We've always found it a tad inconsistent that the U.S. government is locked in a tooth-and-nail antitrust cage match with Microsoft and yet still standardizes on Microsoft software across the organization. Gosh, can you imagine what would happen if the government put its money where its mouth is and banned the use of Bill's wares entirely? Despite the fact that such a move would pretty much flush the whole "Microsoft has a monopoly" argument down the toilet, it'd still be like some sort of beautiful dream. Well, wake up, Sparky, because this is one dream that just came true. Sort of.

Yes, a government has banned the use of Microsoft software for a fair chunk of official government business-- but no, it's not the U.S. government. Still, it's not some rinky-dink island nation you've never heard of, either; it's Germany. According to an article in The Register kindly forwarded to us by faithful viewer Russell Maggio, the Federal Republic has apparently decided that Microsoft is in cahoots with the U.S. National Security Agency, and thus all Billware contains super-secret "back doors" that would grant the NSA access to sensitive German data. (And you thought that whole "_NSAkey" thing was a simple misunderstanding.) Thus, it's "auf wiedersehen" to Windows.

But before you start jumping up and down for Apple Germany to step in and close a lucrative contract deal, there's one small catch: Apple's in league with Big Brother, too. So is Sun and Oracle. It seems that Germany's ban extends to all software made by American companies, presumably because all American companies are mere government puppets and the White House pulls the strings. Not that that's actually untrue, or anything, but we're still impressed that any large government could adopt such a well-developed sense of paranoia as official policy across its entire organization. Heck, it took us years of watching The X-Files reruns, sleeping no more than twenty minutes a night, and drinking lots of fluoridated water before we started seeing the NSA lurking behind every lamp post...