Friday 20th February 2026

[refitman]

Morning all.

[Frog222]

Morning !

[Frog222]

Is one surprised ?

In 2005, the CIA's venture arm, In-Q-Tel, began investing approximately $2 million in Palantir across multiple stages. Though the amount was relatively small, it provided Palantir with enormous credibility, signaling that the CIA recognized the value of their technology.22 Mar 2025

[Frog222]

If you want to track a virus, the whereabouts of candidates for Deportation or other Enemies of The State, you need all the data you can get, and then how to manage it !

Palantir was co-founded in 2014*** by PayPal billionaire co-founder and 2016 Donald Trump campaign adviser and financial backer Peter Thiel. Documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed Palantir had a hand in building the intrusive global surveillance capabilities of the U.S. National Security Agency. The firm's software was also used by the Trump administration to target immigrants and facilitate deportations.

Its work with Britain's health care system was initially spurred by an April 2019 meeting between the Department for International Trade’s (DIT) then second most senior civil servant Antonia Romeo and Palantir’s Louis Mosley, executive vice president and head of U.K. operations.

During the meeting, Romeo told Mosley about NHSX — a new “joint organisation for digital, data and technology” that uses new technologies and data to deliver British health care — set up that month. The meeting is described in briefing notes prepared by DIT and was obtained by POLITICO through a freedom of information request.

After their April 2019 meeting, Romeo connected Mosely with David Prior, chair of NHS England who later ensured that Matthew Gould, the CEO of NHSX, was looped into their conversation.

By July 2, 2019, Prior was drinking watermelon cocktails with Mosley at a dinner the Palantir boss hosted on the eve of the launch of NHSX, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

The same day, Palantir had been added as a supplier to the government’s approved list of cloud technology contractors, a spokesperson for the U.K.’s government contract tendering body, the Crown Commercial Service (CCS), said.

A series of engagements with Prior, Gould and DIT followed in the months after the dinner. Prior then visited Palantir’s headquarters in San Francisco on January 14, 2020, where he saw a demonstration of the company’s health care software Palantir Foundry.

Mosley met Romeo again a week later on January 22 at Palantir’s pavilion at the 2020 annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Romeo’s briefing notes said she should court him by promoting the U.K. as a leader in tech and “a great location for Palantir to expand their software business” and connect him with the technology director at the Crown Commercial Service.

The company sees the U.K. as “a gateway to the rest of the world,” according to briefing notes prepared for the meeting in Davos.

https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-gove ... -palantir/

*** EDIT that was when it fully emerged into the light !

"" Built with CIA funding to support the US ‘war on terror’ following the 11 September attacks, Palantir was founded in 2003 by Peter Thiel, Alex Karp, Stephen Cohen, Jon Lonsdale and Nathan Gettings, but didn’t go public until 2020. ""

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Apologies for the lack of QT review last night. I had a flat viewing this morning and didn't want to turn up hungover. So another day waiting for the phone to ring to see if I've been successful. At least there were only 9 other people viewing this one, the one I viewed yesterday (and failed to get obviously) had 14. To say I'm a bit stressed out would be putting it mildly.

[refitman]

[refitman]

Greens leading in Gorton

[refitman]

[Frog222]

Some of the Most Excellent Oborne --

[refitman]

The government have found another way to fuck with trans people

[Frog222]

Apologies for the lack of QT review last night. I had a flat viewing this morning and didn't want to turn up hungover. So another day waiting for the phone to ring to see if I've been successful. At least there were only 9 other people viewing this one, the one I viewed yesterday (and failed to get obviously) had 14. To say I'm a bit stressed out would be putting it mildly.

Good luck with the surviving Sky !

I'm visibly more healthy after yesterday's transfusion, and feeling it too !!!!!

[Sky'sGoneOut]

It was a landlord showing me round the place today rather than an agent for a change and he seemed a decent sort. Earlier this evening I received an email saying I'd been turned down and was about to curse his name when he rang me and apologised. He said I would have been his first choice (out of 10 applicants on the day) but felt he had to give the flat to a woman who was in desperate need of a place ASAP (something about her being referred to him by a domestic abuse charity). He then went on to offer me first refusal on a flat that would be ready in a month saying he wouldn't advertise it until I'd viewed it. So at least I've got that in the bank now as it were and can calm the fuck down while I keep looking.

Ironically the biggest hurdle I'm facing is the imminent arrival of Labour's renter's rights act in May. All the agencies have already begun implementing it. So now they won't take rent in advance and are doing affordability checks. In theory stopping landlords demanding months of rent in advance and making sure tenants can afford to rent a place are good things, but in practice it's making it much harder for anyone on a low income to find anywhere to live. The affordability check means you have to demonstrate that your annual income amounts to 30x the monthly rent, which is absurd. The housing allowance (how much you can get towards your rent in benefits) round here is £675 a month for a single bedroom flat. So that's the base level of how much landlords are charging unless it's a tiny mould riddled shithole. Which means to pass the affordability check you need to demonstrate you have an income of £20 grand a year, way beyond what a single person on benefits receives.

And as for banning rent in advance, for people reliant on benefits like myself it was always understood it was best to offer landlords at least a couple of months in advance to cover for any DWP fuck ups, then you could always claim it back. Don't tell the DWP but I stashed £5 grand in cash for this very eventuality thinking I could just swan up to a landlord and say, 'Here you go, there's a deposit and six months rent.' But no, in their infinite wisdom Starmer and his idiot cronies have even fucked that up for me.

Anyway now I've got a fallback option my stress levels are reducing and I can return to the cheery world of politics.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Before getting back to politics can I ask if we've all been enjoying the Winter Olympics?

I love it all (apart from the figure skating and ice hockey) and while I know the BBC are essentially only showing the scraps Discovery have thrown to them maybe someone might have had a word about the iPlayer highlights? I'd love to know who's bright idea it was to spoiler every single event.

'I'm watching the women’s' bobsleigh and have to go out, no matter, I'll watch it on the iPlayer later.'

Get's home...'tum ti tum, let's watch the highlights, there's a title there, what does it say before I can even press play?..."HUGENSFALLER WINS GOLD IN BOBSLEIGH."

Ah fuck. Thanks for ruining my enjoyment you wankers.