Man, talk about an unexpected "Redmond Justice" plot twist! Watch out, Justice Department and attorneys general; pursue your antitrust case against Microsoft at the risk of your own political careers, because the company has apparently managed to secure grass-roots support in its struggle from a vast, untapped segment of the U.S. population: the stiffs. You heard right, people-- it seems that dead people are moved enough by Microsoft's victimization by the bullies in the government that they're rising from the grave to write and send letters of protest. Wow, who knew that Windows was so popular among the deceased?

As pointed out by faithful viewer Nicholas Chapman, a Los Angeles Times article reports that letters in support of Microsoft "purportedly written by at least two dead people" arrived in the offices of Utah's attorney general a few months ago. Geez, how freakin' incensed do you have to be to write a strongly-worded letter chastising a government figure when you're dead? Indeed, we're starting to think that Microsoft leaked that toxic Ballmer video on purpose, in an attempt to kill off as many people as possible with the hope that the resulting corpses might then start writing their Congressmen about the evils of stifling innovation.

Of course, it's just possible that there isn't a groundswell of support for Microsoft among the U.S. zombie constituency, and Microsoft is actually faking its own grass-roots letters-- badly. If that's the case, then Microsoft has once again fallen prey to its age-old problem of lack of attention to detail. See, apparently the company once again tried to create the illusion of public support where there is none, and wrote a bunch of letters meant to look like they were penned by Fine Upstanding Citizens who believe Microsoft is getting a raw deal. The letters were "on personalized stationery" and used "different wording, color and typefaces" to look like they were written by a multitude of individuals across this great land and not by Microsoft.

Too bad they missed that whole "dead people don't write letters" detail. Well, that and the fact that multiple "independent" letters, while different overall, used some of the exact same specific phrases-- such common, everyday phrases as "strong competition and innovation have been the twin hallmarks of the technology industry" and "if the future is going to be as successful as the recent past, the technology sector must remain free from excess regulation." Yeah, that's statistically viable.

This sort of behavior is nothing new to Microsoft, of course, but at least this time around, they were a little smarter and sneakier. You'll recall that, in the past, Microsoft has secretly paid for newspaper ads supposedly placed by "independent academic experts" claiming that the "Redmond Justice" case was hurting consumers. The company has also placed ads that looked like pro-Microsoft letters to the editor written by private citizens, but which were actually written by Microsoft's own marketing department. Personally, as unlikely as it may be, we prefer the zombie explanation. At least it'd be something different from the same old Microsoft sleaze for a change.