Maybe it's time to start covering Microsoft's pending acquisition of Yahoo the way Percy Allen wrote about the loss of the Sonics today: Where are we in the five stages of grief?

From Yahoo's perspective, it sounds like the depression stage.

Why else would it clutch its cross-town rival at the last minute, floating a partnership with Google that nobody expects to survive antitrust scrutiny? Is it a bargaining chip or resignation?

The parallels make sense, and not just because the Sonics and Yahoo were both pushed by Steve Ballmer deadlines.

We've already seen Yahoo's denial and anger, and the bargaining stage seems to have concluded this weekend with Ballmer's ultimatum. Sorry Yahoo, but that means it's now time for acceptance.

Washington has the second-highest taxation of wireless phone services, according to a report that an industry lobbyist is circulating in Olympia.

It says local, state and federal taxes and fees on wireless services here come to 20.62 percent, second only to Nebraska's 22.54 percent. At the bottom of the list is Oregon, at 5.85 percent.

There are too many taxes tacked onto phone services, wired and wireless. Sales taxes are also high in Washington, particularly in the Seattle metro area. But I wouldn't take the CTIA's report as the definitive word on the subject.