They went THAT far!?

I found this funny from an article talking about how United States soccer fans have been calling for coach Bob Bradley's head for a recent run of poor results.

And a group of noisy cyberspace fans began clamoring for his scalp, even starting a Facebook page demanding his firing.

You hear that? They even started a Facebook page! That takes almost ten minutes to do!

Right now, 1,570 people have devoted chunks of their day to join the group.

Auto-tune news 5

If you haven't seen any of the "auto-tune the news" videos on YouTube, you need to change that right now:

Who is the sentimental favorite at the U.S. Open?

There are a number of compelling storylines in the U.S. Open -- besides the rain and constant delays that pushed the final round back to Monday.

Currently tied for the lead at 7 under par is virtual unknown Ricky Barnes. Barnes has never won an event on the PGA Tour. Or come in the top-three. Or top-ten. The 28 year old has made just 6 of 12 cuts this year -- but he has a very good chance of winning a major. Yes, the 519th ranked guy in the world might be the U.S. Open champion at this time tomorrow.

Barnes is tied with Lucas Glover, a guy who has won exactly one event on the PGA Tour. ESPN golf writer Jason Sobel tells us how that victory happened back in 2005:

In fact, his only career PGA Tour victory came four years ago, when on his last two holes he drained a 50-foot birdie putt from the fringe and knocked in a 40-foot bunker shot. If he can replicate that feat on Monday, he'll be a hero, but those dramatics are a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence.

Five strokes back, at 2 under par and tied for third, there are more compelling stories.

Phil Mickelson's wife was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. Mickelson left the tour to be with his wife. Mickelson's wife had been to the previous 61 major events (that's fifteen years worth and change), but she is missing this U.S. Open.

Tied with Mickelson and two others is David Duval. Duval was once one of the top golfers in the world, with 13 PGA Tour wins to his credit, including the 2001 U.S. Open. But now, he is ranked 882nd in the world, and hasn't won an event since that U.S. Open eight years ago.

Oh, and another two strokes back, at even par, is that guy named Tiger Woods. Of course, he's seven shots back from the leaders, and has already played seven holes, so it would take an epic collapse and an epic final eleven holes for Tiger Woods to win.

So, knowing all of this, who are you cheering for?

The costs of illegally downloading songs

From the New Yorker:

Direct from the land of the crazy verdicts: a Minnesota woman who illegally shared two dozen songs online has been ordered to pay Universal Music Group and other record labels $1.92 million, according to this article, which contains a senselessly large picture of Slash. As the article points out, this verdict works out to $80,000 per song.

How much would you owe?

Steve Jobs liver joke

From Chumworth, a writer for David Letterman and Jimmy Kimmel:

Steve Jobs had a liver transplant two months ago. His doctor's say he's doing really well liver 2.0.

Profiling Rafa Nadal

Rafael Nadal is the only human being on the planet who can consistently play at the same level as Roger Federer, let alone beat him.

Nadal was forced to withdrew from Wimbledon because of tendinitis in his knee. But this huge profile from the New York Times magazine is still interesting nonetheless.

Federer is elegant and fluid and cerebral, so that his best tennis looks effortless even when he is making shots that ought to be physically impossible. Nadal is muscled-up and explosive and relentless, so that his best tennis looks not like a gift from heaven but instead like the product of ferocious will. His victories and his taped-up knees and his years as a very good No. 2 in the world all resonate together, as though the rewards and the wages of individual effort had been animated in a single human being: if you hurl yourself at a particular goal furiously enough and long enough you may tear your body up in the process, but maybe you can get there after all. People have loved watching Nadal create trouble inside Federer’s head. This is how they characterize it in tennis, that Nadal makes Federer crazy, that Nadal’s refusal over and over to be beaten by Federer in Paris was the one problem that Federer — who usually has uncanny on-court telepathy about what his opponent plans for three shots hence and exactly how to wreck it — was unable to figure out.

It is impossible to separate Nadal from Federer; it's Ali-Frazier if no one were even near the same athletic level as Ali or Frazier for a huge chunk of their careers.

In all of hte tennis history books (and I assume there are many and will be many more), the past few years will be referred to as the Nadal/Federer era.

SportsCenter Top 10 play of the week

Never disappointing: