawn full of endless possibilities...

Indeed, faithful viewer mrmgraphics tipped us off to a Baltimore Sun article which does a fine job of weaving together various bits of recent government-related Mac info into a big, warm quilt whose squares spell out, "Mac OS X: Destined For Government Work." It's all there-- Mac OS X's addition to the Technical Reference Model; the government's chagrin at the damage caused by SoBig.F and Blaster; even Apple CFO Fred Anderson's recent comments that the company had seen "renewed interest" in the Mac platform from "government agencies," with governmental sales "up over 60 percent in each of the last two fiscal years."

The Sun article even refers to a MacTeens scoop that faithful viewer Nathaniel Madura recently pointed out to us: developer builds of Panther contain all sorts of governmentacious goodies kicking around in their login components, such as a login message "evidently destined for government employees" and a whole slew of graphical seals for different government departments, including ones for the U.S. Public Health Service, the Department of Defense, and each division of the armed forces. Somehow we find it unlikely that Apple put those in there "just in case." Something tells us that the U.S. government is actually working with Apple to position Mac OS X as the new secure choice in government desktop operating systems.

Or not. Maybe the initiative will take a while to kick in, because in the meantime, the Dow Jones Business News reports that the Department of Defense just bought 31,000 PCs from-- of all manufacturers-- Gateway. Why Gateway, you ask? Because Gateway offered the "best value," which simply means that they lowballed their price in a desperate bid to sell more than three computers this quarter and that the government is, as always, a master of false economy. So Windows is in charge of protecting our Homeland Security, while the Defense Department is being run by a talking cow. Sleep tight!