After watching some stuff about the Andrew Meyer incident on YouTube, I actually wonder why there is even a discussion about whether it was justified to taser him or not. Even if the student was provocative and "disturbed peace", the police's reaction was absolutely inappropriate and exaggerated. If at all, it would have been enough to grab him, drag him out and deny him reentrace to the hall, but my personal view is that all this was pretty ridiculous and shocking.

The video:


Fox News report, nothing surprising there:


Here is an article, defending the tasering of the student. What I really like about it, is the comment at the bottom:


Amen! What has the country come to, when obnoxious young intellectuals have the audacity to verbally challenge our senators in blatant defiance of forum rules and with no apparent fear of violent retribution? We need to start Tasing misbehaving children, too.

But seriously, the core problem with Miston's opinion, like so many of its ilk, is that it ignores the underlying issue: why was Meyer arrested in the first place? Disturbing the peace? Give me a break. He may have been obnoxious, but that would have warranted nothing more than being thrown out of the forum -- like an unruly patron would be thrown out of a nightclub by a bouncer. It was a violation of debate rules, not a violation of law.

It's good to know that debate about First Amendment issues on our college campuses has sunk to the level of people on one side telling people on the other to "shut up". There's more than a little irony in that.

Everytime I am at Retiro I ask myself why I don't come here more frequently. It's beautiful, not only because of the lush green lawn and the huge trees, but also because it's fascinating to watch the people. Families, couples, artists and sportsmen from a dozen different nationalities gather here to spend their afternoon, to relax from their busy week. So peacefully together, you ask yourself why the world couldn't be more like Retiro ;-)

For me personally, it's a bit of everything today. I went here to cruise with my new bike, work a bit, listen to music, take some photos and...chill. It's NEARLY the perfect Sunday on a sunny day in autumn.

Concerning news about Guatemala at the beginning of the week...

Letzte Hoffnung UN

Tödlicher Wahlkampf

EU alarm at Guatemala violence

These guys are hilarious! I really like that song:

Found this yesterday and i think this is pretty hilarious:

God Inc.

P.S.: also watch the other episodes!


and thisvideo i just saw on another blog on twoday.net:

Around four months ago, I had been at Google for exactly one year, I mentioned on this blog that I wanted to reflect a little on what I've learnt so far. Quite obviously, I got a bit lazy in the past months, but now that the summer is slowly nearing it's end, I finally can fulfil my promise.

Tomorrow it's been exactly one year and four months for me working at Google and I can't imagine a steeper learning curve. In the beginning, the challenge was huge - and it is still - but now I enjoy it while in the beginning it was rather frightening. From day one I was burdened with huge responsibility, especially as the marketing team in Spain was practically starting with Bernardo and me. (For God's sake there were also Javi and Nino). However, I literally got thrown into the cold water and I am convinced that this was the perfect way. I sat in external meetings in my second week, interviewed the first candidates in my third week and travelled half around the world to meet other Googlers in the fourth week. I have the impression that a lot of companies are very careful with their youngest employees in terms of responsibility and I am pretty sure that this is a big mistake. Either you swim or you drown, but you rise with the challenge and if you're too protected you won't go nowhere.

My first assignment was to do B2B marketing in Spain, in particular marketing of AdWords to small and medium enterprises. You might argue it's not too hard to sell such a product to people but there are definitely certain issues in this area that are hard to come by, especially as it's really hard to communicate to this segment in an efficient way. I am still very convinced of this product and believe that this system is the next YellowPages. If done well, it might be more time consuming, but without a doubt also more profitable and effective.

After the "strict school" of B2B marketing, I transitioned recently to the "fun part", Consumer Marketing, and will from now on be responsible for marketing of YouTube, iGoogle (and other search related products) and mobile products in Spain. It's a wide focus and it will be hard to be on top of each but it's also great products and it will be exciting to try new things. Most of all, what is most interesting to me, is the change from B2B to B2C. Not only that I hope to be able to apply some learnings from my former work, but also I will be able to complement my professional experience.

You notice, I am still very happy to work for Google. It's a company that's getting big and still growing at a fast pace. Surely there are things that don't work perfectly, but still a lot better than at other companies. There are so many people you can learn from and even if you are sometimes competing with others, it never gets personal and it's always fun. That's how I like it, I enjoy to be competitive but never want to get too serious about it.

To wrap up: Recently, this blog has become a bit of a video blog and this is for two reasons: First, I don't think I am a very gifted writer and second is that it is my plan to make this blog a bit more multimedia. I also have some other, personal plans for the internet and I will realize them during the rest of the year. I will keep posting about my thoughts on the internet world and I really would love to see this blog become more interactive - so please use the comment function to start some discussions!

In the meanwhile, keep using iGoogle and YouTube!

Hasta pronto!

Also with a bit of delay, the photos from the terrific vacations in Austria in July. We were so fortunate with the weather, it were the near perfect holidays!



For all my pictures, please click here.

With a bit delay...the other AdWords testimonial that I produced earlier this year:



Thanks to the guys from Shootballs for their fantastic collaboration!

After more than a year, still gives me adrenaline kicks....one of the best Bonds ever.

Hard day, soft nappy ;-)