Is there any doubt that it's still Sweeps Month? ER's got a month-long string of episodes dealing with Doug Ross' "possible" departure (yeah, like any of us are in suspense about the answer to that question), the X-Files is nearing its "Total Disclosure" two-parter, and "Redmond Justice" continues with the Great Faked Tape scandal of 1999. For those of you just tuning in, Microsoft introduced some new evidence this week in the form of a videotape supposedly revealing all kinds of performance degradation that creeps into Windows when Internet Explorer is removed. The only problem was, government attorney David Boies noticed that during one test shown on the tape, what was supposedly a single shot of a single computer being very slow was in fact video footage of several computers edited together; a changing title bar tipped him off. And he confronted Microsoft bigwig James Allchin about this in court, and sparks flew. It was definitely good TV.

But guess what? It's not over yet. According to a Reuters story, after four days of claiming that the videotape showed an actual test (even after Boies pointed out the Mysterious Changing Title Bar), Microsoft now admits that the tape was "not of an actual test, but merely an 'illustration.'" That's shifty enough already. But Judge Jackson (who has a lot more patience than we do, that's for sure) gave Microsoft the benefit of the doubt and let them redo the tests, provided that representatives of the government were present at the time. Sounds more than fair, right? Well, apparently Microsoft didn't think so, because they did redo the tests-- only after barring the goverment reps from the room for two hours. And when the government lawyers and computer experts were finally allowed into the room, one test in the test suite was mysteriously omitted. Guess which one? The very one shown to be doctored on the original videotape.

C'mon, even the most gullible trusting observer on the planet would have to start getting suspicious by now. Another Reuters story reveals Microsoft's rationale for abandoning the questionable test, which has to do with the speed of an Internet download. According to Microsoft official Tod Nielsen, they couldn't get a consistent Internet connection with which to perform the test. (Hmmm, are they using MSN?) Of course, there's no way to verify that claim to be accurate, since Microsoft had barred the government reps from the room during their attempts. And to top it all off, when Microsoft general counsel Bill Neukom was questioned by the press about the videotaped test, he remarked that coverage of the trial shouldn't be sidetracked by a "sideshow of melodrama about four minutes of tape." Oh, yeah, kinda like that "sideshow" about eighteen and a half minutes of tape during the Watergate investigations...