Iraqis are painting the security walls in Sadr City:

Wathiq Khuzaie/Getty Images

I have to admit, the Bird's Nest looks pretty cool all lit up at night:

China Photos/Getty Images

Guang Niu/Getty Images

Chinese policemen try to save a boy from being crushed by the crowd near a ticket booth at the Olympic Green on July 25 in Beijing, China. Starting today, the remaining 820,000 Olympic tickets, of which 250,000 are for competitions held in the capital city, became available for purchase by individuals at the Olympic venues.

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)

DAVID FURST/AFP/Getty Images

U.S. Army soldiers carry shotguns as they walk along a corridor separating what they deem to be the most extreme and dangerous detainees held inside the Camp Bucca detention center located near the Kuwait-Iraq border on May 19, 2008.

Here's a photograph from British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's recent trip to Iraq. What do you think was on his mind? Who do you think he wants to see on the receiving end?

Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images

UPDATE: And the winner is... nycbrian, with "do you think i can mow my backbenchers into submission w/ this?"

Scott Olson/Getty Images

Scrap metal is piled up at a metal recycling facility on July 17 in Chicago, Illinois. With scrap metal prices near historic highs, many communities are experiencing an increase in thefts of metal including cemetery ornaments, plumbing pipe, gutters, and even manhole covers.

AFP PHOTO/DIEGO TUSON

A bull charges a woman off the port during the traditional bulls celebration on the seafront in Denia Alicante, Spain, on July 7.

Denis Doyle/Getty Images

A fighting bull leaps over two fallen runners at the Mercaderes curve during the third San Fermin running of the bulls on July 9 in Pamplona, Spain. Fighting bulls are run through the historic heart of Pamplona for eight days in this fiesta made famous by The Sun Also Rises, the 1926 novel by U.S. writer Ernest Hemmingway.

RAFA RIVAS/AFP/Getty Images

A Fuente Ymbro fighting bull gores French matador Sebastian Castella during the third corrida of the San Fermin festivities on July 9 in Pamplona, Spain.

Passport has the day off tomorrow for the July 4th holiday here in the United States, so here's an early Friday photo to contemplate. Enjoy your weekend!

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

WASHINGTON - JULY 02: Eight-year-old Peter Wajda of Mount Laurel, New Jersey, poses for photographs on top of 10,512 sneakers tied by their laces and laid heel-to-toe in the courtyard at National Geographic Society headquarters July 2, 2008 in Washington, DC. Assembled by National Geographic Kids magazine, the string of shoes was certified Wednesday by Guinness World Records as the longest chain of shoes, measuring 8,700 feet or nearly 1.65 miles. Wajda, a third-grader at Moorestown Friends School, organized a shoe drive and collected 509 of the shoes used to set the record. The shoes will be shipped to Nike's Reuse-a-Shoe program and recycled into basketball courts and other play surfaces.

Guang Niu/Getty Images

More than 10,000 people have been mobilized to clean up green algae that has invaded the Olympic sailing venue in Qingdao, Shandong, China. The Qingdao Olympic Sailing Committee estimates that the area will be cleared before July 15.

Here are some wild scenes from the ongoing beef protests in South Korea:

Photos by KIM JAE-HWAN/AFP/Getty Images

Apparently, the South Korean riot police have been working in shifts, as some of the most violent protests have happened overnight. The protesters failed to convince South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who moved Thursday to lift the ban on American beef. Read the backstory here.

KHALID MOHAMMED/AFP/Getty Images

Iraqi soldiers stand guard over rows of rifles seized by Iraqi security forces during recent operations in the Shiite enclave of Sadr City, June 18, 2008.

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.

Via my friend Hossam el-Hamalawy, an arresting photo from this week's labor protests in Mahalla, Egypt:

Photo by Nasser Nouri/Creative Commons

ERIC FEFERBERG/AFP/Getty Images

French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel attend the first formal working session on the second day of the NATO summit at the Parliament Palace in Bucharest on April 3, 2008. NATO leaders begin negotiations in earnest over Afghanistan after the opening day of their three-day summit saw a successful French offer of more troops, but a public disagreement over the alliance's enlargement.

Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

Screens display flight information at Terminal 5 on March 28, 2008, at Heathrow International Airport in London. Further delays are expected today on the second day of the new terminal opening. Thirty departures have been cancelled so far as problems still remain with baggage handling.

U.S. President George W. Bush (L) pauses to embrace a person dressed as the Easter Bunny during the annual Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House. The annual event was started by President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1878.

David Silverman/Getty Images

A Palestinian man hurls stones at Israeli troops (unseen) during a violent protest against Israel's security fence, Feb. 22, 2008, where it cuts off Palestinian farmers from their land at the West Bank village of Bil'in. Hundreds of villagers backed up by foreign and left-wing Israeli supporters marked three years of demonstrations against Israel's controversial barrier.

1st prize Sports Action Singles
Ivaylo Velev, Bulgaria, Bul X Vision Photography Agency
Freeride competitor Philippe Meier chased by an avalanche, Flaine, France, 15 March

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