You know, a lot of viewers have been asking why we haven't addressed Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's recent public insistence, as reported by Computer Reseller News, that Windows is more secure than Linux because open source software is inherently less secure than anything Microsoft's development team squeezes out. Likewise, just as many viewers are wondering why we never said anything about Intel CEO Craig Barrett's admission to ZDNet that his company has been courting Apple to switch to x86 for years, but now finds the prospect "less and less interesting" because of Apple's "2 percent of the market."

Well, the painful truth is that we found out about both statements within mere minutes of each other last Wednesday, and Jack sprained a frontal lobe trying to decide which massively incorrect statement to deride first. At least, we thought it was a sprain, but the x-rays showed that the lobe was actually fractured. That's right, people: the sheer incomprehensibility of Ballmer's and Barrett's blatant untruths-- whether intentional or simply ignorant-- actually broke Jack's brain. You try writing truculent commentary with part of your brain in a cast. Worse yet, try getting people to sign the cast. Trust us, neither is a walk in the park.

Anyway, Jack's healing up nicely, now, but he's still a little loagy and occasionally when writing he unknowingly uses the wrong kumquats, so we're just going to address this gently. First, we'll hit this Ballmerian statement: "We get a lot of questions. People say, 'We have a security problem; let's fix it. What's your road map for this? What about this? What about this? What about this?' There's no road map for Linux. There's nobody to hold accountable for security with Linux. There's nobody's rear end on the line."

Okay, um, well, nobody except the people who use it, Steve. Who often just happen to be-- surprise!-- the people who can fix it. There's something to be said for an operating system beloved by legions upon legions of geeks who can find obscure bugs, load up the source code, and fix the problems themselves, without having to submit a bug report to Microsoft and wait six months for a reply. Ballmer seems to think that people would rather have some freakin' "road map" than an actual fix. But the man also shaves with a crude sharpened stone tool and occasionally eats babies, so we suppose we'll just chalk that up to cultural differences.

Now, about that Barrett assertion that Apple only has 2% of the market-- that sounds rather lower than any numbers we've seen in recent quarters, so what gives? Could it be that someone's just a little bitter about trying to win Apple as a customer for all these years and finally getting totally spanked by IBM's G5, so now he's downplaying Apple's importance? Who's he trying to convince-- us, or himself? "Less and less interesting" indeed. Friendly suggestion to ol' Craig: you might want to seek out some tips on buying grapes before the next time you stop at the fruit stand, because it sounds to us like the last bunch you bought may have been a wee bit on the sour side.

Now if you'll excuse us, Jack has to rest his lobe.