We'll make this a quickie, since it's clearly not Mac-related in any direct manner, but you know we're suckers for "Redmond Justice," so we couldn't let this one slip by: as quoted in a Chicago Tribune article pointed out by faithful viewer Mike V., Steve Ballmer has now officially gone on the record as saying that he's "very sad" that the nine states who have refused to roll over are asking for such harsh restrictions on Microsoft's behavior. He calls their demands "absolutely unbelievable" because they would "debilitate" his company. Furthermore, Ballmer says that if the states' requests were entered as an order by the judge today, he "would not even know how to comply."

Among these proposed remedies are such "outrageous" demands as requiring Microsoft to offer a version of Windows without Microsoft apps for "playing music, sending instant messages, and browsing the Internet," forcing the company to support Java in Windows, making Microsoft develop and ship Office for Linux, and compelling it to license out the source code to Internet Explorer. According to Ballmer, such measures would "dramatically harm consumers." We can only assume this is because Microsoft has no faith whatsoever that, when faced with a choice, the public wouldn't choose to buy the fully-loaded version of Windows, and thus would be deprived of all that great stuff. Likewise, it's apparently Ballmer's contention that consumers would feel forced to buy Office for Linux even though Office for Windows is right there on the shelf next to it. And the very fact that Java is supported obviously means that the average user would be compelled to use that drastically inferior technology. Plus, just imagine the horror if Microsoft had to license its source code for IE; why, that might lead to all sorts of browsers competing in an open market. Saints preserve us!

Forgive us if we're missing something, here, but as far as we can tell, Microsoft was proven in court to have broken the law, it lost its appeal (assuming it had any in the first place-- ba dum ching!), and the Supreme Court refused even to entertain a further appeal. In other words, the company is guilty. And now Ballmer's throwing a hissy fit over proposed remedies so "outrageous" they might actually prevent the company from breaking the law again? Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new finalist for this week's Missing The Point Entirely award! "But your honor, how am I possibly going to keep mugging old ladies if I'm locked away in prison?!"

Sorry about that, Ballmer ol' buddy. Maybe you should have spread more of that political lobbying money around in the nine states still suing your company. You heard about this, right, folks? Faithful viewer Chris pointed out a ZDNet article which reveals that Microsoft's budget for lobbying politicians "exceeded that of Enron," skyrocketing from $16,000 in 1995 to a whopping $1.6 million in 2000. Unfortunately, it apparently blew the whole bankroll on buying off the Justice Department and kinda sorta forgot about paying off the states, too. Whoopsie! Well, don't worry; they won't make that mistake next time. And the way things are going, you can be sure that there will be a next time.