#russia agents usa

[herukapadmajungiansworld]

[lilithism1848]

[mermaidair]

Most of them leave their daughters cold.

To feed jealousy from below.

You’re not special above, either.

He cannot cross that line though.

Ask them again, but …

Ha. And that idiot. What’s the point of crying and protecting boys?

Thrcanesucab

The American women here say they will not help, will not be allies to anyone, and they will NOT love a child from another nation

Right fudgy Nancy who believes in church lock in child molestation?

[ef-1]

Twitter is mad at Daniel again because they caught on to that CH interview about Daniel being offered the same contract as Max, icl I'm also bitter about it. I wish he wasn't so rash in 2018

It's easy to be bitter in hindsight but the reality is more nuanced, had it not been recorded and internationally broadcast, what happened to Daniel in 2018 would be flat out unbelievable by ANY standard lol. Daniel had mechanical issues in every. single. weekend in 2018 <- this is not a hyperbole or a joke (more on this later). He ran multiple races with a b spec engine -> 20 bhp down on Max. At no point in 2018 did Max run a lower engine power than Daniel. Daniel incurred 8 dnfs, 4 back of the grid starts for mechanical issues and 6 grid drops in total where as Max had *1*[one]. This isn't even accounting for failures in quali or free practice that would have compromised his set up or race prep. Daniel's car accounted for 92% of Red Bull failures in comparison to Max's 8%.

Christian's cunty "he ran from a fight" comment stung particularly hard because it was Christian who made MULTIPLE public apologies to Daniel in 2018 on the ground that he wasn't given a chance to compete. Christian would apologise to Daniel again when Max won in Mexico, even though Daniel had an uncharacteristic outburst in the media pen during that famous "The car is cursed. I can't wait to give it to Pierre" This isn't even diving into the dubious & predatory RB contract practices. At 28 years old, to quote Christian "It's the first time he's effectively a free agent."

You look back at it now and lament it as a bad call but even by Christian's admission Red Bull were on the verge of selling the team for 4 years. Honda was coming in, I know it's easy to praise Honda now but Honda single handedly sent Alonso into early retirement. He found working with them untenable + said it cost him his love for the sport. Those were the lingering images of Honda as they re-entered the sport, the team who electrocuted Alonso then bled his love for racing dry.

If you weren't around in 2018 let me give you a run down so horrific it looks like a joke:

Australia - Race: 3 Place grid penalty

Bahrain - Race: DNF - Battery Failure

China - Free Practice 3: Gear box issue with complete engine turbo failure. Misses FP3 entirely, no quali set up prepared. He would go on to win that race from p6

Baku - Race: DNF - Collision with Max. Racing incident.

Monaco - Race: partial MGU-K failure. He would go on to win that race with drastic loss of power.

Canada - Free Practice 2 - Power unit issue, misses majority of the session.

France - Race: front wing failure. (it disintegrated)

Austria - Race: DNF - Retires from p3 with MGU-k Failure

Britain - Quali: DRS failure. No DRS activation, still qualifies p6 behind Max in p5

Germany - Race: Back of grid start + DNF - Takes new engine for the weekend, starts p19 + has lower power spec A ICE approximately 20 BHP down on B spec that Max was running. Daniel climbed upto p5 from p19 but incurs a MGU-k failure and retires.

Hungary - Race: Daniel is forced to run lower power spec A ICE again, 20 BHP down on B spec that Max was running

Spa - Free Practice 1 + DNF: Daniel misses entire session with engine injector issue + Daniel would go on to retire after being driven into on lap 1.

Monza - Race: Back of grid start + DNF. Daniel takes another new engine for weekend (spec C) and incurs another full grid penalty, starts p19. Daniel would go on to climb to p6 before having clutch failure and retiring.

Singapore - Race + Quali + Free practice: During every session in Singapore Daniel has an unresolved spec C engine clipping issue that Red Bull can't fix.

Russia - Race + Free Practice 1 - Daniel misses FP1 due to mechanical issues. Daniel takes another engine penalty, starts p18

Japan - Race + Quali: Daniel incurs throttle actuator failure, misses quali, another back of grid start.

USA - Race: DNF - Battery Failure

Mexico - Race: DNF - clutch Bearing failure + start software clutch issue. Daniel retires the race from P2

Brazil - Race: Daniel takes a 5 Place grid penalty due to new turbo charger replacement. Starts in p11.

Abu Dhabi - Free Practice 3: Misses majority of FP3 with water leak.

Daniel's insanely vulnerable "if racing was the only thing making me happy this year, I would have been miserable" during the last on the sofa with Max was a v apt summary of 2018. To suggest that Daniel fucked up based on the information he had in 2018, namely Daniel undergoing all those problems + knowing RB was flirting with selling the team + Helmut's fuckery + having an out from the RB umbrella for the first time in his career? Your problem isn't with his decision making process, you just wish he was clairvoyant which is an unfair thing to be bitter about

[sailorsally]

Yesterday, May 28 Georgian Parliament overrode the President's veto and finally adopted the foreign influence law.

