posts in the same catagory

I just wanted to show all the posts in a perticular catagory.
I used following code
—————————————-
<?php
$drafts=0;
$posts = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT ID, post_author, post_date, post_title, post_category, post_excerpt, post_name, post_status FROM $tableposts WHERE post_category='8' ORDER BY post_date DESC");
foreach ($posts as $post) {
if ($post->post_status == "publish") {
?>
<li class="even">" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link : <?php the_title_rss() ?>"><?php the_title(); ?>

</span>

<?php
} else { $drafts++;}
}
}
?>
—————————————-
But the above code shows only 4 posts from that catagory.
I want all the posts , how can I do it?
Thanks in advance !