A source close to Yahoo’s thinking emailed and declared that BoomTown was misinformed and ignorant of the insider mechanics of high-level corporate wrangling when I suggested in a post earlier today that the settlement between Yahoo and Carl Icahn was perhaps not the time to break out the bubbly.

You know, because Yahoo’s stock is still moribund, morale is still low, Microsoft is still looming and the economy is still tanking.

Other than that, Yahoo sources wanted to let me know the Icahn truce was a win.

And that is absolutely true, technically speaking.

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Could the new and improved Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang actually manage to beat back the proxy fight being waged against him by activist investor Carl Icahn?

It increasingly looks that way, with only 12 days to go until Yahoo’s annual meeting on August 1.

But exactly which Yang will be running Yahoo, if he does win, is probably the most important question shareholders need to ask.

Would that be the seemingly energetic Yang of the past two weeks, invigorated by the battle with Icahn and his new best friend and Yahoo foe, Microsoft?

Or will it be the other Yang?

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BoomTown’s most favorite part of the Yahoo takeover circus?

The dueling letters, of course! How the lovely practice of missives has fallen out of favor, as soulless emails have grown in use.

Well, not in the land of hostile takeovers!

So here’s our decoding of billionaire investor Carl Icahn’s thankfully brief letter to Yahoo’s Chairman Roy Bostock, informing Yahoo that he begins bombing in five minutes.

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BoomTown feels like a digital postal carrier today, delivering a small message each for Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer and Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Jerry Yang from some of your bigger shareholders–some of whom own you both, in fact, and with whom we like to check in with from time to time to gauge their mood:
Steve: [...]

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Finally, the rumble has moved from letters to numbers, as a major Yahoo shareholder, legendary portfolio manager Bill Miller of Legg Mason, has publicly backed the Internet giant in its takeover tussle with Microsoft. And exactly what does Miller–whose fund only holds Yahoo shares and not those of Microsoft too, as do many big shareholders of Yahoo–want?

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