According to this law, following an anonymous tip, the government is allowed to demand any type of personal information from you - including sexual and health history - and use it against you.

Every organisation getting more than 20% of funding from foreign countries will be considered to be a foreign agent and so will be the people who work within these organisations. This directly threatens legitimate elections this coming October because most NGO's that guarantee fair elections are in fact financed from outside of Georgia by the EU or the USA and will be banned from the election process following this law.

This exactly has been the whole point of passing the law. The Georgian Dream ruling party knows that there is no way they can stay in power legitimately so they are engaging all their resources to falsify the votes and do it illegally.

It's important to me as a Georgian that everyone knows none of the laws Georgian parliament is passing are what people want. There have been 200k+ people protesting this daily since mid April while being beaten up, blackmailed, and incarcerated for their protest.

We need all the support we can get from the international community in this fight against our pro Russian government. The situation is very dire - the existence of Georgia as a country will be decided in coming days/weeks/months.

This exact law was passed in Russia in 2012 and then edited several times since in order to strengthen the regime over the years. It has been used as the main tool to scare and terrorize the few free thinkers in Russia and throw them into jail.

According to the latest addition to the law (just last month) nobody who works in a company that gets 20% or more of its money from outside Russia is allowed to vote in elections.

This law has also been passed in Belarus some years ago and is greatly contributing to banning any anti government/ anti Russia opinions within the county.

I ask everyone who is a friend of Georgia and my friend to please talk to the representatives in your governments and ask them to sanction the members of Georgian parliament and the ruling party, as well as their family members so these traitors who have been stealing our money and storing it in European and American banks, going on long vacations with their families financed by corruption and have been bringing their wives to the US to give birth and get residence card will at least feel some type of discomfort following their decision to insult the Georgian people in the worst possible way and give over our hard fought & won independence to Russia willingly.

[unidot]

Where each Valorant agent is from. Most of these are either confirmed or heavily hinted in lore

Africa:

Cypher - Morocco/Rabat

Astra - Ghana/Accra

Asia:

Sage - China

Iso - China/Chongqing

Jett - South Korea/Seoul

Yoru - Japan

Neon - Philippines/Metro Manila/Taguig

Harbor - India/Maharashtra/Mumbai

Europe:

Killjoy - Germany/Berlin

Phoenix - UK/England/London

Breach - Sweden

Chamber - France/Paris

Deadlock - Norway

Clove - UK/Scotland/Edinburgh

North America:

Brimstone - USA/Maryland/Baltimore

Viper - USA/Washington/Seattle

Gekko - USA/California/Los Angeles

Reyna - Mexico

South America:

Raze - Brazil/Bahia/Salvador

Australia:

Skye - Australia/New South Wales/Nimbin

Eurasia (counts as both Europe and Asia):

Sova - Russia/Murmansk Oblast/Severomorsk

Fade - Turkey/Istanbul

Unknown:

Omen

KAY/O

[batboyblog]

https://www.tumblr.com/spacelazarwolf/751145150269571072

It’s not the same. It’s grassroots now.

I'm actually glad to get the chance to address a common misunderstanding of what happened in 2016 (and is happening now)

So people often misunderstand when someone talks about Russian interference with American elections (and its not just Russia and not just the USA to be clear) that what they mean/think is that everyone who disagrees with them on the internet is either a bot controlled by Russia or a Russian agent posing as an American.

No, clearly the vast majority of people posting across social media about US politics in 2015-16 were real American citizens. What I want you to imagine is, what if there was one person who's job, literal paid job, was to log in and just engage with, spread, boost and support one kind of content, now imagine the impact of 2, 10, 100, 1,000 people who clock in every morning and work 8 hours a day every day just pushing one topic, could they get it trending on Tumblr every single day? very likely.

but more importantly how would that effect how everyone sees the thing they're talking about? would more people engage with it? make their own posts about it? content creators are likely to engage with something that automatically gets reblogged/tweeted/shared a lot.

This is what happened in 2016 (and is happening now) in political space it works to reenforce negative views, for example someone posts about how shit the economy is (even though its in fact good) and they get more likes for that tweet than ever before, wow that must mean many people feel this way! and your negative impression is correct! once you put your thumb on the scale it starts to become self reenforcing, political content creators are engagement whores as much as any other kind, journalists hang out on-line in the same spaces, if you have a not very big army of people boosting a certain narrative all day every day it starts to just boost itself after awhile.

so no, its not grassroots, its never been grassroots. They take your feelings of discontent, they take real issues you might have and turn them up to 11 and boost them and boost them and people get suck in an echo chamber because there are a few thousand people who's literal 9 to 5 job is logging on and pretending to be real humans who are upset at Joe Biden and the Democrats. So it's not that all the noise is Russians, its just that the Russians act as a megaphone for it.

