This past May, high school student Jeremy Marks filmed a female campus cop wrestle with an uncooperative student while a crowd of rowdy youths looked on. Marks allegedly called out “Kick her ass!” during the incident. Shortly afterwords, he was arrested for “attempted lynching” and he’s been stuck in jail ever since, because his parents couldn’t afford the $155,000 bail.

That sounded like both an extreme punishment and a lousy Christmas to Google engineer Neil Fraser. He posted a bail fee of $50,000, made a contribution to Marks’ legal expenses, and worked with the system to help get Marks home in time for Christmas. Jeremy Marks was released last week, and will be spending the holidays with some very relieved parents.

The LA Weekly has been following the case closely. More about the Google employee here, and video of the incident here.

While everyone and his editor is getting canned, it looks as though search engine Google is doing just fine. According to Media Post’s Search Insider, “Google racked up an 18% increase in paid clicks over Q3 2007, a 31% increase in revenue, and showed evidence that its costs are being reined in.”

Must be nice.

Driven: Bob Pool is surprised to learn that there are cab drivers in Burbank with hybrid cars. We are surprised to learn that there are cab drivers in Burbank.

Google Monde? The European Union is reviewing the Yahoo-Google deal for antitrust implications there, “adding to recent public criticism from major U.S. advertisers and a worldwide association of newspapers.” (photo stolen from here.)

Forget TV. What’s On IMDB: Dawn Chmielewski hips us to the fact that IMDB is now in the broadcast business. Kinda. The site “started offering more than 6,000 feature films and television episodes for free viewing online.”

50 Cent: Not the rapper, the price tag. In the face of cuts and other awful things, Steve Lopez reminds readers what they’re getting for 50 cents: “Although that money doesn’t buy you the same-size staff that was in place when I arrived seven years ago, those two quarters still buy you the biggest, best, most ambitious news-gathering operation west of the Hudson River.”

In Demand: Want to know how to make money off of articles, images and videos? Richard Rosenblatt, a guy you’ve probably never heard of, figured it out. “With blinding speed and little notice, Rosenblatt’s 2-year-old Demand Media Inc. has become one of the largest buyers of articles and video clips for the Web. It expects revenue of nearly $200 million this year and, more surprisingly, a healthy profit.”

YouTube, YouWin!: From Jessica Guynn: “Google said late Monday that it has reached a deal with Viacom to protect the privacy of tens of millions of YouTube viewers. A judge had ordered Google, YouTube’s corporate parent, to hand over user data as part of the $1-billion copyright infringement case brought by Viacom.”

We’re used to making jokes about the outside people who come into newsrooms and mess them all up with their complete lack of understanding about what makes a newspaper a newspaper.

But we’re having a hard time laughing at the latest lunatic musings from Tribune Co. Chief Innovation Officer Lee Abrams:

Then there’s possibly a painful reality that maybe TV stations don’t want to associate with what they may think is a tired declining brand. They’d rather be in bed with Google. I’ll be real honest here — at XM, we were approached by many newspaper brands for news channels, but the thinking was that we’d be better off with a more contemporary brand to associate with. (We DID have a short lived USA Today Channel). Our thinking back then was that newspapers had the content, but generally had a dated image.The solution: Well, that’s why I am SO obsessed with rethinking and redesigning newspapers. Not only to increase circulation and grow again … but to turn around the tired image into a very modern and vibrant one. A VERY healthy and alive local paper can drive the news on SO many platforms. Invincible. A modern newspaper brand on a modern TV station — Huge. That healthy and vibrant paper will drive EVERYthing.

Abrams wants to capitalize on the content of newspapers by turning them into content producers for TV and radio? Well, that certainly is innovative.

Veronique de Turenne reminds us that the Huntington is hosting a Jack Smith retrospective, Smith on Wry, featuring the papers of L.A.’s beloved columnist.

Idle questions: In the future, will retrospectives be reduced to Google search terms and YouTube categories?

Oh those wacky guys at Google– Gmail custom time stamps.

How does it work?

Gmail utilizes an e-flux capacitor to resolve issues of causality

But they did get a Wikipedia war out of the whole thing.

Hot Network Mess: Reporter Greg Braxton describes how far BET has to go to undo its image as a bad-taste maker in the black community.

What’s It Worth? Columnist Patrick Goldstein has a great piece today about the randomness of the price of anything these days (which you can read, for free, online). Apparently the writers’ strike has Goldstein in an economic existential crisis. It makes for a good read (again, for free).

Do You Yahoo? The company that isn’t Google is busy plotting for world domination in its Santa Monica office. And Scott Moore, a senior vice president who is now in charge of all Southern California-based projects, is apparently the guy who is going to lead the attack. Except … wasn’t that what Lloyd Braun was supposed to do?

Fighting Fire With Fire: Police shoot and kill an arson suspect near Cal State San Bernardino. Another suspect was arrested.

From The Blogs: We’re going to sound like a broken record, but the LAT breaking news blog is fascinating to read — with everything from FBI updates on arson investigations to little vignettes about people fighting for their homes, it’s impressive work.

Microsoft Wins. Now What? Promising an investment of $240 million in Facebook, Microsoft Corp. bested Google for the right to waste money on the social networking site. Congratulations.

Mark Jen, the most famous ex-Googlite, ex-Plaxo as of a few months ago, is getting married to Rose Kwok. Mark is part of the Lunch 2.0 conspiracy. (The next LA one is at Yellowbot.com in Burbank on October 12th.)

They’re blogging in tandem at RoseandSnail.

Jen, while not the first blogger to be fired for blogging, got canned by “forward thinking” Google for some specious reason, which led to his writing a company blogging policy at Plaxo.

While we wish the couple all the best, FBLA hopes they write a blogging pre-nup. Couldn’t hurt.