Chrisco Spins

Google today announced a scheme that would provide free phone numbers and voice mail to the homeless in San Francisco. That’s great. Legitimate homeless people trying to get off the streets need this service. It will do wonders. But that’s not what I’m talking about today. (more…)

For those who don’t know, an embargo on a news story essentially means that respectable news outlets have jointly agreed not to tell a story, or to not tell a story until some future date. It’s the reason that journalists can tell you what the President will say at a speech a day before he says it. It’s also the reason you never see that President Bush went to Iraq until after he has already left. News people know he’s there, but they’ve agreed not to tell anyone else. Why? Because it could get someone killed. Maybe the president, maybe someone protecting the president.

It’s also the reason that no news outlet has told you that Britain’s Prince Harry was serving in Afghanistan. There was a fake story run out by the British Defence Ministry that he was training in Canada. Truth is, Harry had been in Afghanistan for months. A lot of journalists knew. I knew. But no one had leaked the information because it would paint a big target on Harry’s back for every Taliban fighter in Afghanistan to take aim. Until today. (more…)