Fyodor doesn't know surfing from shinola, but this is pretty cool.

It looks even more terrifying here:

Dwight Arrington Meyers, Requiescat in pace.

From Roto-Reuters via Yahoo! News:

Rapper Heavy D is dead at 44

Rapper Heavy D, who rose to fame during the 1990s and scored hit singles such as "Now That We Found Love", died on Tuesday after collapsing outside his Beverly Hills home. He was 44.

Beverly Hills Police Lt. Mark Rosen said in a statement that the rapper, whose real name is Dwight Arrington Meyers, was found on a walkway at 11:25 a.m. PST outside his condominium. He conscious and talking, but having difficulty breathing. Paramedics were called and the singer was rushed to a nearby hospital.

"The individual ultimately died at the hospital," Rosen said. He added that there were no signs of foul play, and the death is believed to be medically related. An official cause is pending an autopsy by Los Angeles County coroners.

The singer's New York-based agent was not immediately available for comment.

Rotund rapper Heavy D was born in Jamaica and moved to Mt. Vernon, New York as a child. He enjoyed hip hop music as a kid and formed his first group, the Boyz, with high school friends who took the stage names DJ Eddie F, Trouble T-Roy and G-Wiz.

The group became Heavy D & The Boyz and released their first album in 1987, which included singles "Mr. Big Stuff" and "The Overweight Lover's in the House." Their breakout album came with 1989's "Big Tyme," which included the hits "Somebody for Me" and "We Got Our Own Thang."

The band met with tragedy in 1990 when Trouble T-Roy died in an accident. One year later, they scored their biggest hit with the album "Peaceful Journey" and single "Now That We Found Love," which reached the top five on R&B charts and crossed over to mainstream pop audiences.

A string of hits followed in the 1990s. The band sang the theme song for popular TV show "In Living Color," and Heavy D's 1999 CD "Heavy" became his seventh album to chart among the R&B top 10.

During those years, the rapper also began acting, working in small roles on film and TV before landing a role in high-school TV drama "Boston Public". His film work included parts in "The Cider House Rules," "Step Up" and "Big Trouble."

Musicians and fans mourned the rapper's death on Twitter.

"U will be missed Heavy D so many laughs we've shared but your Music is Timeless and will Always be Around 4ever Love u Heav...," posted rapper Missy Elliot.

"NCIS: Los Angeles" star LL Cool J also tweeted, "May GOD embrace the soul of Heavy D and Bless his family. I respected you Heavy and I always will."

R&B artist Ne-Yo, who was with Heavy D in London recently, said "Had I known it'd be the last time I'd see him, I woulda told him he was truly great. RIP..."

Heavy D performed at the 2011 BET Hip Hop Awards and at the Michael Jackson tribute show in Cardiff, Wales, both in October.

Fyodor gives JoePa the benefit of the doubt.

By all accounts, Coach Paterno is a good Catholic, a gentleman, and a good husband, father, and grandfather. Sadly, our times are so benighted as to render those things insufficient. [Did you hear him ask people to pray for Sandusky's victim's? Did you hear how he was then mocked for being a senile old fool? That tells you everything you need to know about the death of our civilization.]

There have always been and always will be men who choose evil to satisfy their disordered desires, whether they desire children or political power or money. There are also men who recognize their desires are disordered and by the grace of God refuse to succumb to their weakness by sinning against God and their fellow men. [That's right, kiddies. Homosexuals can go to heaven if they keep their pants on and repent and go to confession if they don't.]

Coach Paterno comes from a time when homosexuals knew their place. Today, all sorts of perversions are not only tolerated, they are encouraged and celebrated by politicians, Hollyweird, the media, and corporations that see green, not pink. It is quite possible Jerry Sandusky became a football coach just to indulge his vile desires. It is even more likely he created his Second Mile charity so he could more easily find "at risk" boys. You know, boys from poor and broken families who have nobody to protect them, nobody who cares about them...boys with no self esteem who probably won't fight back and probably won't tell anyone...

There used to be more checks on guys like Sandusky. They knew they were perverts who didn't belong in the company of decent folks. They stayed in the dank, dark shadows and mostly preyed on each other. In the bad old days, Sandusky probably would have spent his life masturbating while thinking about little boys - a pervert harming only himself.

