The Death Star is trying to buy the Eye of Sauron in what could be an $85 billion deal.

In an idea that no one thinks will be good for anyone but investors, Time Warner has agreed to a proposed merger with AT&T. The feds still have to go through the deal and make a final approval on it. AT&T recently bought DirecTV, so the acquisition of Time Warner would make it a very powerful player in the already nightmarishly complicated cable TV/satellite arena.

The worry among consumer groups and rivals, of course, is that for AT&T to make the deal work strategically and financially — the company is paying a 35 percent premium to Time Warner’s stock price before news of the deal broke last week — it is going to use Time Warner’s content as a weapon against its rivals by raising the price that they pay for carriage of channels such as HBO and CNN, while integrating those same channels into new AT&T offerings at lower prices. -- The New York Times

But AT&T officials are saying the merger would help both companies create content that consumers want, based on the data collected by both companies. On top of that, the company would be working to create a "5G" network among the wireless and cable divisions that would compete on every communications level, basically.

If you hate AT&T or Time Warner -- and let's face it, a quick Google search suggests you probably do -- it's going to be hard to believe that combining two customer-unfriendly businesses would result in anything less than heartache. However, the federal government already turned down Comcast's bid to buy Time Warner, so the deal's success is by no means secure.

If you love either of those companies -- could you explain to us why?

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