A few weeks ago, BoomTown got a rather compelling email from Marion Vermazen, who once worked at Sun Microsystems with new Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz.

Sun (JAVA) was one of the many companies where Bartz was an exec, before heading Autodesk (ADSK) and, now, Yahoo (YHOO)–and where Bartz actually fired Vermazen.

Her take on the experience?

“Amazing,” said Vermazen, whose last name was Brown at the time, given how Bartz handled it herself–driving 30 minutes to Vermazen’s office–in a very straightforward way that made the pain of the firing easier.

In other words, a kinder, classier Donald Trump “Apprentice” style, but without the cameras and bad hair.

It’s instructive, given that Bartz is likely to have to give several big Yahoo execs the heave-ho in the days ahead as she unveils her new management structure soon.

(By the way, though big change is a-coming, Yahoo sources said that Bartz will not be making a noisy announcement about her reorganization. Instead, she apparently will just do it–letting the internal memos leak, presumably–and move on to “putting some points on the board” before talking publicly.)

In any case, here’s Vermazen’s email, which she said I could post. She sent it to me after some pieces I did about Bartz’s take-charge style (also, you can see the now-retired Vermazen’s blog here):

This all sounds very familiar. 20+ years ago I was in the service organization at Sun when Bartz took over. In a staff meeting of the Service directors, she said that if we didn’t get our act together we’d be gone. I was in way over my head and a couple of weeks later she came to my office for a meeting with me and told me that I was being replaced. She said they weren’t going to take me out and shoot me, but that I would no longer be managing the software support group. I have enormous respect for her that she told me this to my face in my office. Most executives would have had HR do it or whatever. She is an amazing person.”

Here’s an interesting video from The Vote Hour, which is trying to get CEOs to let employees take off an hour from work to vote in the upcoming elections.

But while the group is independent and bipartisan, it is also an effort that started at Google (GOOG).

From the About Us section of the Vote Hour site:

The Vote Hour sprung (as many things do at Google) from some very interesting research. After reading a report from the U.S. Census Bureau, a Googler noticed that in the 2004 Presidential election, the NUMBER ONE reason that registered voters didn’t make it out to the polls to vote was because they were ‘too busy’ or had conflicting work schedules.

So this person asked himself, ‘What if bosses around the country encouraged their employees to take an hour off to go vote? Would employees feel relaxed enough, even in this down economy, to leave work behind and go vote?’

It seemed logical that if nothing else, getting ‘permission’ from your boss to take an hour off would take one more excuse off the table. So this Googler sent an email to Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google Inc., who volunteered to record a message of support and encouraged some fellow CEOs to join him … and The Vote Hour was born.”

Schmidt, who recently went on the trail for Democratic Presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, is the first CEO featured in the video, along with a panoply of well-known execs, including a lot from tech (including eBay, Cisco, Symantec and Intel).

Also roped in, apparently for comic relief, is real estate mogul Donald Trump.

He is, as usual, quite funny in ordering his employees to take off “only one hour.”

Here’s the video:

(And here is a post about the effort on Google’s blog, posted by Andy Berndt, Managing Director of Google Creative Lab, and Katie Jacobs Stanton of its Elections team.)

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Look, it might be the biggest poker bluff in history and analysts are once again chattering that Yahoo’s (YHOO) ad-outsourcing deal with Google (GOOG) might force Microsoft (MSFT) back to make another offer for the Internet portal.

Sorry to be the skunk at Carl Icahn’s garden party, but BoomTown doesn’t think so.

Consider this from my post earlier today, from a source close to Microsoft’s thinking:

Microsoft sources say execs were stymied by Yahoo, which offered to sell the entire company to Microsoft up until three days ago.

But, as Yahoo has even said, Microsoft remained steadfast in its lack of interest in a bigger deal, after it walked away a month ago from its botched takeover attempt.

And it is still not interested, even with the pressure a Yahoo-Google partnership now presents.

“Yahoo might still dream of a big deal and hope they can win this game of chicken by doing this deal with Google,” said one person familiar with Microsoft’s thinking, about the possibility of Microsoft now making another offer. “But the big deal is done.”

Even if Yahoo’s stock declines even more precipitously? “It’s no longer a price issue with Microsoft,” said the source. “The company has moved on.”

So I queried a bunch of other Microsoft execs close to the dealmaking.

What if Icahn, the billionaire activist investor who is engaged in a proxy battle with Yahoo, somehow manages to get control of the company at its August board meeting?

No.

What if Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang is replaced and a new leader is more amenable to Microsoft?

Nope.

And, most of all, what if Yahoo shares sink to below $20 again and even lower?

No way.

Goodness, even I’d try to acquire Yahoo for under $20 a share, given all its amazing assets and huge traffic.

But, as far as I can tell, Microsoft seems sincere in its walk-away-Renee act for a lot of reasons.

The regulatory window has closed. The deal is tarnished. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has never been a fan, and other execs are not either.

And most of all: Yahoos don’t want to be a satellite of Microsoft.

In fact, Rosie O’Donnell and Donald Trump get along better than this tech pair.

And for weekend fun, here’s a picture of that mismatched pair brought together via Disortrait: