Now that the U.S. Justice Department decided the merger of XM and Sirius wouldn't create a monopoly that had an unfair advantage over the competition, it's time to examine how … the press is labeling the deal. Depending on who you ask, it's a deal worth either $5 billion or $13 billion.

Business Week calls it a "$13 billion combination." At the Washington Post it's a "$13 billion deal." PC Magazine opts for "stock swap worth $13 billion."

The New York Times goes with "proposed $5 billion merger." The New York Post opts for "$5 billion union." The BBC considers it a "$5bn (£2.5bn) deal." The Associated Press is on board with "proposed $5 billion buyout."

If nobody is gonna miss some $8 billion, like, could you send some our way?

Derogatory insults aimed at presidential candidates aren't just for women. This week, The Note founder Time scribe Halperin called Barack Obama a "pussy" (or surmised that's what John Edwards thought of him) on Barbara Walters’ Sirius satellite radio show. Now Halperin says he's sorry about the remark; he "used a word I shouldn’t have."

One day after Matt Drudge announced that he's abandoning his Sunday radio gig comes word that Barbara Walters will be hosting her very own weekly talk radio show.

The show (cleverly entitled "Barbara Live") will enable listeners to call in with controversial pot-stirring questions like "Was Rosie O'Donnell leaving The View the best thing that ever happened to you, Elisabeth Hasselbeck's tear-ducts?" and "Is Joy Behar as boring in real-life as she seems on tv?"*

"Barbara Live" is slated to premiere on Sirius Radio next Monday, from 6-7pm, just in time for its target demograpic to slowklyydecompress after a long, grueling day of golfing and early-bird specials.

* Translation: benign, uninteresting questions like "What do you enjoy most about working on The View?" and "Barbara, where do you get your suits tailored?"

• NYDN chieftain Martin Dunn tries, fails to lure ex-newsies back to the paper. Insiders say negotiations faltered due to salary disputes and the Daily News being in "the worst location ever."

• Tony Blair characterizes media as a "feral beast, just tearing people and reputations to bits." Media expected to respond by destroying Blair's reputation out of spite.

• Although the WSJ newsroom will be undergoing major shake-ups later today, the paper is still expected to remain "boring and financey."

• Close friends and media elite gathered yesterday to belatedly mourn David Halberstam.

• Sirius CEO attempts to "woo" FCC with price cuts, and the possibility of more price cuts to come.

• Disfigured patients to be exploited for entertainment value on new reality tv show; prudish sorts protest.

• CBS plays its hand close to the vest by announcing that they would be "very interested" if Time Warner ever were willing to sell CNN.

• Nobody is watching local news anymore. Apparently everyone—even your grandfather—recently made the switch to The Daily Show.

• FCC continues to be unimpressed with Sirius/XM radio's proposed merger, Howard Stern's unique brand of lewd humor.

• "Man charged with putting 24 on the web." And the war on terror continues!

• The Weather Channel has apparently become a "hot-button" issue. And here we thought the Doppler 4000 was risqué!

• Us Weekly chieftain Janice Min's contract may be up, but some say her big ticket contract is heading down.

• Facebook gets facelift, exciting new interactive features.

• Radio station 92.3 (K-Rock) abandons its "low-rated all-talk format," ushers in new era with Nirvana's "All Apologies."

• Meanwhile, in a proud moment for Sirius Satellite Radio, CEO Mel Karmazin declared ""we suck less" than rival XM.

• 'JT Leroy' creator Laua Albert may not have been an abused transsexual. But she still had a trying upper middle-class childhood, dammit!

• 'Business journals should be more like Page Six,' says Orange County Register's Scott Flanders, by which he presumably means "more anonymous sources, Christmas 'bonuses' and all-expense paid trips to New Orleans."

• NYT's Lola Ogunnaike gives up her lifelong dream of being on The View, instead joins CNN's American Morning.

• Was Kiran Chetry a traitorous bitch? Or was Fox News simply overwhelmed by the cost of maintaining its "News Hotties" division?

