European governments frequently accuse Russia of playing pipeline politics with its energy supplies, but a group of enterprising smugglers found a way to keep a different kind of liquid fuel flowing into Eastern Europe.

Estonian authorities recently discovered a two-kilometer underwater pipeline that was set up to pump cheap Russian vodka under a reservoir into Estonia where it could be sold at a markup without export tarrifs. The smugglers managed to pump 6,200 liters of the stuff under the border before they were shut down.

With this supply cut off, Western diplomats will, no doubt, soon be dispatched to strong-arm Caucasian states into an amibitious trans-Caspian project to pump Uzbek vodka into southern Europe.

Last night, you may have noticed something odd in the background of John McCain's acceptance speech. Roughly a minute into the Arizona senator's remarks, a fancy-looking building with a nicely groomed lawn popped up on the jumbo screen behind him.

I remember thinking: What's that? His spread in Sedona? Why would they possibly want to show that? Turns out, it was a photograph of the Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood, California:

Whoops. An image that was probably meant to underscore McCain's support for veterans has become a hilarious blooper that will no doubt end up as fodder for late-night talk show hosts and the Democratic Party.

Walter Reed Middle School's principal, Donna Tobin, posted the following statement Friday on the school's official blog:

It has been brought to the school’s attention that a picture of the front of our school, Walter Reed Middle School, was used as a backdrop at the Republican National Convention. Permission to use the front of our school for the Republican National Convention was not given by our school nor is the use of our school’s picture an endorsement of any political party or view.

What the McCain team likely meant to show was D.C.'s Walter Reed Army Medical Center, which treats wounded soldiers and was the subject of a damning Washington Post investigation in 2007.

The most amazing part about this debacle is that whatever poor intern or tech dude got the wrong photo had at least three plausible chances to get it right. Below is a shot of Walter Reed General Hospital on the WRAMC campus on Georgia Avenue:

Walter Reed Society

That building in the background is a newer facility, the Heaton Pavilion:

EMILIE SOMMER/AFP/Getty Images

And here's the Walter Reed National Military Center, a new building in Bethesda, Md., that President Bush inaugurated on July 3:

Alex Wong/Getty Images

I once went to a party in college where the hosts had hung their furniture upside-down from the ceiling. But this takes the cake:

Sean Gallup/Getty Images

The house, in the town of Trassenheide on Germany's Baltic Sea island of Usedom, is appropriately named "The World Stands on its Head." It opens today as a tourist attraction.

Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Here's what it looks like inside:

Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Sean Gallup/Getty Images

The only thing that's right-side up? The stairs.

Jonathan Kolieb complains this morning that "many television hosts, commentators, even Congresspeople seem to have a problem correctly enunciating the name of the country America occupies" -- Iraq.

He's got a point. It's pronounced roughly like ee-Rahk, not eye-Rack. You'd think that by now, most folks would have gotten that right. Ditto for the president of Russia, whose name still seems to confuse the entire political class in Washington.

I've noticed, too, that Barack Obama gets himself into trouble when he correctly says "Pah-ki-stan," but puts too long an "ee" sound on "Taliban" and then says "Afghanistan" in the normal American way.

Still, one can go too far with the whole proper pronunciation thing. "Al Qaeda," for instance, can come across as incredibly pretentious when pronounced properly, with the infamous "ayn" sound that trips up even the most diligent students of Arabic (ayn is also the first letter in the word "Iraq"). It's just not practical when speaking English to bust out with what sounds to the untrained ear like a camel with indigestion. Plus, any American who walks around saying "Pah-Ree" is liable to get punched in the face.

And let's not even get into Georgian...

Be sure to check out the National Aquatics Center and more of China's Olympic architecture rendered in Lego at the Hong Kong Lego blog.

(Hat tip: Gizmodo)

ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP/Getty Images

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi got Italy's lower house of Parliament to agree today on a controversial crime bill, which critics say would allow him to wiggle out of various corruption charges.

Here's what the oft-prosecuted Berlusconi had to say:

I'm the universal record-holder for the number of trials in the entire history of man -- and also of other creatures who live on other planets."

I'd fact-check this, but I'm not sure there's an intergalactic version of the Guiness Book of World Records. Guess we'll have to take his word for it.

Matt Cardy/Getty Images

I think I have a new favorite sport: bog snorkeling.

A competitor takes part in the third annual World Bog Snorkeling Triathlon on July 6 in Llanwrtyd Wells, Wales. The event, where competitors are required to complete a full run of approximately 12 miles, a bog snorkel of approximately 120 yards through the bog trench, and a 19-mile mountain bike ride, is seen as a preview to the annual Bog Snorkeling World Championship that takes place this year on August 25.

