Ah, February-- one of those glorious months known to TV lovers everywhere as Sweeps Month, when the airwaves are thick with extra doses of sex, violence, scandal, and all things wicked and ratings-building. It makes us glad to be alive, truly. And if you thought that everyone's favorite antitrust courtroom drama is above injecting some base elements for the sake of a little Sweeps spice, you perhaps ought to reconsider. That's right; "Redmond Justice" is starting out Sweeps Month with a bang, as government mouthpiece David Boies stops just a hair short of accusing Microsoft veep Jim Allchin of falsifying evidence. Just watch them sparks fly!

According to Inter@ctive Week Online, Microsoft has introduced as evidence a videotaped demonstration that proves that Internet Explorer is an inseparable part of Windows, and not just a separate application. The videotape reveals that when IE was "removed" from Windows 98 by running a program written by government witness Edward Felten, Windows still functioned, but it was two to seven times slower when accessing the Windows update service over the Internet. Sounds like a good piece of evidence for Microsoft-- but Boies spotted a clue that something was rotten in Redmond. Felten's "de-IE'd" Windows 98 browser is simply titled "Windows 98," while the browser window shown in the videotape is titled "Internet Explorer." (All together, now: Gasp!)

"You do understand that you came in here and you swore that this was accurate?" asked Eagle-Eye Boies, pointing out the discrepency. Allchin hurriedly claimed that "they filmed the wrong system" or "probably filmed it several times and they probably grabbed the wrong tape." A likely story. Wait, listen, what's that sound? Why, we do believe its the sound of the last of Microsoft's credibility crumbling into dust. See? For those of you who thought "Redmond Justice" had grown stale and uninteresting, this just proves that they still have a few tricks up their sleeves.