Weekend Reads 6/6/15

NASA and Verizon plan to monitor US drone network from phone towers

That $500,000 project is now underway at Nasa’s Ames Research Center in the heart of Silicon Valley. Nasa is planning the first tests of an air traffic control system for drones there this summer, with Verizon scheduled to introduce a concept for using cell coverage for data, navigation, surveillance and tracking of drones by 2017.

The ‘CharlieCharlieChallenge’ doesn’t lead to demonic possession — but it can nurture credulity and willful ignorance, which is worse

That sort of thing doesn’t put you in danger of dark supernatural forces, but it does put you in danger of swallowing ever more ridiculous notions and, before you know it, you may end up handing over your hard-earned money to fortune-tellers and astrologers or playing the lottery. Your capacity for rational thinking may eventually be so diminished that you end up responding to fundraising appeals from people like Tony Perkins and Ken Ham.

Why Christian Fundamentalism is Still Big Deal in U.S. Politics, and How It Got That Way

I discovered pretty quickly that, in and of themselves, megachurches were not nearly as interesting (or unique) as they seemed at first. What did interest me was a narrative tension that kept popping up in my research between local churches and a constructed “enemy,” variously described in terms of ecumenical federation, superchurch confederacy, a world church, and secular humanism.

Studies Show Paul Ryan Is Wrong and Obama Is Right: You Didn’t Build That

Conservatives and liberals build their differing beliefs about the sanctity of market income in part on empirical observations about the importance of hard work and skill versus luck. And a large and growing body of literature shows that this question can be resolved in liberals’ favor.