[ohsalome]

You know, as an American I gotta say that I really wish American leftists would realize how culturally imperialistic they often are, by which I specifically mean this insistence on taking how things are in the US with stuff like racism and imposing that on every other culture

Cause like this idea that "well if someone's white they have privilege" is so obviously not true if you even pay a tiny bit of attention to Europe where it's like... I'm not European, I've never been there, and it still didn't take me long to figure out that there's just huge amounts of prejudice and xenophobia in places like Britain against Eastern Europeans, anyone from the Balkans, the Welsh/Scottish/Irish... just a whole list of people

And like... other Americans just seem totally unwilling to realize that by insisting that things are everywhere how they are here that... you've still got an imperialist mindset where the US sets the tune and the world needs to dance to it

Just crazy to me how people who crow about anti-imperialism are so often super concretely being culturally imperialistic

Too many usamericans 'radicewl' politics is just "fuck you mom" with more words. It's so sheerly obvious that they treat, say, Ukraine or Israel as metaphorical limbs of USA that are incapable of having their own independent agenda; and, therefore, dismissing us is justified, because you are not dealing with actual real people you see, you are hating on the USA, everybody living there is either an USA agent of an USA sleeper agent. /s

And all the other giant empires like, say, russia or china are just innocent victims who are only capable of acting in defence, because the only one who has agency or makes any decisions in the world of international politics is the Great and Mighty USA.

The marvelisation of pop-politics is exhausting. USA is the Big Bad and everyone against them is Good by the virtue of being against the Bad. Defeat the Big Bad and win the good ending post-credits scene.

[awesome-casuallyfamouscollector]

Over the past year, we have identified evidence of a surge in systematic and coordinated genocidal tactics against Ukrainians. Our legal analysis found reasonable grounds to believe that Russia is responsible for the commission of genocide. This position is supported both by actions prohibited in the Genocide Convention and an underlying pattern of atrocities indicating that Russia aims to destroy the Ukrainian national group in part(..)

P.S. What USA and Germany say: Sending to Ukraine long-range missiles and jets to defend their people might escalate the war. What Russia hears: The US & Germany will let us escalate our genocide by hindering the supply of modern long-range weapons to Ukraine.

What Eastern Europeans are hearing and watching: The fact that the West is ready to conclude "peace and business deals with the Kremlin at the expense of Eastern Europeans!" Ukrainian experience shows that the West is too slow and lazy in security matters and still avoids by all possible means effective resistance to Russian aggression.

Yes, the West is helping Ukraine, but is it being done to a sufficient extent. Unfortunately, no! The Kremlin's economic and military sparing tactics chosen by the West allow the Kremlin to adapt and continue the escalation of the war. Strange as it may be, the Russian military industry receives components for the production of missiles and other armaments from the West, Russian "tourists" and businessmen still enter Europe and the United States, Russian business is still not completely isolated...Russian spies, agents of influence and cronies of the Kremlin are still operating unhindered in the West…

[hetalia-club]

The Cold War era was honestly the cause of so many hilarious things that sound fake but are 100% real. It’s one of the reasons the Cold war is my favorite history era. (I know a lot of horrible stuff happened in that time but let’s focus on the goofy stuff okay?)

Top funniest moments include:

1. Russia thought that they were building a top secret office in the center of the pentagon and pointed nukes directly at it but KGB spies confirmed it was actually a hot dog stand. 2. America was going to nuke the moon as a fuck you to Russia. But decided that might be a bad idea.

3. America had a plan to strap listening devices on cats and turn them lose in Moscow and try and get them to sit in windows and listen in on conversations but then after sinking 2 million into the plan someone was like. “but how do we get the cats to do that...” and they threw that idea out the window.

4. After a big ‘ol woopsie Russia ‘accidently’ ‘allegedly’ almost nuked the USA because someone read the screen wrong and said that the US had fired 5 nukes onto Russia and they were on the way. Luckily the guy in charge was like ‘nah, that ain’t them they wouldn’t do us like that.’ He basically diverted a nuclear war on a ‘gut feeling’. Because the computer systems said it was a go.

5. America built a bunch of rail ways that went nowhere and spent a ton of money on advertising for them basically saying how important that these railways were. They let the info slip to Russia incase they did nuke them they would nuke the useless railways. I can’t decide if that’s a 200 IQ plan or stupid. because Russia of course took the bait.

6. Russia at the same time had the exact same plan and built a couple fake cities in Russia and let some advertising slip about how cool and groovy(it was the 60′s) and also very important these cities were. America of course took the bait. EVEN THOUGH THEY HAD THE SAME PLAN!

7. Russia commissioned America to make fake maps and the only difference was that Russia was bigger on the map than usual. Wow amazing truly astounding.

8. The time America tried to train bears to fly planes... Because they thought it would be super sick and the Russians would be so jealous of the bear pilots. Didn’t work out. 

