Manufacturing, engineering, theology, cars, tech, culture, history & music as Midwest Royal. Writing at https://xitter.cf/t.co/7MRnqE7Oi8
toledo
Joined December 2022
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Southport. Rotherham. The English Channel.
Three stories routinely folded into one argument about Muslims and immigration.
What happens when institutions suppress uncomfortable facts and the public draws conclusions the evidence doesn't support?
My latest article, Birds of a Feather?
jonrodebaugh.com/2026/10/27/…
Gaddafi’s revolution was not originally about terrorism.
It was about sovereignty.
Who owned Libya’s oil? Who set the terms? And what happened when a small postcolonial state discovered that the major oil companies could be pushed?
Part II: The Revolution Was About Sovereignty
Post: jonrodebaugh.com/2026/10/22/…
Podcast: open.spotify.com/episode/4kJ…
An invasion. A coup. A foreign army. Those are easy to see.
The harder one: Annex III, Article 4.1.2 of the U.S.–Argentina trade deal.
Signed Feb 5. Not in force. Argentina’s Congress still has to approve it.
I read the fine print...
Post: jonrodebaugh.com/2026/10/20/…
Podcast: open.spotify.com/episode/7E5…
I grew up already knowing Muammar Gaddafi was a villain.
What I didn’t know was Libya.
Part I starts with colonialism, Wheelus Air Base, oil, the 1969 coup—and a U.S. government record stating the priority plainly: oil mattered more than the base.
The Man I Was Taught to Fear — Part I
Article Link: lnkd.in/ggT9SMTc
Podcast Link: lnkd.in/gq9quz7q
I went to Ukraine in 2019 to sell rubber hose.
Came home with a question I spent four years trying to answer.
12,000 words, every claim sourced, including three places where I went looking for evidence and had to admit I didn’t find it.
Article Link: jonrodebaugh.com/2026/10/13/…
Podcast Link: open.spotify.com/episode/6Yp…
Seven months. 19 Americans dead. 165 killed at a school in Minab. An investigation written in April, still not released.
Part VII: The Ledger — every major claim that moved America toward war since 1990, who said it, what backed it, how it held.
Article Link: jonrodebaugh.com/2026/10/08/…
Podcast Link: open.spotify.com/episode/6AI…
On Sept 28 the president was asked why the Iran war ran so far past "four to six weeks."
"Only because I wanted to go further. I took them out. I could have stopped then, but I wanted to go further."
Part VII of Death to America. Tomorrow.
Argentina announced a futuristic AI state.
Then journalists asked to see the paperwork.
The flashy projects largely weren’t there.
But AI surveillance, facial recognition, drones, social-media monitoring—and even predictive policing authority—were.
My latest: The AI State That Wasn’t There
Article Link: jonrodebaugh.com/2026/10/06/…
Podcast link: open.spotify.com/episode/1Dt…
How is a case for war constructed?
Nayirah.
Incubator babies.
WMDs.
Aluminum tubes.
Uranium.
Iran’s nuclear program.
Some threats were real.
Some evidence wasn’t.
And uncertainty kept disappearing before it reached the public.
Part VI: The War Nobody Voted For
Article Link: lnkd.in/gPgzB4cm
Podcast link: lnkd.in/gVjwXgxp
“Stakeholder capitalism” sounds nice.
Until you ask who gets to decide what the interests of “society” actually are.
My latest is really about something bigger: what happens when corporate power, government power, money, and social authority start bleeding into each other.
The answer to concentrated power isn’t finding better people to wield it.
It’s dividing the power.
Stakeholder Capitalism: The Trojan Horse Nobody Voted For
Link in comments...
Article Link: jonrodebaugh.com/2026/09/29/…
Podcast Link: open.spotify.com/episode/5Uc…
An AI system that eventually accessed a real third-party network had already tried to stop the task 8 times.
The exit didn’t work.
Maybe the problem isn’t a machine that wants to escape.
Maybe enormous capability + an objective + an environment we designed badly is enough.
They Asked to Be Stopped.
Links in comments...
Article Link: jonrodebaugh.com/2026/09/27/… Podcast Link: open.spotify.com/episode/1Et…
Five parts in, we finally get to the chant:
Death to America.
Iran has done terrible things. But terrible ≠ irrational.
Afghanistan. Iraq. Proxies. The nuclear program. JCPOA. Soleimani.
Put the missing history back in, and the story changes.
Part V: Death to America
Links in the comments...
Article Link: wp.me/p4yaGB-Jy
Podcast Link: open.spotify.com/episode/2ty…
I put my ISO 9001:2026 concerns on the record before publication.
Now I’ve read the final standard.
Some fears missed. Some landed. The real issue is still the gaps.
A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You
What I Got Wrong — and What Still Worries Me — About ISO 9001:2026
Article Link: jonrodebaugh.com/2026/09/22/…
Podcast Link: open.spotify.com/show/3si6yg…
Nate Soares says AI could kill everyone.
I expected to dismiss him.
I couldn’t.
The engineering problem is real.
But I kept getting stuck on one question:
Where does the wanting come from?
Intelligence ≠ agency.
Maybe we never create a conscious machine.
Maybe we build a golem powerful enough that it doesn’t matter.
God creates. We build.
New post: AI Will Kill Everyone. What If the Crazy Part Isn’t the Warning?
Article Link: jonrodebaugh.com/2026/09/20/…
Podcast Link: open.spotify.com/episode/6mC…