Free Republic

Rasputin's penis to be sex museum's star attraction Russia's first museum of erotica is to open in St Petersburg - with Rasputin's penis reputedly among the exhibits. Museum founder Igor Knyazkin says the 12ins organ will be the star attraction, reports Russian daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta. Mr Knyazkin, who is also the chief of the prostate research centre of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, said he was particularly proud of the pickled penis. He said: "Having this exhibit, we can stop envying America, where Napoleon Bonaparte's penis is now kept. "Napoleon's penis is but a small pod - it cannot...

The Moscow Military District Court has ruled that it was Colonel Aleksander Zaporozhsky who gave up Robert Hanssen to the CIA. The court ended up giving the former intelligence officer an even stiffer sentence than the prosecutor had demanded. On Wednesday the former Colonel of the Foreign Intelligence Service Aleksander Zaporozhsky was found guilty of high treason in the form of revealing state secrets to the USA. Zaporozhsky was sentenced to 18 years in a high security labour camp and stripped of his military rank and all state decorations, though his property will not be confiscated. During his service, Zaporozhsky...

<p>VILNIUS, Lithuania (Reuters) -- Lithuanian President Rolandas Paksas stirred up a media storm over his faith in a mystic who wraps people in toilet paper to cure their ills.</p> <p>Paksas' claim to be a "believer" in mystic Lena Lolisvili has sparked uproar in the Catholic former Soviet country, which is sensitive about its image abroad after being invited to join the European Union and NATO in 2004.</p>

A bitter rift has opened in the Russian Orthodox Church over a campaign to canonise Rasputin and Ivan the Terrible. The movement, which leading Orthodox officials have sought to quash, is spearheaded by a growing revisionist movement in the Church. It believes that Grigori Rasputin, a notoriously dissolute Siberian monk who was murdered by two royalists in 1916 because of his growing influence over Empress Alexandra, was the victim of a Jewish conspiracy. The movement also contends that Ivan the Terrible, who murdered hundreds of priests and even his son, was a deeply religious and humble man who showed great...

any in the adoption community are expressing serious concerns about the Bush administration serving up a warmed-over Clinton-era adoption-from-foster-care project, an act that inspired the Washington Post and Clinton's Rasputin, Dick Morris, to say that President Bush was borrowing from the Clinton script.The concerns arose following the ballyhooed July 23 announcement that First Lady Laura Bush and actor Bruce Willis have collaborated on a public-service ad to promote the National Adoption Center's 800 number and website in hopes that more children marooned in the foster-care system might be considered for adoption.Willis's fame is sure to make fingers pause over the...