It’s Valentine’s Day and once again everyone is talking about the possible marriage of Yahoo and Microsoft.

The only problem — as has been made abundantly clear — is that Yahoo wants no part of Microsoft’s $42 billion takeover proposal. Every day, reports emerge of Yahoo looking somewhere else for help, with News Corp the latest name to come up as a possible alternative.

But, as a Reuters article points out, a Yahoo deal with News Corp seems unrealistic to most analysts.”Any options other than Microsoft are all … fraught with serious consequences,” Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay says in the article. “The management has left it to so late in the day to really find any alternative. They have basically backed themselves in the corner.”

Or, as the New York Post puts it, “The talks between Yahoo! and News Corp are real - the chances of a deal, however, are remote.”

Across town, the New York Times takes the opportunity to blog about all the “fanciful” deals Yahoo has examined.

“Jerry Yang, Yahoo’s chief executive, has engaged a bevy of creative bankers who are busy trying to concoct all sorts of fanciful business arrangements. They tried and failed to find any takers in the private equity world, and they have run proposals by the business development departments at all the usual suspects — Google, AOL and News Corporation, among them, according to executives at those companies,” the Times writes.

Put that way Yahoo sounds a little desperate, willing to consider almost anything to avoid an acquisition by Microsoft.

Then again, as the Wall Street Journal notes, Yahoo doesn’t always have the best judgement when it comes to mergers and acquisitions.

“With its days as an independent company seemingly numbered, Yahoo must be wanting a few do-overs on the M&A front these days. Last year’s purchases of online ad firms Right Media and BlueLithium seem astute, though perhaps too little, too late. And let’s not forget successful photo-sharing site Flickr,” it says in a blog posting.

Happy Valentine’s Day, Yahoo.

Keep an eye on:

• Comcast Corp will pay an annual dividend and set a 2009 target to complete a stock buyback program, two actions aimed at addressing investor demands to boost its share price (Reuters)
• French advertising group Publicis failed to meet its forecast for underlying annual revenue, triggering fresh falls in its stock while sector peer Havas rose on a strong sales surge (Reuters)
• Hollywood stars George Clooney, Robert De Niro, Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep are urging the Screen Actors Guild to start talks for a new labor contract as soon as possible in order to avert a strike (Reuters)