What's the difference?

Because "I may not like you, but I don't want you dead."

That kind of thinking is what makes us humans better than gods, who tend to be rather vengeful.

But not as good as oxen. Which are really good when slathered and barbecued.

That's a good thing. At least oxen exist.

Before the light there was the sound. The sound permeated and filled the universe. That sound is "aum". It is the cosmic sound of the brahman.

BTW, don't dare ask. You know the answer. It is aum all the way. aum sweet aum all the way aum.

Which drives costs up, often quite radically.

When you build something for your own company, the goal is to get as good quality as feasible within time and budget constraints. Next year's salary depends on it.

When you build something as a bidding contractor for the government, the goal is to reduce your costs by as much as you can get away with and exceeding the budget with as much as you can get away with.
It doesn't matter if what you deliver is utter crud as long as you can get away with it. Politicians ensure that next year, you will be able to bid again, and if your bid is the lowest, get the contract. At which point you hire the cheapest unskilled labor and subcontractors that can do the job and no more. Quality, shmality.

Rather the opposite. WIth the "libtards" truly in charge, there would be no outsourcing and subcontracting, and NASA would hire people to build things themselves.

The republicans are the ones that demand outsourcing and paperwork that often equals half the total costs. Because heavens forbid if a government agency did something that private companies could do. That is considered anticompetitive theft by the right. Which is why NASA can't do much themselves anymore, and get less bang for the buck.

No wonder Open Tech is closing in Microsoft. It is the brilliant minds of Microsoft that conceived of putting " shut down " in the "start" menu. It was so bad it became good, and now even Microsoft is not able to get rid of the start button. Same way they might find it impossible to close their open tech.

I mean they have been repeatedly asking who let the dogs out. But I thought no one cared. Looks like there is a scientist who cared. Good for him or her.

Tendrils, not tentacles.
Enceladus, not enchilada.

NPR had a Ken Burns documentary on cancer, the emperor of maladies (or mother of all diseases or something similar).

It was a typical Ken Burns documentary, history etc. One salient part of the documentary was that cancer is not a single disease. It is a huge variety of diseases causing uncontrolled cell divisions. Further the cancer a patient has changes, evolves over time. Many promising drugs work very well initially but the cancer adapts to the drug.

Another salient part of it is the exponential increase in the cost of treatment. It has gone upwards of 100,000$ per patient per year in drugs. I am sure the researchers in Caltech know more about it than I do, but still, one wonders are they raising hopes needlessly and prematurely.

No, it doesn't. Only that we have evolved into a species that has increased the survival rates by co-existing. Those who don't do what's detrimental to society get rewarded by a higher rate of surviving offspring. No divinity needed.

"Thou shalt not bring crocodiles to a pool party" is a self-evident law.
"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image" is not.

It also means that what's self-evident changes over time, and that supposedly "eternal" laws are doomed or detrimental in the long run.
This might be a win for civil law, where laws are re-interpreted based on the context and circumstances, and a bane for common law, where rulings encase the law interpretation.
Perhaps one day, tame crocodiles provide swimming support for children, and the self-evident law is no longer self-evident.
The "thou shalt not commit adultery" needs revision as we progress into an age where sex has no higher risk of propagating diseases and producing children than we want it to have.

Those are not religious rules. They are what TJ described as "self-evident laws", and precede the religions who have adopted them.

And besides, we don't even have absolute laws against theft and murder - only theft and murder that's not ordered by the government.

Why is that the question?
Can't we just drop tax heaven for religious reasons across the board?
If religious organizations do charity work, they'd still be eligible for those branches being exempt under current laws.

I'm just waiting for a church to re-launch the old religious custom of temple prostitution. Can't be taxed, because it's religious... Right?

No. Your inability to think doesn't warrant a citation.

The call for papers have always been difficult to read pieces of work. You quickly glance at the deadlines to see if you can get one in, then the location to see if it is worth going there and pass on. Except for the more aged members of the academia who sit in panels and act as editors to pad up an useless CV no one cares about all these names in these calls.

So it is not as difficult to create spurious call for papers.