But in our endarkened age, perversion is celebrated, as if it were the same as dying your hair purple because your favorite lead singer did it. [Yippee! Free will! No consequences!] No one is allowed to look askance at homosexuals and their self-destructive, other-destructive, public health threatening behavior, much less label them sinners who need to repent. [I know...quaint, right?]

The clowns who run Penn State have been trying to get rid of Joe Paterno for years and now they've succeeded. I hope they get taken out as well, because nobody did enough in this situation, and all are morally culpable.


From ABC via Yahoo! News:

Joe Paterno to retire

Legendary coach Joe Paterno said today that he is "absolutely devastated" by the sex abuse scandal that has rocked the school and announced that he will retire at the end of this season.

Paterno's retirement after 46 years is the latest casualty of the Penn State sex abuse scandal.

"I am absolutely devastated by the developments in this case," Paterno, 84, said in a statement today. "I grieve for the children and their families, and I pray for their comfort and relief."

"This is a tragedy. It is one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more," he said.

Paterno, who set a record this year as the winningest coach in top level college football ever, said it has been his intention to "serve the best interests of this university and the young men who have been entrusted to my care."

"That's why I have decided to announce my retirement effective at the end of this season. At this moment the Board of Trustees should not spend a single minute discussing my status. They have far more important matters to address. I want to make this as easy for them as I possibly can," Paterno said.

Paterno's exit will mark one of the biggest losses amid the sex abuse scandal that has shaken the university and seen two of its top officials and a former coach arrested and charged criminally.

Penn State president Graham Spanier's tenure is also uncertain, as the board of trustees is reportedly considering replacing him with former Pennsylvania governor and Department of Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge, according to ESPN.

Penn State representatives did not have an immediate comment.

Paterno's decision was made after he came under intense criticism following allegations of a school cover-up of sexual abuse of children by his longtime assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky. The incidents occurred on campus and were brought to the attention of Paterno and others, according to a grand jury presentment.

"I've lived for this place. I've lived for people like you guys and girls," Paterno said Tuesday night to fans who had gathered outside his home. "It's hard for me to say how much this means.

"As you know, the kids that were the victims. I think we ought to say a prayer for them," he said.

Sandusky was arrested Saturday and charged with molesting eight boys over 15 years, all of whom he met through his charitable organization, The Second Mile, a group home and outreach program for troubled boys.

Also arrested were athletic director Tim Curly and Vice President for Finance Gary Shultz, who are charged with not reporting the sexual abuse to police and lying to a grand jury under oath during the investigation.

The charges stem from a March 2002, incident in which graduate assistant coach Mike McQueary allegedly saw Sandusky sexually assaulting a boy in a locker room shower in the Penn State football department. McQueary told Paterno what he saw, and Paterno in turn told Curly and Shultz. None of the men reported the incident to police.

The Pennsylvania attorney general said Monday that Curly and Shultz were legally required to alert police to the incident, while Paterno was only legally obligated to tell his superiors. But Paterno has come under fire for failing what police called a "moral obligation" to alert them to the crimes.


Penn State Sex Scandal Grows

Pressure has also increased for university president Graham Spanier to step down for his role in the scandal. Curly and Shultz reported to Spanier that there had been an inappropriate incident with Sandusky and a child in the locker room showers, and that they had taken away Sandusky's privilege of bringing children onto campus. Spanier approved the decision and never reported the Sandusky incident to police.

Sandusky allegedly molested some of the children that he brought to the Penn State campus to meet the team members and work out at the facilities. He also brought them along on trips to away games and plied them with gifts, according to the presentment.

Two earlier sexual assaults on campus had been brought to the attention of employees and administrators, neither of which were reported to the police, according to the attorney general. In 1998 two boys reportedly came forward to say Sandusky had fondled them in the team's showers. Campus police had eavesdropped on a conversation between Sandusky and one boy's mother. That mother recently described the exchange to local reporter Sara Ganim with the Patriot News.

"He admitted to taking the shower, he admitted to some extent something bad happened," the woman, who was not identified, said. "He asked her for forgiveness. He said 'I probably won't get it from you,' and then he said 'I wish I were dead.'"

The mother said that she was proud of her son, who had the courage stand up to one of the giants of college football, according to Ganim. The boy's allegation led to the three-year grand jury investigation that resulted in sexual assault charges.