After lampooning America as "Borat," it appears the world's most notorious British comic may be setting his sights on the Middle East. His next film, featuring the character "Bruno," a flamboyant German Austrian homosexual, is set for release in May 2009. And, if this encounter with two über-serious advocates of Israeli-Palestinian peace is any indication, it's going to be hilarious:

We exchanged astonished glances. "Hamas," we explained, "is a Palestinian Islamist political movement. Hummus is a food."

"Ya, but vy hummus? Yesterday I had to throw away my pita bread because it vas dripping hummus. Unt it's too high in carbohydrates."

The Hamas-hummus confusion went on for several minutes. Then, the interviewer declared: "Your conflict is not so bad. Jennifer-Angelina is worse."

ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images

If you want to become a German citizen, you'll have to pass a new citizenship test as of September 1. The test has 33 questions on the country's politics, history, and society. To pass, you have to answer 17 questions correctly (52 percent of the total 33).

Seven sample multiple-choice questions were unveiled this week. I took the mini-test here and passed, but just barely (I got four questions right). How did you all score? Feel free to leave comments below.

And, for anyone planning to become an American, the United States will be using a redesigned citizenship test as of October 1 that is supposed to focus less on civics trivia and more on fundamentals about the country's government, history, and geography. Ten sample questions are here. I doubt many American-born citizens would know the answers to most of these questions. In fact, Gary Gerstle, a professor of American history at Vanderbilt University, told the New York Times that of those who take the test:

[T]heir knowledge of American history may even exceed the knowledge of millions of American-born citizens.

No word yet on whether the German or American citizenship tests' study materials will include a DVD of gay men kissing and a topless woman on the beach -- images found in the Netherland's test-prep package.

Matt Cardy/Getty Images

BROCKWORTH, UNITED KINGDOM - MAY 26: Contestants in the men's race chase a Double Gloucester Cheese down the steep gradient of Cooper's Hill in pouring rain during the annual Bank Holiday tradition of cheese-rolling on May 26, 2008 in Brockworth in Gloucestershire, England. Thousands of spectators gather to watch contestants from around the world tumbling down the 200m slope - which has a 1:1 gradient in parts - in a series of races, said to date back hundreds of years, with the winner of each receiving a cheese. Injuries are commonplace, even forcing cancellation of the event in the past.

State gifts have a long history of goofiness, (300 lbs of lamb?) but I have to hand it to Bill Gates. His recent gift of a traditional mother of pearl-inlaid X-Box 360 to South Korean president Lee Myung-bak is both beautiful and functional. Plus, it helps boost Microsoft's numbers against Sony for dominance of the South Korean gaming market.

The decoration is the handiwork of Kim Young-jun [pictured above], the head of a manufacturing company called Gookbo. "I got a call from Microsoft Korea last month," Kim said. "They told me something about an Xbox, but I had no idea what that was. I thought they were talking about some kind of black box."

I wonder if Lee will get a free X-Box Live membership as well. It's time to go pwn some noobs. If you're ever on "Call of Duty 4" Lee, my gamertag is "tcd004." See you online!

Apparently, Chinese President Hu Jintao totally dominates at the ping pong table and put on quite a show while visiting Japan last week.

Maybe we don't have to worry that Americans are too dumb to read the Economist after all.

A teenage rap duo in Chicago has recorded a track, aptly called "The Economist," that extols the British publication's breadth and brevity and samples podcast commentary by correspondents Edward Lucas and Anthony Gottlieb.

"The style in which they write is simple and concise, how do they get their sentences so precise?" the rappers wonder. [UPDATE: Matt Yglesias quips, "The answer, of course, is 'heavy-handed editing' facilitated by lack of bylines."]

And the chorus is a gem, too: "He reads the Economist so he can get the gist, its solid competence gives him confidence that his intelligence is correct."

The rappers also weigh in on accusations that the Economist pushes a particular line: "Yes, they have a bias; it's pro-democratic. And pro-free trade; they are very emphatic."

Jay-Z it is not. But it is funny stuff.

(Hat tip: Gawker, Guardian)

Earlier this month, the documentary version of FP Editor in Chief Moisés Naím's bestselling book Illicit aired on the TV channel PBS in the United States. The film and book documents how -- as the book's subtitle says -- "smugglers, traffickers, and copycats are hijacking the global economy."

Those copycats who profit off pirated DVDs had better be careful, though. The doggy duo of Lucky and Flo are out to get them. The black Labs are the first canines to have been trained to sniff out the polycarbonates found in DVDs and CDs. Although they can't differentiate between legit and pirated discs, their noses lead human investigators to discs that are hidden in cargo that has been declared as having other items, such as clothing. Lucky and Flo have been so successful that they've even received death threats from crime syndicates.

Check out a video of the furry crime fighters here: