During a three-hour talk in Israel, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer insisted the company isn't back at the merger negotiations table with Yahoo. "We are not bidding to buy Yahoo," Ballmer told the crowd. "We are trying to have discussions about deals with Yahoo that might create value but not a whole acquisition of the company." In the clip embedded below, Tech Ticker's Henry Blodget doesn't buy it:

The fact that they're at the table — regardless of what they were telling themselves got them to the table — it's much more likely that they say "enough with the four foot high stack of paper outlining the details of the deal. Just merge."

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