Heavy Metal Sunday lowers the flags

Y&T bassist Phil Kennemore has died of lung cancer at 57.

More at Y&T's homepage.

A little renewed faith in humanity

Egypt's Muslims attend Coptic Christmas mass, serving as "human shields" - Ahram Online

Egypt’s majority Muslim population stuck to its word Thursday night. What had been a promise of solidarity to the weary Coptic community, was honoured, when thousands of Muslims showed up at Coptic Christmas eve mass services in churches around the country and at candle light vigils held outside.

From the well-known to the unknown, Muslims had offered their bodies as “human shields” for last night’s mass, making a pledge to collectively fight the threat of Islamic militants and towards an Egypt free from sectarian strife.

“We either live together, or we die together,” was the sloganeering genius of Mohamed El-Sawy, a Muslim arts tycoon whose cultural centre distributed flyers at churches in Cairo Thursday night, and who has been credited with first floating the “human shield” idea.

The greatest defense against the fanatical minority is a unified majority standing together despite their differences. I'm an atheist, and pretty vocal about it. But if similar attacks were being carried out against churches in my area, you can bet I'd be standing outside one this Sunday protecting the rights of the worshipers inside.

Surf California!

Just had a small earthquake. Nothing solid from the USGS yet, but it looks like the preliminary data shows it somewhere on the Calvaras Fault east of San Jose, and somewhere between 3.0-3.9 on the Richter scale.

Nothing major, just a couple of bumps and a slight swaying motion.

Edit: Early magnitude is 4.1, with a depth of 7.1km deep The quake was widely felt. Those are still early numbers, and subject to change.

Here's the estimated epicenter