In the Shadow of the Moon

Piracy Is A Crime!

War Will Cost 190bln In 2008

Iraq, Afghanistan Wars To Cost US
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will cost at least $190 billion in 2008, the Pentagon said on Wednesday, making it the most expensive year in the conflicts since they were launched by President George W. Bush.Defense Secretary Robert Gates asked Congress to approve the funding after Bush this month beat back demands from Democrats for a quick end to the Iraq war and said the U.S. presence there would go on after he leaves office in 2009.Gates said he hoped longer-term for a much smaller U.S. force than the 165,000 troops currently in Iraq. He added that "I don't see" any of the requested money being used for preparing a military attack on Iran, which Pentagon officials say is supplying weapons used against U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

Rather: Government Influencing Newsrooms

Rather: Government Influencing Newsrooms
Dan Rather said Thursday that the undue influence of the government and large corporations over newsrooms spurred his decision to file a $70 million lawsuit against CBS and its former parent company. "Somebody, sometime has got to take a stand and say democracy cannot survive, much less thrive with the level of big corporate and big government interference and intimidation in news," he said on CNN's "Larry King Live."

Benito Mussolini 1883-1943

Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.

You Will Regret Attacking Iran

Iran Warns West against Sanctions
Iran told Western powers on Saturday they would regret any attack against the country over its nuclear activities, and it rolled out a display of missiles and other military hardware that underscored the warning."Our message to the enemies is: Do not do it," the head of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, Mohammad Ali Jafari, said, speaking to reporters less than a week after France's foreign minister publicly raised the prospect of war. "They will regret it, as they are regretting it in Iraq," the commander added, speaking on the sidelines of an annual military parade just outside the capital.

Gene Screening

Geneticists Question Screening of Fetuses
Geneticists are questioning the use of screening for certain hereditary diseases after new research showed that parents may be aborting healthy fetuses that test positive for a potentially serious but often treatable condition among Ashkenazi Jews. The study, in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association, found that one-quarter of couples chose to terminate pregnancies after their fetus screened positive for Gaucher disease.

Arctic Belongs To Russia

Arctic Seabed 'Belongs To Russia'
A Russian expedition has proved that a ridge of mountains below the Arctic Ocean is part of Russia's continental shelf, government officials have said. The Natural Resources Ministry said tests on soil samples showed Russia was linked to the Lomonosov Ridge. Moscow has mounted several expeditions recently - and risked tensions with rivals in August by planting a flag in the seabed below the North Pole.

Canadian Dollar Reaches Parity

Canadian Dollar Trades Equal to U.S.

Canada's dollar traded equal to the U.S. currency for the first time in three decades, capping a five-year run on the back of booming demand for the nation's commodities. The Canadian dollar rose as high as $1.0008, before retreating to 99.87 U.S. cents at 4:16 p.m. in New York. It has soared 62 percent from a record low of 61.76 U.S. cents in 2002. The U.S. dollar fell as low as 99.93 Canadian cents today. The Canadian currency last closed above $1 on Nov. 25, 1976, when Pierre Trudeau was Canada's prime minister.

Billions Of Dollars

A Little Perspective on $87 Billion

On September 7th, 2003, President Bush announced on national television that he was going to ask the Congress to grant him an additional $87 billion dollars for the fiscal year, beginning October 1, 2004, to continue the fight on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since before then, to the end of September, 2007, the United States has dedicated approximately $315 billion dollars to the cause. But these amounts of money are an impossible for anyone to visualize. Let's have a look