They're the same moon, but they appear to be different shapes because of the way the Sun shines on it when it faces Earth.

We have lost the battle for hearts and minds
"If this is a war to win Arab hearts and minds, then the U.S. is in deep denial of the reality," said Hani Shukrallah, managing editor of the al-Ahram weekly, the English-language version of the al-Ahram newspaper in Cairo.

If this article, Osama must be laughing, is true, the United States has already lost the battle for "hearts and minds" in the Muslim world. According to the article,

Cairo's Al Azhar University – the most respected institution of religious learning in the Muslim world – has issued a fatwa, or religious edict, advising "all Muslims in the world to make 'jihad' against invading American forces". The statement warned that Islam itself is the direct target of the "new crusaders' invasion", aimed at humiliating and subjugating Arabs and controlling their resources. Given the university's historical and religious symbolism and weight, this ruling is likely to resonate with the faithful.

Prominent Muslim clerics and political leaders have echoed Al Azhar. Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, a reformist who, as the grand sheik of Al Azhar University, was one of the first clerics to condemn the September 11 attacks and to dismiss Osama bin Laden's jihadi credentials as fraudulent, ruled that attempts to resist an American attack are a "binding Islamic duty", and he asked Arab leaders to block any aggression against Iraq.

Imagine that the Pope said that Catholics had a moral duty to resist and even fight against Bush's War on Iraq. This is the closest equivalent in the Muslim world. Bush's ham handed policies and actions have managed to anger our last friends in the Middle East, Muslims who wanted to be pro-American. The secularist Saddam Hussein was the natural enemy of the Muslim clerics, but Bush's arrogant crusade has managed to drive the two together.

According to this AP article, "Mustafa Hamarneh of the Strategic Studies Institute at the University of Jordan … estimated opposition to war at nearly 100 percent in most Mideast societies. In January, he said, a poll showed only 2 percent of Jordanians thought King Abdullah II should assist the United States against Iraq. Now, he said, even that tiny fringe has evaporated. "Anyone who supports the American position is now in hiding," he said."

I spent two years living in the Middle East as a child. Now I would be both embarrassed and afraid to show my face there.

Way to go, Dubya. Now America is more secure?