9. Russia tried to use psychics yes you read right the were looking for someone with psychokinetic powers to train to divert missiles. Yes really, they were doing this. America got so jealous of this that they wanted their own super hero program and they also started looking for someone who could make objects float and also read minds they sunk about 20 mill into that one.

10. (don’t remember who) In the 50′s the current leader of Russia came to America for a meeting which was in California. He toured the Hollywood studios ad really really wanted to go to Disney Land like so fucking bad. The current president of the US was like ‘dude that is a horrible idea you are the leader of Russia you can’t just go to Disney. He flipped his shit he was so fucking mad. He was like ‘why can’t I go? Is there some secret launch base there? Is there something I can’t see? This is so stupid I want to go!’ he even threatened to unalive himself at one point. I don’t think they ever did let him go because they would of had to empty the entire park for him because it was a crazy security risk for him to even be on his GT of Cali in the first place. Apparently the CIA agents with him had a 70+ page book on how to keep him safe. Frank Sinatra was even there to try and keep him happy. though i don’t exactly remember how he got roped into being there.

That is just 10 things there is so much more. So much bonkers shit. I didn’t even get into things Germany and England did. 

[herukapadmajungiansworld]

[yanderes-galore]

Yandere!Russell Adler (Cod: Cold War) vs Yan!Jason Hudson (Cod: Cold War) with Double Agent!Reader who’s a charming new recruit in the safe house crew?

Reader could be female or gender neutral, I’m not picky. 😊

Of course! Using the right damn name this time because I kept calling Jason JAMES in the last fic I did for him and no one bothered correcting me 😅 I'm so sorry-

Yandere! Russell Adler vs Yandere! Jason Hudson with Double Agent! Darling

Pairing: Romantic - Rivalry

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Obsession, Very brief mentions of the Cold War, Violence, Manipulation, Blackmailing, Forced relationship, Threat of brainwashing, Possessive behavior mentioned, Invasion of privacy, Stalking mention.

I feel as a Double Agent you'd be danger even if they aren't yandere.

Jason Hudson is the more cold and calculated of the two.

While Russell Adler is the more charismatic and manipulative of the two.

Here's your story based on what I think you meant;

You're a spy for Perseus and have infiltrated the CIA task force focused on finding your boss.

Maybe you were originally from the USA or Russia, either way, you aren't on the side of your yanderes.

These two are very smart which is why they have their job.

Which means they can overlook your charming behavior to see just who you are.

Although, if either one of them knew who you were and what your purpose is, they'd wait until they can corner you.

In fact, the two may try to get closer to you to extract information.

In the process they end up possibly falling for you.

The issue becomes the fact both of them have fallen for you due to their similar goals.

Adler is the more flirtatious one, trying to charm you into giving more info about yourself.

You seem to like using flattery, have a taste of your own medicine.

Hudson isn't the charismatic type and prefers to befriend you then watch you from a distance to see if you give in information.

The two no doubt try to get the other to leave you be.

There's no doubt they know your true allegiance and are just hiding the fact they know.

It's just now they have to deal with the issue of romantic feelings forming.

A conflict of interest.

Maybe one of them wants to deal with you for being a Double Agent, while the other defends you.

Then after that they both fall for you.

Honestly, a rivalry between the two would be more competitive compared to outright violence.

Like, don't expect fist fights.

At least not every time.

They have a more tactical approach to their rivalry.

They try to beat the other to something.

For example, who can win over your trust first?

Who can gain dirt on you first?

Who can claim you as theirs first?

Before you know it, the two not only know who you are... but have blackmail and obsessive tendencies towards you.

They do everything from invading your privacy by searching documents and stalking you.

They never share the information they gain about you, usually saving it for later use.

The arguments they have, physical or not, are usually hard to tell what they're about.

They may be arguing about their missions, but deep down it's resentment and jealousy about you.

The two know how to keep their rivalry under the radar.

They'll make sure you don't know about it until you're cornered.

What's that mean? Well...

Once they have enough info about you to expose you, they have leverage against you.

Hudson could blackmail you into giving up your assignment.

After all, you could be facing death for what you're doing.

Listen to him and you'll be excused... as long as you choose him.

Adler could also blackmail you but could also brainwash you into giving up your job and being with him.

Again, it's that or death, dear.

You probably have no choice in the end, he'll pick for you.

Essentially, if you're a double agent the two will find ways to use that to their advantage.

They'll force you into being their partner while using this information somehow.

Although, the two are going to prevent each other from getting to you first.

They may frame one another or utilize a mission to keep the other away.

Either way, now that they both have ways to make you listen...

It's a matter of who corners you first.

[detectivedrewshouldgetaclue]

hey, if you could make your own nancy drew game, what would it be about, what would be the plot, and what would be like the fun minigame?

What a lovely question! Thank you, for asking.

Hmm, let me see. So many things I’m interested in, have already been done within the games!

