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And I heard, as it were the noise of thunder...

"Shares of Time Warner Inc. rose Thursday after a report that the media giant is in talks to sell a stake in its America Online Internet unit to Microsoft Corp., which operates its own Web business, MSN."

As all the AOL-ers and MSN-ites on IM would say: "OMGWTF?!"

In fact, a consolidation of this kind would make a good deal of sense for Microsoft. Be a neat deal for them. Not sure what AOL sees in it, but it's certainly going to be interesting to watch this one unfold...