Sandusky was a coach and defensive coordinator for the team for 23 years before retiring in 1999. After his retirement, he continued to have unlimited access to the football department and campus, and continued to run football camps for boys at Penn State's campuses.

And now for a real sex scandal.

Pedophile State University? Pederasty State University? It's a tough call, kiddies, because it seems that Coach Jerry likes teens and preteens.

First of all, this isn't "child abuse". This is statutory rape of boys by a homosexual male predator.

If this sick shit is true, I hope Sandusky gets sent to a real prison where pedophiles are treated worse than cockroaches. The same goes for anyone who committed a crime to cover this up and protect the reputation of PSU...but I won't hold my breath.

I don't expect anyone to be a hero anymore. I don't expect anyone to jump into the shower, rescue the 10 year old, and leave the homosexual predator in a pool of his own blood. I don't even expect anyone to call the cops and report hearsay.

However, I do expect people in authority at a public institution to prohibit a "man" suspected of such perversion from using the university's facilities as soon as they become aware of the suspicions.


From Washington's other newspaper:

If Jerry Sandusky allegations are true...

If the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office is to be taken at its word about Jerry Sandusky, the Penn State program is now close to beyond redemption.

From Deadspin:

A Guide To The Child Sexual Abuse Charges Against Jerry Sandusky...

The Pennsylvania Attorney General's office has made public the entire 23-page grand jury report that is the basis for former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky's indictment. The report is a graphic, disturbing account of the litany of sex crimes that Sandusky is accused of committing against eight boys from the mid-1990s until the late-2000s. It also details the sequence of events that led to charges of perjury and failure to report suspected child abuse (the latter is a summary offense in Pennsylvania) against two Penn State administrators, including athletic director Tim Curley.

The allegations against Sandusky were handed down Friday, and he was arrested Saturday. Curley is expected to turn himself in Monday, according to the Associated Press.

Sandusky, 67, coached at Penn State for more than 30 years. He spent the final 23 of those years—the last of which was 1999—as the Nittany Lions' defensive coordinator. From 1977 until his retirement last year, Sandusky had also run a foster home in State College, Pa., for troubled children called The Second Mile. (The photo above is from a Sports Illustrated story published in 1999 and depicts children from The Second Mile program. We've blacked out the faces, since the grand jury report identifies one of them as a victim of Sandusky.) The Second Mile, according to the report, "gave [Sandusky] access to hundreds of boys, many of whom were vulnerable due to their social situations." After his retirement from coaching, Sandusky also still had full access to Penn State's football facilities.

What follows is a summary of the grand jury's report.

• Sandusky's victims all reported a wide array of sexual abuse allegations. Sandusky, who is married, met many of them through The Second Mile. Many spent the night at his home. He brought them to Philadelphia Eagles games, plus Penn State practices, tailgate parties, and home games. One of the victims traveled to the 1998 Outback Bowl and the 1999 Alamo Bowl as a member of Sandusky's family's party. That same victim often stayed with Sandusky at a State College-area hotel on the night before home games. He also frequently dined with the coaching staff and accompanied Sandusky to numerous charity outings. Sandusky had lavished this victim with a variety of gifts. According to the report, "Sandusky even guaranteed [this victim] he could be a walk-on player at Penn State. [The victim] was in a video about linebackers that featured Sandusky, and he appeared with him in a photo accompanying an article about Sandusky in Sports Illustrated." Sandusky later tried to bribe this victim with cigarettes and marijuana after this victim began refusing his advances.

• Also: "[This victim] remembers Sandusky being emotionally upset after having a meeting with Joe Paterno in which Paterno told Sandusky he would not be the next head coach at Penn State and which preceded Sandusky's retirement. Sandusky told the victim not to tell anyone about the meeting. That meeting occurred in May 1999."

• Sandusky was investigated by university police in 1998 after a mother reported to them that her 11-year-old son had showered with Sandusky. A university police detective and a municipal police detective later eavesdropped on a conversation between the mother and Sandusky in which Sandusky answered "I don't know ... maybe" when the mother asked him if he had touched her son inappropriately. He also admitted he had showered with the boy to an investigator with the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare. The university police detective advised Sandusky not to shower with a child again, and Sandusky promised he would not. No charges were filed.

