Friday miscellaneous (8/9)

It's been three weeks since I last had a Friday miscellaneous post. But I had a good excuse--everything was cleared off my schedule for the Virginia bar exam, which I took last week.

So now I get to rediscover what normal life is like. Which includes what happened in the world while I was absent.

It has been said that imitation is the best form of flattery. I think this "review" of Dan Brown's new book might show otherwise.

China keeps trying to redefine family relationships. First the one-child policy. Now laws mandating that children visit their parents.

And demonstrating once again that truth is stranger than fiction, here's a review for the History Channel's completely unbelievable show called World War II.

On a mores sober note, Christianity Today has an interesting article on Christians in Detroit:

Many Christians whom CT interviewed for this story explained their commitment to Detroit using an analogy from church history. (This story focuses on Christians in central Detroit; our online reporting will cover the work of Christians in Detroit's suburbs.) When the plague ravaged Rome in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, inciting an exodus of citizens, many Christians rushed in to care for the sick and dying, joining the many who were already there, refusing to leave.

In our hyper-security state, there's always the temptation to classify everything as terrorism.

This should interest all our politically minded readers: the five rules of politics.

And finally, a helpful driving lesson.