That being said, I think I’d have Nancy visit somewhere completely new! It would be cool for her to go to Russia and search out some fabled Romanov treasure. She could play off her mother’s espionage legacy. Not quite as emotionally heavy as SPY (obviously, Russia is a serious place and the Romanovs are a tragedy), but something more diplomatic. Assisting the United Staes with foreign affairs sort of thing, via The Network (formally ATAC). Of course, the Hardy Boys would be helping, as Network agents.

I’d make the plot revolve around exploring the Russian palaces the Romanovs inhabited. Trying to find the treasure so the USA stays on Russia’s good side or something to that effect. A peace mission, if you will; return the treasure to Russia and, in return, smooth the ruffled feathers, between the two nations. There is trouble lurking about, though…whispers of a KGB rebirth that might threaten Nancy’s mission…

The tensions of strained relations, a murdered royal family, the infamous Rasputin, dark, mysterious, nighttime Gypsy camp visits, and possible fascist regime uprising add to the spook/goosebump factor in this game.

You could go to multiple a palaces with different clues and puzzles…because I can’t get enough of castles and old buildings, in these games! Each location would give clues, until you find the hidden treasure. Featured puzzles would include: A Russian nesting doll puzzle, a Romanov family portrait slider puzzle, a mystical trinkets puzzle in Rasputin’s hidden lair, a playing a balalaika (a Russian instrument) puzzle, a Romani/Gypsy tarot card puzzle (GET OUT OF HERE, RICHARD TOPHAM), etc. I’d also have Nancy do some crazy side task with a beautiful, intimidating, female, ex-Olympic figure skater (please, stop thinking about Yanni, this is different okay?), where you have to do a series of intricate taps, using your keyboard arrows, to land ice skating moves and gain her respect.

As far as a mini game goes, Nancy would have to to cook and decorate blinis (Russian pancakes), as her undercover job. She’s a history major exchange student, working on an internship and trying to fund her schooling (thanks for the hookup, Network!). This gives her an alibi for snooping, in historical areas.

I’d have the game set in winter, because I like the coziness of a snowy game and…WELL. IT IS FLIPPING RUSSIA.

You know the soundtrack would go hard, with some traditional Russian-inspired music.

Anyways. Just some thoughts, off the top of my head. 🇷🇺🌨️🪆

Annnnnd since I’m so visual…some inspo:

[catgirlforeskin]

Okay so listen, I couldn't write it immediately because I had to get out and get throwaway phone and all of this conspiracy thing because it's very important.

Basically you heard all those things that election boycott is somehow backed by Russia or that Biden is funded by China, right? Forget all of this, none of them has any role in what's happening!

The actual mastermind here is The Spanish Crown.

I don't know everything, I just overheard agents of Spanish King negotiating with one of cardinals (I am priest in Vatican) and chaos in America is part of their plan called Reconquista Nuova. The King wants to restore Spanish rule over the New World, and first step is making the USA lose that power, but eventually it will be conquered as well. The parliament knows, they were working on this plan for over a decade (he didn't say when it started he just mentioned something happening in 2015 which was part pf the plan), but it really escalated when in 2021 they completed the AI trained on works of Niccolo Machiavelli to replicate his consciousness and now she is the grand coordinator of their machinations (it was she who ordered the Wagner group to surrender, for example, she is also responsible for organizing the assassination of Shinzo Abe).

Spain negotiates with Holy See to use us as network of more subtle political influence and they are already doing it because most of cardinals are on their side, but Pope himself is opposed to the plan and that's why cardinals are trying to overthrow him. In return Vatican will become overseer of continental Europe instead of USA, same as Spain gets control over the New World. Africa and Asia are not divided yet, but Jesuits have infiltrated CCP to ensure that China will be friendly to Spain.

No matter whom you vote the USA will soon descend into chaos and Spain is already prepared to feast on the ruins of the Empire.

I don't know what to do with that information, but I feel like you deserve to know.

We need to start building a resistance network for the fall before it’s too late, I’ll get my Yemeni friends on the phone

[justabigoldnerd]

Okay okay okay @pippinoftheshire 's fic "The River Of My Blood Is Silver" has me back on my winged people bullshit SO here are what wings I think our Dream Team would have and why.

First on the roster: Illya Kuryakin, KGB

The Blakiston's Fish Owl

IMMEDIATELY, I knew Illya was going to be an owl. Completely silent flier, master killers, etc. But also playful and curious and SUPER FUCKING INTELLIGENT. With Illya being 6 ft 5, I looked up the owl with the longest wingspan, and it was this lovely gentleman. His wingspan can get up to 6 foot across. And get this....he is native to Russia

I picture Illya tucking his wings away as tightly as he can most days to make himself look smaller, but then on missions, they're on full display. He uses them to protect his partners (think that one scene from Lucifer), to silently take out enemies, to just straight up intimate the bad guys by fluffing up his feathers. And I imagine during episodes, they start to slowly bristle and unfurl and shake like his hands. And I also imagine that his attempts at hiding his wing span most of the time leads to terrible muscle spasms that he used to just try and ignore, but after he and Gaby and Solo get together, they help him literally stretch his wings and get the knots out of those fragile but powerful muscles.