• In March 2002, a graduate assistant stumbled upon Sandusky and a boy showering together at Penn State's football facility. The grand jury report included the horrifying details of what that graduate assistant saw and heard:

As the graduate assistant entered the locker room doors, he was surprised to find the lights and the showers on. He then heard rhythmic, slapping sounds. He believed the sounds to be those of sexual activity. As the graduate assistant put his sneakers in his locker, he looked in the shower. He saw a naked boy ... whose age he estimated to be ten years old, with his hands up against the wall, being subjected to anal intercourse by a naked Sandusky. The graduate assistant was shocked but noticed that both [the victim] and Sandusky saw him. The graduate assistant left immediately, distraught.

• The graduate assistant informed Joe Paterno the next day, and Paterno told Curley the day after that. About a week and a half after that, the graduate assistant met with Curley and Gary Schultz, Penn State's Vice President for Finance and Business and the other school administrator to be charged with perjury and failure to report an allegation. The graduate assistant described what he saw as being of a "sexual nature." Paterno said the graduate assistant had told him Sandusky's actions were "disturbing" and "inappropriate." Curley acknowledged to the grand jury that he was told Sandusky's actions were "inappropriate" and that they had made the graduate assistant "uncomfortable"; however, Curley denied under oath that he was told Sandusky had done anything sexual. Schultz conceded under oath that the graduate assistant had told him of inappropriate sexual conduct. But he also testified that the allegations were "not that serious" and that he and Curley were unaware any crime had taken place.

• It is worth noting here what Paterno did upon hearing a first-hand story from a "very upset" graduate assistant, in the words of the report, about "Jerry Sandusky ... fondling or doing something of a sexual nature to a young boy": Paterno took no action except to tell his athletic director.

• Curley and Schultz did tell Penn State president Graham Spanier what they had heard, but Spanier told the grand jury that Curley and Schultz had described Sandusky's actions to him as mere "horsing around in the shower." Spanier also denied any knowledge of the 1998 investigation of Sandusky by university police. Spanier issued a statement Saturday saying Curley and Schultz had his "unconditional support."

• Schultz's duties included oversight of the university police. He testified that he was aware of the 1998 incident and acknowledged similarities between it and the 2002 allegations. But according to the grand jury report, Schultz "never sought or reviewed a police report on the 1998 incident and never attempted to learn the identity of the child in the shower in 2002. No one from the university did so. Schultz did not ask the graduate assistant for specifics. No one ever did. Schultz expressed surprise upon learning that the 1998 investigation by University Police produced a lengthy police report. Schultz said there was never any discussion between himself and Curley about turning the 2002 incident over to any police agency." The graduate assistant was also never questioned by police.

• Sandusky was told he could no longer bring children into Penn State's football facility in light of the 2002 incident, and the executive director of The Second Mile was made aware of that fact, in addition to the incident. Schultz testified that Spanier had approved this decision. Schultz also said he believed he and Curley had informed a "child protection agency" about the 2002 incident. Curley also admitted "the ban on bringing children to the campus was unenforceable," in the words of the report.

• Records show that the 2002 incident was never reported to the Department of Public Welfare, Children and Youth Services, or the university police, in violation of state law.

• The Patriot-News of Harrisburg reported Saturday that a source close to the investigation said Paterno would not be charged and that he would testify against Sandusky at trial.

• One of Sandusky's victims told the grand jury Sandusky had brought him to Penn State's preseason practices in 2007—a full five years after Paterno was made aware of sexual activity involving Sandusky and another boy.

The entire grand jury report can be seen at Deadspin.

The top 10 reasons why losers, dopes, dolts, commies, nazis, and racists hate [read FEAR] Herman Cain.

10. Mr. Cain is a real mensch.
9. Mr. Cain has the "slave blood" in his veins Benito Insane Hussseiner only wishes he had.
8. Mr. Cain has an undergraduate degree in mathematics, not Commie-Unity Organizing.
7. Mr. Cain has a Master's Degree in computer science, not Commie-Unity Organizing.
6. Mr. Cain has had several real jobs and was very successful at all of them.
5. Mr. Cain has never stolen a dime of anyones's money and bought votes with it.
4. Mr. Cain's mom worked as a maid and his dad worked as a janitor.
3. Mr. Cain knows it's okay for you to believe in God and own guns.
2. One compound word: Anti-Romney!

And the Number 1 reason why losers, dopes, dolts, commies, nazis, and racists hate [read FEAR] Herman Cain is...

