Ahhhh, there's nothing like starting off the week so late your brain thinks it's August already. Pardon our even-worse-than-usual tardiness with this episode, kiddies, but we got socked with a double-whammy of the standard last-minute tax-time documentation nightmare (we're off to see Tax Guy Bob in about four hours) and-- horror of horrors-- a broken Treo. But we've pulled together the paper trail of our slow-motion financial ruin, our replacement phone is configured with the requisite "Come On Eileen" ringtone, and we're finally ready to tackle the day's Apple-flavored drama-- twenty-fourish hours late, sure, but moving fast.

On the plus side (and there's always a plus side), we're not sure just how fast we need to be moving, since apparently not a whole lot happened Monday. For instance, it's not like Apple finally shipped those freakin' speed-bumped G5s, right? Right. So all we've got on that front is the latest crop of rumors seeking to explain why they still aren't here. AppleInsider, who at one point had blamed a lack of graphics cards for the delay, now figures that Apple is knee-deep in ATI-y goodness and the Power Macs are more likely held up due to "unknown internal issues"-- and we all know how painful that can be. Specifically, AI cites possible "supply or cooling issues" nuking Apple's move to the new 90-nanometer chips.

Cooling? Sheesh, just slap a bag of ice in each Power Mac, lower the warranty to the amount of time it takes five pounds of ice to melt when nestled up snugly against a toasty G5 processor or two, and be done with it. If the problem is supply, on the other hand, well, then it's largely out of Apple's control-- especially if the government's involved. How's this for a healthy dose of intrigue to start the week? Faithful viewer Mike Scherer tipped us off to the fact that Mac OS Rumors's explanation for the G5's continuing no-show status is that Apple has been inundated with "massive purchases of... dual-processor Xserve G5s [and] preorders of faster 970FX-based Power Macs"-- purchases by the good ol' U.S. government.

That's right, folks; according to MOSR's sources, the reason you're still watching the paint peel instead of getting your 2.5ish GHz mojo workin' is because a D.C.-area law enforcement agency ("possibly the FBI"), "some arm of the Department of Defense," and an "emerging government agency (possibly Homeland Security)" are all pestering Apple for scads of 90-nanometer G5 fun, allegedly to build some attack-resistant clusters and a supercomputer or two. Remember that the Xserves now use the same chips as the expected speed-bumped Power Macs, so a big hush-hush order for a slew of those (on top of the 1,100 already slated for Virginia Tech) might well cause a chip supply problem delaying a product announcement. Where are Mulder and Scully when you need them? Oh, right... given the "law enforcement agency" rumor, they're probably ordering some hush-hush G5s for themselves.

Reportedly "Apple has been asked to keep the purchases off the normal books," presumably so that terrorists won't realize that the government has a secret weapon: a DHS that's packin' Mighty Power Macs o' Justice, boy howdy. So whaddaya think-- is truth stranger than fiction? Or at least as strange as fiction? Because faithful viewer John Jira alerted us to a TidBITS April Fool's joke from last week, which claimed that Homeland Security was switching completely to Macs for security reasons. It's either a remarkable coincidence, or TidBITS's Adam Engst has already been spirited off to a safehouse for "aggressive debriefing." You just gotta love these covert government plot twists...