• • •

Next is Napoleon Solo, CIA

Obviously, my first instinct was the great Bald Eagle, but then

Then I remembered the fun fact that every time you hear a bald eagle in media, it's ALWAYS a Red Tailed Hawk

And just something about the boy-soldier black mailed into working for the American government and becoming their most effective agent really paralleled the Red Tailed Hawk's voice being stolen for the big USA Patriot Bird. Also, I mean LOOK at that plumage, it's DASHING!!! He'd love it!!! He'd preen CONSTANTLY and keep his feathers in tip-top shape.

I see Solo pretending not to be shy about his wings, flaunting them about and using them to seduce marks and shit, but then when then not letting the people he's close to see them or touch them (erogenous zone???) because deep down he doesn't trust them not to hurt him. UNTIL Illya and Gaby come along and slowly encourage him to let them help him preen hard to reach spots and break up keratin sheaths.

• • •

And last but not least!!! Gaby Teller, British Naval Intelligence

The Peregrine Falcon

Not only the fastest bird on the planet, but the fastest animal alive today! And we've all seen how Gaby drives. She's fast and precise and quick witted and SMART AS FUCK. There was (in my opinion) no better choice for her.

Due to her shorter stature in comparison with her wings, she often keeps them tied to her back as part of her mechanic coveralls. They get oil-stained a lot, and she never minded it, or preened all that often, as a matter of fact, but then the boys caught sight of her wings and immediately went "Oooo honey, make over time" and took dawn to those babies and fluffed them up all nice and now she is deadly in the air, becoming just as feared as Illya in the field.

Anyway, that's my take! Hope you enjoyed, because I had a blast writing this up!!!!💕💕💕💕💕💕

[homomenhommes]

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … April 16

1061 The first recorded same-sex wedding occurred when Pedro Díaz and Muño Vandilaz were married by a priest at a small chapel in Rairiz de Veiga, Galicia, Spain. The records and historic documents about the church wedding were found at the Monastery of San Salvador de Celanova. It is not known whether the priest was aware of the gender of both.

1911 – Born: Guy Burgess (d.1963), a British-born intelligence officer and double agent who worked for the Soviet Union and was part of the Cambridge Five spy ring who betrayed allied secrets to the Soviets before and during the Cold War. Burgess and Anthony Blunt contributed to the Soviet cause with the transmission of secret Foreign Office and MI5 documents that described Allied military strategy.

Guy Francis De Moncy Burgess was the son of a naval officer and although he attended Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, he failed to follow in his father's footsteps.

Like most of the Cambridge five, he came from a privileged background, attending Eton College, and eventually attending Cambridge University, where he was recruited into the Cambridge Apostles, a secret, elite, debating society, whose members at the time included Anthony Blunt and Kim Philby.

Notorious for his bad behaviour and overt alcoholism, Burgess initially worked for The Times and, briefly, the BBC, as the producer of The Week in Westminster, covering Parliamentary activity - wherein he was able to further his acquaintance with important politicians. He spent some time in Spain during the Spanish Civil War. Burgess and the other members of the 'Five' were divided with regard to the impact of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which compromised their hard left ideals as Soviet Russia and the Nazis agreed on the division of most of Eastern Europe.

He was most useful to the Soviets in his position as secretary to the British Deputy Foreign Minister, Hector McNeil. As McNeil's secretary, Burgess was able to transmit top secret Foreign Office documents to the KGB on a regular basis, secreting them out at night to be photographed by his controller and returning them to McNeil's desk in the morning.

Assigned to the British embassy in the USA, Burgess continued his life as an unpredictable heavy drinker and indiscreet homosexual. He lived with Kim Philby in a basement flat, perhaps so that Philby could keep an eye on him. Nonetheless, Burgess was irrepressible, once insulting the wife of a high-ranking CIA official at one of Philby's dinner parties. The FBI allegedly described him in a report as 'a loud, foul-mouthed queer with a penchant for seducing hitchhikers'.

After he was unmasked as a double agent, Burgess moved to Moscow on a moonlit flight with Donald Maclean, arranged by controller Yuri Modin. However, unlike Donald Maclean who became a respected Soviet citizen in exile and lived until the 1980s, Burgess seems not to have taken to life in the USSR so well. Homosexuality was much more frowned upon in the Soviet Union, and this may have been a problem, even though he had a state-sanctioned lover. Also, unlike Maclean, he never bothered to learn Russian, and even continued to order his clothes from his Saville Row tailor.

Becoming ever more dependent on drink, he appears to have been killed by his alcoholism, aged 52.The Julian Mitchell-penned play and film Another Country and the Alan Bennett play An Englishman Abroad were both either inspired by or directly based on Burgess's life.