Mr. Cain is not REPEAT NOT a politician.

Wherein Fyodor exposes GOP presidential hopeful Herman Cain as an alien from outer space.

I hereby accuse alleged human being "Herman Cain" of being a member of a superior race of aliens from some other planet [Lovetron, perhaps?].

"Mr. Cain" has an undergraduate degree in mathematics and a Master's Degree in computer science. He has also been a wildly successful businessman and has amassed a great personal fortune through hard work, perseverance and cleverness.

As all melanin-rich human kiddies are constantly taught by their moral and intellectual superiors, these things are impossible for them and their only hope is sports or the entertainment industry.

Joe Frazier, Requiescat in pace.

The greatest heavyweight champ from an era of great heavyweight champs has left us.

Mr. Frazier was always a class act, even when suffering from the most vile of racial slurs hurled at him by America's third-favorite Professional Black Male, Cassius "Muhammad Ali" Clay.

From Time via Yahoo! News:

Joe Frazier, Former Heavyweight Boxing Champ, Dies at 67

Joe Frazier, the former heavyweight boxing champ who died of liver cancer on Nov. 7 at 67, won't go down in history as the greatest fighter of all time. Muhammad Ali, the man with whom Frazier sparred so epically, both inside and outside the ropes, owns that distinction. Frazier's role in his rival's outsize life will always define his own legacy: it's impossible to mention "Smokin' Joe" without summoning Ali a few seconds later.

But if Ali defined Frazier, well, Frazier made Ali too. If not for Frazier's greatness — his left hook crumbled opponents, and he defended his heavyweight title four times from 1970 to '73 — Ali could never have been called the Greatest. And though the annals of boxing won't remember him as the better fighter, at times Frazier could be the bigger man.(See photos of Frazier's life.)

Ali feared Frazier, and that insecurity brought out the worst in him. During the height of their rivalry in the racially charged post-civil-rights 1970s, Ali belittled Frazier whenever he could. He'd call Frazier an "Uncle Tom," "ignorant," "the Gorilla." In black communities, Ali characterized Frazier as the white man's champ. "I'm not just fightin' one man," Ali bellowed before their first bout, in 1971, the "Fight of the Century" at New York City's Madison Square Garden. "I'm fightin' a lot of men, showin' a lot of 'em here is one man they couldn't conquer. My mission is to bring freedom to 30 million black people. I'll win this fight because I've got a cause. Frazier has no cause. He's in it for the money alone." (Frazier won the bout in a 15-round decision.)

Frazier, who was inelegant, introspective and prone to mood swings that he called the slouchies, rarely rose to Ali's bait. "I don't want to be no more than no more than what I am," he once said. Friends wondered whether Frazier paid any mind to the social injustices that Ali harped on. Ali relished his role as cultural provocateur; his preaching, as much as his pugilism, is why he is revered. Still, Ali never had reason to use Frazier as a comic foil, especially since the shots he took were far from funny. "Ali can't touch me," Frazier said, "in ability or decency."

Joe Frazier grew up in Beaufort, S.C., where he was raised in a four-room shack on a farm, the second youngest of 13 children. He threw his first punches against a feed bag stuffed with rags, hung from an oak tree. Frazier told his siblings he'd be the next Joe Louis. "I'd hit that heavy bag for an hour at a time," he once said. "I'd wrap my hands with a necktie of my Daddy's, or a stocking of my Momma's or sister's, and get to it." At school, kids would give him a quarter or a sandwich to walk with them as a repellent against bullies.(See the top 10 boxing matches of all time.)

Ali portrayed Frazier as some sort of puppet of the white man, but in truth, Jim Crow sent Frazier fleeing from South Carolina. "Son," Frazier's mother told him, "if y'all can't get along with the white man in the South, y'all better leave home." A teenage Frazier hitchhiked to Charleston and, as he said, "caught the first thing smokin' that was goin' north." Frazier settled in Philadelphia, where he took a job as a butcher in a kosher slaughterhouse. He caught the eye of a fight manager at a local Police Athletic League, and lost only one of his amateur fights, to Buster Mathis at the trials for the 1964 Olympics. Mathis got hurt, however, and the trip to the Tokyo Games fell to Frazier. Despite fighting his final match with a broken thumb, Frazier came home with the heavyweight gold.

