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They Asked to Be Stopped

Last Sunday I said the incentives would coordinate the AI buildout for us. Three days later the builders went to the Security Council and asked to be stopped. What they got was a phone line.

Last Sunday I said that nobody needs to coordinate the AI buildout because the incentives handle it.

Every company can say a competitor will get there first.

Every country can say the same.

Every engineer is only working on one small part.

Nobody has to be evil.

The structure does the work.

I still think that’s right.

What I did not expect was to be answered within three days.

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ISO 9001:2026 or GSO 9001:2026? When a Quality Standard Stops Being About Quality

I have worked with ISO 9001 quality systems since 1997.

That matters, because I am not an ISO skeptic.

Quite the opposite.

I have worked through ISO 9001:1994, 2000, 2008 and 2015, and for most of that time I watched the standard get better.

The 1994 version was cumbersome and documentation-heavy. Too much energy could be spent proving that you had documented a process rather than determining whether the process actually worked.

ISO 9001:2000 was a major improvement. It pushed organizations toward the process approach. The 2008 revision refined that framework. Then 2015 incorporated risk-based thinking throughout the system rather than treating preventive action as a separate exercise.

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YOU ARE NOW A PERSON OF INTEREST

How AI security is building the capability to turn dissent into threat intelligence

You are not an activist.

At least you have never thought of yourself as one.

You have a job. A mortgage. Kids. A lawn that needs mowed. You complain about grocery prices more than you complain about politics.

Then somebody announces that an enormous AI data center is going to be built three miles from your house.

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Enshittification, Part III: We Did This to Ourselves

DoorDash, the stupidity tax, and how a decade of subsidized convenience rewired what we’re willing to pay for

When I was a kid, people used to call the lottery a “stupidity tax.”

The idea was simple enough. You worked hard for your money, then handed some of it back to the state in exchange for a piece of paper carrying astronomically bad odds of making you rich.

Fair enough.

But after watching the rise of DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub, I owe the lottery an apology.

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A Treatise on Western Christmas in the 21st Century

It’s been eleven years since I wrote about the tension I feel every December—the mixture of genuine joy in Christ’s coming and deep frustration with what we’ve turned the season into. Back then, I said that Christmas exists because of our sin, not our sentimentality.

I still believe that, maybe even more now.

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The Music Video for “Samson” is out now!!!

Midwest Royal’s new music video “Samson” brings one of the Bible’s most human stories to life as a reflection on power, failure, and redemption.

Blending Baroque-inspired visuals with modern cinematic storytelling, Samson unfolds like a living painting. The imagery captures the tension between divine calling and human weakness — a man born with strength beyond measure, brought low by pride, and redeemed through surrender.

Set to a lo-fi, atmospheric soundscape of dusty guitars and cathedral reverb, the track balances raw emotion with haunting beauty. It’s part of the upcoming album Saints, Sinners, and Stories — a concept record that weaves biblical tales into timeless meditations on grace and humanity.

The video takes viewers from Samson’s miraculous birth to the fall of the Philistine temple, closing in the quiet aftermath — dawn breaking over ruin, light returning through dust. It’s not a story of vengeance, but of mercy.

“Let me fall with the guilty, your mercy is my breath. With arms outstretched the pillars break — a glimpse of the Savior’s death.”

Samson is now streaming on YouTube. Watch, listen, and remember: even in the collapse, there’s grace waiting to rise.

Saints, Sinners, & Stories

It has been many moons since my last post. I still think about writing time to time, but my time seems to be devoted to family, work, and music these days. Music is the main outlet, and method, of writing I have been focused on the last few years. I released an album under the “Midwest Royal” stage name back in 2022 that I wrote and developed with many friends for 12 years. Since then I have more focused about getting music out in a more timely fashion…

That being said, I have a new album releasing on All Saints Day 2025 called “Saints, Sinners, and Stories; and is includes 7 songs about some of my favorite bible stories. The Tower of Babel, Samson, Nebuchadnezzar, Jonah, Jesus writing in the sand, The Pool at Bethesda, and Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. The album will release on all streaming services at midnight on All Saints Day, but I am including a secret link to the songs that are hosted on my Soundcloud Account here:

Midwest Royal – Saints, Sinners, & Stories

Please listen, comment, and feel free to share!

Once released it would be awesome if you could add any of the tunes you like to your Spotify or Apple Music or Youtube playlist!