[FastCoyote]

Am I being paranoid or is this another Microsoft rules the world scheme? Every day I get a little closer to being an all Linux shop. In fact, I am on Linux right now, my key XP desktop has a hardware failure.
Why should I have boxes that only boot Microsoft?

[ShadowAce]

Am I being paranoid or is this another Microsoft rules the world scheme?

While I can be as paranoid as the next guy, the article states:

Secure boot is designed to protect against malware code running before the operating system. This isn't a hypothetical threat. Pre-boot malware exists in the wild, and some of it is nastier than you expect. So obviously bootloaders need to be signed, since otherwise you'd just replace the signed bootloader with an unsigned one that installed malware and booted your OS.

[zeugma]

Am I being paranoid or is this another Microsoft rules the world scheme? Every day I get a little closer to being an all Linux shop. In fact, I am on Linux right now, my key XP desktop has a hardware failure.

You're not being paranoid. 

Install XP in a VM if you've got the horsepower and ram for it. It's much easier to work with and control that way. You can build a VM that is your "master copy" and fall back to it any time you want to.