The medal didn't make Frazier rich: after Tokyo, he took a job as a janitor in a North Philadelphia Baptist church. But he soon found some financial backing and turned pro in 1965. With Ali stripped of his boxing license because of his refusal to serve in Vietnam, Frazier soared through the heavyweight ranks and won the world title in 1970. But that same year, Ali returned to the ring; their first face-off — "the Fight of the Century" — came on March 8, 1971.

TIME wrote before the fight: "No amount of bluster is likely to deter Smokin' Joe, a raging, bobbing, weaving, rolling swarmer who moves in one basic direction-right at his opponent's gut. A kind of motorized Marciano, he works his short arms like pistons, pumping away with such mechanical precision that he consistently throws between 54 and 58 punches each round. He works almost exclusively inside, crouching and always moving in to slam the body. When the pummeling begins to slow his opponent, when the guard drops to protect the stomach, Frazier tosses a murderous left hook to the head. His coup de grâce is lethal. 'Getting hit by Joe,' says Light Heavyweight Ray Anderson, one of Frazier's sparring partners, 'is like getting run over by a bus.' Some of his victims, like Light Heavyweight Champion Bob Foster, literally have no recollection of what hit them." (See TIME's Thrilla in Manila coverage.)

In typically understated fashion, Ali labeled the fight "the biggest sporting event in the history of the whole planet earth." It was the first time two undefeated heavyweight champs had met for the title. Ed Sullivan, Alan Shepard, Bill Cosby, Michael Caine, Hubert Humphrey and Burt Bacharach were among the luminaries at ringside. Frank Sinatra took pictures for LIFE magazine. The fight lived up to the billing. Frazier, the body puncher, came out swinging for Ali's head. Ali, the ring dancer, tried matching Frazier hook-for-hook. Ali turned up the showmanship: he invited Frazier to swing at his gut, and when Frazier connected, he'd shake his head, as if a little kid were punching him. "Nooo contest," Ali crowed at one point.

In the 11th round, however, Frazier pummeled Ali with two left hooks. Ali staggered and barely survived the round. In the 15th and final stanza, Frazier landed one more roundhouse left, sending Ali to the canvas. He got back up, but by that point it was finished: Frazier won the fight on a unanimous decision.

It was the only time he beat Ali. Frazier lost his championship belt to George Foreman, who knocked Frazier down six times before the ref stopped their 1973 title fight in the second round ("Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!" Howard Cosell memorably cried.) The next year, Ali got his rematch with Frazier, and won it in a decision to set up their rubber match, in Manila, on Oct. 1, 1975. The "Thrilla in Manila," took place in 100°F heat before an estimated 700 million closed-circuit and television viewers in some 65 countries. It became the duo's most famous brawl. Frazier refused to wear down, but by the 14th round, Ali was pounding him at will. Frazier's eyes were almost swollen shut. Frazier's trainer, Eddie Futch, threw in the towel at the end of the round. "I want him, boss," Frazier screamed. Futch refused. "It's all over," Futch replied. "No one will forget what you did here today." He was right. Afterward, Ali said he had never felt closer to death. He described Frazier as "the greatest fighter of all time, next to me."

Frazier lost to Foreman one more time, in 1976, and attempted an early 1980s comeback, thankfully short-lived. He started a musical act, Smokin' Joe and the Knockouts; that didn't last long either. He opened up a gym in North Philadelphia, and like too many ex-fighters he fell on hard times. "Over the years, Frazier has lost a fortune through a combination of his own generosity and naïveté," read a 2006 profile in the New York Times, "his carousing, failed business opportunities and deep hatred for his former chief boxing rival, Muhammad Ali."

After their fighting days, Frazier matched Ali's past unseemliness with some hurtful remarks of his own. "Look at him now," Frazier told writer Thomas Hauser for his 1992 book on Ali. "He's damaged goods. I know it; you know it. Everyone knows it ... He was always making fun of me. I'm the dummy; I'm the one getting hit in the head. Tell me now, him or me: Which one talks worse now?" In 1996, after Ali lit the Olympic torch at the Atlanta Games, Frazier told a group of reporters, "I wish Ali had fallen into [the flame]. If I had the chance, I'd have pushed him in." Such comments did not endear Frazier to any corporate sponsors.