1914 – Columbus, Ohio, Mayor George Karb orders police to stop making arrests for gambling and vice. It is three years before his action becomes public, but the number of sodomy arrests in the city drops to zero.

1919 – Merce Cunningham (d.2009) was an American dancer and choreographer who was at the forefront of the American avant-garde for more than 50 years.

He is also notable for his frequent collaborations with artists of other disciplines, including musicians John Cage and David Tudor, artists Robert Rauschenberg and Bruce Nauman, designer Romeo Gigli, and architect Benedetta Tagliabue. Works that he produced with these artists had a profound impact on avant-garde art beyond the world of dance.

Merce Cunningham was born in Centralia, Washington in 1919, the second of three sons. Cunningham initially received his first formal dance and theater training at the Cornish School (now Cornish College of the Arts) in Seattle, which he attended from 1937-9 at age 20. During this time, Martha Graham saw Cunningham dance and invited him to join her company.

In the fall of 1939, Cunningham moved to New York and began a six-year stint as a soloist in the company of Martha Graham. He presented his first solo concert in New York in April 1944 with composer John Cage, who became his life partner and frequent collaborator until Cage's death in 1992.

Along with painters Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, Cunningham and Cage became part of a circle of young gay artists whose ideas not only challenged the macho self-expressive Abstract Expressionists, who were to dominate the 1950s New York art scene, but also provided a model or alternative creative process that became the hallmark of post-modern art.

In the summer of 1953, as a teacher in residence at Black Mountain College, Cunningham formed the Merce Cunningham Dance Company as a forum to explore his new ideas on dance and the performing arts.

Over the course of his career, Cunningham choreographed more than 200 dances and over 800 "Events," which are site-specific choreographic works. In 1963 he joined with Cage to create the Walker Art Center's first performance, instigating what would be a 25-year collaborative relationship with the Walker. In his performances, he often used the I Ching in order to determine the sequence of his dances and, often, dancers were not told until the night of the performance. In addition to his role as choreographer, Cunningham performed as a dancer in his company into the early 1990s.

Cunningham's relationship with Cage endured for 54 years, until Cage's death in 1992. The personal and professional collaboration between the two men made them role models for several generations of gay men and lesbians.

He continued to lead his dance company until his death, and presented a new work, Nearly Ninety, in April 2009, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York, to mark his 90th birthday.

1931 – Leo Bersani (d.2022) was an American academic, known for his contributions to French literary criticism and queer theory. He was best known for his 1987 essay "Is the Rectum a Grave?" and his 1995 book Homos. He played a central role in debates about gay and queer identity at the height of the AIDS crisis.

Bersani was born in the Bronx. He studied at Harvard University, graduating in 1952 with a bachelor’s in Romance languages, and with a Ph.D. in comparative literature in 1958. He taught at Wellesley College and Rutgers University before joining University of California, Berkeley in 1972, where he'd remain for the rest of his career, assuming emeritus status in 1996.

Male homosexuality was not the mirror image of heterosexuality, he argued, but something radically different, lacking many of the patriarchal inequalities that he said defined straight life.

“Far from apologizing for their promiscuity as a failure to maintain a loving relationship,” he wrote, “gay men should ceaselessly lament the practical necessity, now, of such relations, should resist being drawn into mimicking the unrelenting warfare between men and women.”

He met his partner, Sam Geraci in 1992. They married in 2014.

He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1992.

He died at a care facility in Peoria, Arizona, on February 20, 2022, at the age of 90.

1934 – Robert Stigwood (d.2016) was an Australian-born British-resident music entrepreneur, film producer and impresario, best known for managing Cream and the Bee Gees, theatrical productions like Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar, and film productions including the extremely successful Grease and Saturday Night Fever.

Stigwood was born in 1934 in Port Pirie, South Australia, the son of an electrical engineer. He was educated at Sacred Heart College in Adelaide.

Stigwood found a job in an institution for "backward teenage boys" in East Anglia after his arrival in England. He worked briefly for Hector Ross at the New Theatre Royal in Portsmouth, Hampshire, before Ross left and the theatre closed. Around this time he met the young Paul Jones who would later front Manfred Mann. He then met businessman Stephen Komlosy with whom he founded Robert Stigwood Associates Ltd, a small theatrical agency.

The brief partnership between Robert Stigwood Associates and Joe Meek is claimed to have changed the British recording industry to a great extent. A poor business decision had meant that "Angela Jones" by Michael Cox, released on his own Triumph label, could not be manufactured in sufficient quantities to meet demand after Cox performed the song on a popular TV music show. While the record did make an appearance in the Top Ten, it proved that Meek needed the support of a major record company.

Meek's first single with John Leyton, a cover of Ray Peterson's U.S. hit "Tell Laura I Love Her", was recorded in late 1960. Originally intended for release on Meek's Triumph label, that label had by now folded and the recording was instead leased to the Top Rank label, owned by the Rank Organisation. Another British version by Ricky Valance though, was more successful.

