My Sick Mind

LOS ANGELES – California is investigating several companies suspected of bilking churches nationwide of hundreds of thousands of dollars through fraudulent computer leasing schemes, authorities said Friday. State Attorney General Jerry Brown said as many as 30 Southern California churches may have been defrauded, with the same companies suspected of bilking other churches in as many as 10 other states. The companies offered churches free computer kiosks that could serve as electronic message boards and generate advertising revenue, Brown said. "Instead, churches were left with leases as high as $45,000 per year for what amounted to little more than desktop computers and printers housed in podium-sized wooden boxes," the Attorney General's office said in a statement. I'm fascinated by this story for a few reasons: First, a criminal (or criminals) figured out how to defraud perhaps the most trusting group of people on the planet - religious folk. They see the good i...

I'm confused over the title of Sarah Palin's new book, "Going Rogue." I don't know if she means rogue as a noun, adjective or verb. She's so mysterious! rogue NOUN: An unprincipled, deceitful, and unreliable person; a scoundrel or rascal. One who is playfully mischievous; a scamp. A wandering beggar; a vagrant. A vicious and solitary animal, especially an elephant that has separated itself from its herd. An organism, especially a plant, that shows an undesirable variation from a standard. ADJECTIVE: Vicious and solitary. Used of an animal, especially an elephant. Large, destructive, and anomalous or unpredictable: a rogue wave; a rogue tornado. Operating outside normal or desirable controls. VERB: rogued , rogu·ing , rogues VERB: tr. To defraud. To remove (diseased or abnormal specimens) from a group of plants of the same variety. VERB: intr. To remove diseased or abnormal plants.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – News photos of President Barack Obama bowing to Japan's emperor have incensed critics here, who said the US leader should stand tall when representing America overseas. Obama on Monday was in China, having wrapped up the Japan leg of his Asia trip two days earlier. But Washington's punditocracy was still weighing whether or not the US president had disgraced his country two days earlier by having taken a deep bow at the waist while meeting Japan's Emperor Akihito. Of course, the political media is divided. Conservatives are saying that the bow is a sign of subservience, and that President Obama is showing weakness by bowing at the hand of another world leader. That's precisely the type of jingoistic thinking that gets us into trouble around the world. Conservatives are looking for trouble and will scream at the first sign of something they don't understand. Technically: Bows are the traditional greeting in East Asia, particularly in Korea and...