But in recent years, Frazier's bitterness faded. "Nobody has anything but good things to say about Muhammad now," Frazier told SI.com in 2009. "I'd do anything he needed for me to help." A few years ago, the pair conducted a photo shoot together at Frazier's gym, which is now shuttered. The day before Frazier's death, Ali said in a statement: "My family and I are keeping Joe and his family in our daily prayers. Joe has a lot of friends pulling for him, and I'm one of them."

Frazier lost this last fight. But in so many others, he thrilled the world.

See TIME's Ali and Frazier cover.

When is a person not a person?

You see, kiddies, "life begins at conception" is controversial because there is no "scientific consensus" about it [unlike GLOBAL WARMING/NUCLEAR WINTER/AMORPHOUS CLIMATE CHANGE]. As all graduates of the government indoctrination centers know, there's a 20% chance a pregnant human female will give birth to an armadillo or a muppet baby.

From AP via Yahoo! News:

Controversial 'personhood' push defeated

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Abortion opponents say they're still pursuing life-at-fertilization ballot initiatives in six other states after Bible Belt voters in Mississippi defeated one Tuesday.

The "personhood" proposal was intended to prompt a legal challenge aimed at overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that established a legal right to abortion.

Keith Mason is co-founder of Personhood USA, which pushed the Mississippi measure. The Colorado-based group is trying to put initiatives on 2012 ballots in Florida, Montana, Ohio, Oregon, Nevada and California. Voters in Colorado rejected similar proposals in 2008 and 2010.

Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said the initiatives represent an "extreme, dangerous and direct assault" on abortion rights.

Mason told The Associated Press that Personhood USA might revive efforts for another ballot initiative in Mississippi.

Speaking of the failure in Mississippi on Tuesday, Mason said, "it's not because the people are not pro-life. It's because Planned Parenthood put a lot of misconceptions and lies in front of folks and created a lot of confusion."

Planned Parenthood Federation of America said in a statement: "Mississippi voters rejected the so-called 'personhood' amendment because they understood it is government gone too far, and would have allowed government to have control over personal decisions that should be left up to a woman, her family, her doctor and her faith, including keeping a woman with a life-threatening pregnancy from getting the care she needs, and criminalizing everything from abortion to common forms of birth control such as the pill and the IUD."

The so-called "personhood" initiative was rejected by more than 55 percent of Mississippi voters, falling far short of the threshold needed for it to be enacted.

The measure divided the medical and religious communities and caused some of the most ardent abortion opponents, including Republican Gov. Haley Barbour, to waver with their support.

Opponents said the measure would have made birth control, such as the morning-after pill or the intrauterine device, illegal. More specifically, the ballot measure called for abortion to be prohibited "from the moment of fertilization" — wording that opponents suggested would have deterred physicians from performing in vitro fertilization because they would fear criminal charges if an embryo doesn't survive.

Opponents also said supporters were trying to impose their religious beliefs on others by forcing women to carry unwanted pregnancies, including those caused by rape or incest.

Amy Brunson voted against the measure, in part because she has been raped. She also has friends and family that had children through in vitro fertilization and she was worried this would end that process.

"The lines are so unclear on what may or may not happen. I think there are circumstances beyond everybody's control that can't be regulated through an amendment," said Brunson, a 36-year-old dog trainer and theater production assistant from Jackson.

Buddy Hairston, 39, took his 8-year-old triplets to a precinct outside Jackson to hold signs supporting the initiative.

"Unborn children are being killed on a daily basis in our state and country, and it's urgent that we protect them," said Hairston, a forestry consultant.

Mississippi already has tough abortion regulations and only one clinic where the procedures are performed, making it a fitting venue for a national movement to get abortion bans into state constitutions.

The state's largest Christian denomination, the Mississippi Baptist Convention, backed the proposal through its lobbying arm, the Christian Action Commission.

"We mourn with heaven tonight over the loss of Initiative 26, which would have provided the hope of life for thousands of God's unborn babies in Mississippi," said the commission's director, the Rev. Jimmy Porter. "Instead the unborn in Mississippi will continue to be led down on a path of destruction to horrible deaths both inside their mothers and in laboratories."

The bishops of the Episcopal Diocese of Mississippi and the General Conference of the United Methodist Church opposed the initiative.

Bishop Joseph Latino of the Catholic Diocese of Jackson, a church traditionally against abortion, issued a statement neither supporting nor opposing the initiative. The Mississippi State Medical Association took a similar step, while other medical groups opposed it.