It's Good To See World Leaders Talk Like 14 Year-Old Schoolboys Behind The Canteen

Check out this tidbit from a story on a conversation between Putin and Sarkozy during the Russia-Georgia war:

With Russian tanks only 30 miles from Tbilisi on August 12, Mr Sarkozy told Mr Putin that the world would not accept the overthrow of Georgia’s Government. According to Mr Levitte, the Russian seemed unconcerned by international reaction. “I am going to hang Saakashvili by the balls,” Mr Putin declared.

Mr Sarkozy thought he had misheard. “Hang him?” — he asked. “Why not?” Mr Putin replied. “The Americans hanged Saddam Hussein.”

Mr Sarkozy, using the familiar tu, tried to reason with him: “Yes but do you want to end up like [President] Bush?” Mr Putin was briefly lost for words, then said: “Ah — you have scored a point there.”

I also love Saakashvili's reaction:

Mr Saakashvili, who was in Paris to meet Mr Sarkozy yesterday, laughed nervously when a French radio station read him the exchange. “I knew about this scene, but not all the details. It’s funny, all the same,” he said.

I have two questions. First, isn't Vladimir Putin supposed to have ceded power to Dmitri Medvedev? Why is Putin, and not Medvedev, the one promising to hang poor Saakashvili by his balls?

Second, how exactly would one go about hanging someone by the balls? Would the hangee have to be upside down and have his balls tied to the ceiling with some sort of rope/string? Or would the hangee be suspended horizontally (i.e. parallel to the ground) by a rope/string tying his balls to the ceiling? If any of our readers are from/affiliated with the ISI, I'd love to hear the answers on this one.