On the use of "roil"

This week I have heard more than one newscast state that the Catholic church is "roiling" in scandal. I find this usage odd. I think the only other time I've seen this word is in cookbooks, as in "bring to a roiling boil." However, CNN uses it as such, "As the priest abuse scandal continues to roil Europe, a growing chorus of American Catholics pressed the Vatican to adopt the same reforms that the U.S. Catholic Church did in 2002..."

Being the savvy sort of bitch that I am, I checked it out on Merriam-Webster, but I didn't find it particularly informative. No etymology was listed. I would expect to hear that the Catholic church is, perhaps, embroiled, in a scandal, but why is it roiling? And even though embroil and roil seem like they share a morpheme, that doesn't really make sense because then you would have em+b+roil, which is clearly bullshit.

So what is up with roil? I still have no clue, but now I'm going to be watching the news for other instances of this weird-ass verb.

A continuing series on things I find to be stupid

Here is the description of a DVD from Netflix.

Lovers of the Arctic Circle

The moment they meet, 8-year-olds Ana and Otta know they have a special connection. After all, their names are both palindromes--spelled the same whether they're read forward or backward--and each has a parent looking for a mate. But when their families finaly meld, the two children, now young adults realize that they, too, may share a romantic destiny.

So what is wrong with this, you may ask (other than the suggestion of step-incest)? My problem is that there are apparently enough people out there who do not understand what a fucking palindrome is. Way to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

I know, it seems kind of stupid. but hey, I can rant about whatever I want on the internet.