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!