Stigwood was understood to be gay. Despite the severe legal situation in Britain until the Sexual Offences Act 1967 decriminalised homosexual acts in private, it would not have been a disadvantage for Stigwood's career, as other important figures in the music industry were also gay. Some Australian music writers have suggested that the main reason why so few Australian acts were able to break into the UK music scene in the 1960s was that they were locked out by the so-called "Pink Mafia" that supposedly dominated British show business.

The next development in Stigwood's career as a manager came several weeks after his connection with NEMS began. Teenage vocal group the Bee Gees had just returned to the UK, after many years in Australia, with hopes of a career in the UK.

Within months their first international single, "New York Mining Disaster 1941", had become a major British and American hit reaching the top 20 in both markets, while "Massachusetts" reached number 1 in the UK and number 11 in the US, continuing a string of Bee Gees hits through the late 1960s.

Also during 1967, Stigwood purchased a controlling interest in Associated London Scripts, a writers' agency co-founded by Spike Milligan and Eric Sykes around 1954, in which many of Britain's best comedy and television scriptwriters had been involved. Beryl Vertue from ALS was appointed as deputy chairman; Vertue was responsible for selling the formats to American producers of the TV series All in the Family and Sanford and Son, which were adapted from the popular British TV shows Till Death Us Do Part and Steptoe and Son.

Later Stigwood produced stage versions of his other successful film musicals, Saturday Night Fever and Grease; while Grease had existed as a musical before Stigwood's involvement in the film, Stigwood's adaptations added the musical numbers that were original to that film. Stage rights to those numbers are still available for licensing through the Stigwood estate. Stigwood moved into film and TV production in the early 1970s.

Fernós (R) and Felion

1972 – Fausto Fernós is an openly gay Puerto Rican podcaster, performance artist, and drag performer. He originated and co-hosts the Feast of Fun, an award-winning daily comedy talk show, with his partner Marc Felion. They were the first openly gay couple to win a People's Choice Podcast Award, which they have won five times (2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011), and been nominated for the top prize of "People's Choice" six times in a row. Fernós currently resides in Chicago, Illinois.

Fausto Fernós was born in Santurce, Puerto Rico. Fernós left San Juan and enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin at the age of 16 in 1989.

Fernós started the Feast of Fools in Chicago in the spring of 1998 with the Chicago Radical Faeries as a fundraiser for the struggling Randolph Street Gallery.

In 2004, Fausto Fernós turned to audio and video blogging as a way to promote his unusual live musical variety shows. On February 8, 2005 the first Feast of Fools podcast was posted on his LiveJournal blog, FaustoFun. Within several weeks of posting shows, the audience for the online show grew beyond the size of the local Chicago audience. In 2009, the name of the show was changed from Feast of Fools to Feast of Fun to better reflect changes in the program's design and functionality. Along with his partner Marc Felion, Fernós currently hosts the Feast of Fun podcast, one of the top rated talk show for a LGBTQI audiences on iTunes.

1973 – Indiana amends its sodomy law to lower to 18 the age at which a person can be convicted of sodomy for assisting another person to masturbate.

1975 – Sean Maher is an American actor, best known for his role as Simon Tam in the science fiction television series Firefly and follow-up movie Serenity.

Maher starred as the title character, a rookie police officer, on the short-lived TV series Ryan Caulfield: Year One. In 2000 he was one of the main characters on the Fox show The $treet, and he has also appeared on the television series Party of Five (as Adam Matthews) and on CSI: Miami.

He reprised his role from Firefly in the film Serenity (2005). He appeared in the 2005 Lifetime movie The Dive From Clausen's Pier as Michelle Trachtenberg's new love interest. He also appeared as Brian Piccolo in the 2001 remake of Brian's Song.

In 2006, he appeared in the television movie Wedding Wars. After taking a brief break from acting, Maher came back to TV in 2009 as a guest star in Lifetime Television's pilot episode of Drop Dead Diva, followed by 2010 guest appearances in the second season of The Mentalist (CBS), the first season of Human Target (FOX) and the second season of Warehouse 13 (on Syfy).

In 2011 Maher landed a role in the television series The Playboy Club. He played Sean, a closeted gay man who is in a sham marriage with a closeted lesbian Playboy Bunny. He appeared in eight episodes, in 2011 and 2012, in another series, Make It or Break It, as the character Marcus. He played the villainous Don John in Joss Whedon's 2012 adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing.

In 2014, Maher starred as Dick Grayson/Nightwing in "Son of Batman", a direct-to-video animated film. It is part of the DC Universe Animated Original Movies.

Maher and his partner Paul have two adopted children: Sophia Rose (born 2007) and Liam Xavier (born 2010). Following the birth of their daughter, Maher took two years off from acting to be a stay-at-home dad. He publicly came out as gay in 2011, using his role as a closeted gay man on The Playboy Club as a platform.