• Meanwhile, CNN pleased with its brand-new hire, compares Chetry to primetime news anchor (and consistent third-place finisher) Katie Couric.

• MSNBC's Keith Olbermann to make a cameo on NBC Nightly News; world pretends to care.

• Sirius and XM merger described as imminent possibility; Howard Stern described as "too rich to care."

• Diane Sawyer jumps into super-reporting mode; insiders question whether she's looking to jump ship.

• XM and Sirius may team up to spread Howard Stern, Oprah, Ellen, and satellite cancer waves together.

• Bonnie Fuller insists Courteney Cox's new show Dirt is wholeheartedly different than what goes on at Star. Which must be true, as some staffers of the fictional Dirt tabloid actually love coming to work each day.

• Unwilling to pay increased carriage fees, EchoStar's Dish satellite TV service sees CourtTV pulled, upsetting both customers.

• Star confuses Ashley and Mary-Kate, just like David Katzenberg and us.

• Upper echelon journos freak out at possibility of their peers being forced to testify.

• NYT national desk assistant editor Dana Canedy took over yesterday's front page to test out new design guidelines on news vs. commentary.

• Billy Bush looking to ditch.

• NBC's sports division claims ratings turnaround is due to the whole lotta people watching NFL games.

• Wired magazine moves to extend brand into TV. Viewers await Miss Seventeen levels of suspsene.

Judith Regan has either found herself a guardian angel — or just a really close friend over at Sirius. Or she's still running her own universe. One of those.

This morning, the recently ousted publishing giant's Sirius radio show aired as scheduled, with just a couple of teeny, tiny edits. The entire segment where Regan went on a diatribe against the "backstabbers at Harper Collins" was conveniently left out of the broadcast version.

That is, the incendiary remarks made during last week's pre-taped interview with GalleyCat blogger Ron Hogan about why Regan was ousted from her own publishing imprint never made the air, which meant listeners weren't treated to Regan blasting her former employers for making her a scapegoat in the aftermath surrounding the O.J. tell-all.

No word on who gave the official word to cut the segment (we're guessing Regan's damaged ego and her attorney's advice), which leaves us with only one question: Where the hell was the Sirius Central Operations for Censorship when Martha Stewart was blathering on about her "battery-operated" friend?

• Best Life finds its new publisher at GQ.

• That New York Times is getting awfully lucky with those classified memos.

• Canned ABC News exec producer Shelley Ross won't tell you where she's headed next, but she's "taking meetings." Like Atoosa Rubenstein, Lloyd Grove, Debra Birnbaum, Howard Burns …

• Anna Wintour does as Bee Shaffer tells her.

• Yahoo splitting into three groups with ambigious names.

• Sirius lowers subscriber forecasts by six figures.

• Johnny Apple's funeral at the Kennedy Center last night drew the types of a Tom Brokaw dinner party.

• Rescuers claim to be thisclose to finding missing CNET editor James Kim.

• Avoiding unsolicited lesbian loving isn't what's bothering Judith Miller while she serves her prison term. Rather, it's her being kept away from the Internet. She must really miss her Jossip fix.

• Hearst head Cathy Black killed any plans for Bullet, the weekly lads title with former Maxim editor Keith Blanchard leading the pack.

• For some reason, CBS thinks there aren't enough entertainment magazines around. (Hey, we said there's room for entertainment blogs, not mags!) They're planning a new title called WATCH! set to debut in January.

• Google is pausing its library project, which scans out-of-print and copyrighted books into its searchable database, to take some time and work out its intellectual property kinks.

• Fitness freak Richard Simmons is saddling up next to Howard Stern and Martha Stewart for his own Sirius Satellite Radio show.

• Former People news director Kristen Kelch is returning to the celebrity mag world as the editor of the revamped TV Guide.

• They don't want patrons smoking in restaurants and now New York City health officials don't want you trying to digest any trans fat in restaurants either.

• Mayor Michael Bloomberg got hit with a lawsuit from four staffers at his financial firm who are claiming age discrimination.