Anton Neulinger

"Brothers and sisters, this is our God: Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war. He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them, saying: 'Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood' (Is 1:15)." Pope Leo XIV on Palm Sunday

A Harvard professor who has written 9 books and spent 40 years studying how language works inside the human brain just gave the most important writing masterclass I've ever seen. Here's what he said that broke my entire understanding of writing. Steven Pinker, the professor, opened with a single question: why is so much writing terrible? Not just academic writing, but corporate writing, government writing, and even most blog posts. His answer had nothing to do with effort or intelligence. He called it the Curse of Knowledge. The moment you understand something deeply, you lose the ability to remember what it felt like not to know it. You stop seeing your own blind spots because the blind spots feel like common ground. He watched a brilliant molecular biologist destroy a room of 400 people at a TED event. The man launched straight into jargon without ever explaining the problem he was solving or why anyone should care. The biologist had no idea it was happening. That's the curse. Then he said something I haven't stopped thinking about. Bad writing is not a character flaw. It's a failure of empathy. You cannot get inside your reader's head by trying harder. You have to actually find a real human being and watch them read your words in real time. He showed his drafts to his mother. Not because she was unsophisticated, but because she wasn't a cognitive psychologist. She was smart, well-read, and completely outside his world. When she lost the thread, he knew something was wrong. The second thing he said changed how I think about every sentence I write. Language is a delivery system, not the destination. What your reader actually understands is not the words. It is the image, the sensation, the concrete thing those words are supposed to summon. If your reader cannot picture it, they have not understood it. He asked: what is a paradigm? What does a framework look like? What color is a concept? Nobody could answer. Because abstractions produce nothing in the mind's eye. The writers from two centuries ago who still feel alive today were forced to think visually because they had no abstractions to hide behind. They had to say the spirit of the hawk tore into our flesh instead of aggression. The image did the work that the jargon could not. The third thing he said was the one most people ignore completely. Brevity is not about word count. It is about removing every word that makes the reader work harder without rewarding them for it. He quoted a line he had memorized for 40 years: omit needless words. Three words. An instruction that is also an example of itself. He said the best thing that ever happened to his writing was editors who gave him an 800-word limit and wouldn't budge. The constraint always improved the piece. Always. The curse of knowledge is real. The fix is simple and most people never do it. Find one person outside your world. Show them what you wrote. Watch their face, not the page.

It is with great sadness that we learned of the death of Harry Waddingham at the age of 109. Harry was the oldest known British veteran of the Second World War and a proud Sussex Freemason. Our thoughts are with his family and friends at this difficult time. Read about his life here⬇️ 🔗telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/202… #Freemasons @SussexMasons

Incredible strides he's made at Bayern. Love how he plays now. Konny Laimer should be key during Austria's World Cup campaign this summer 🤞❤️🇦🇹

Trump just said Iran hit the USS Gerald R. Ford “from 17 angles” and the crew “had to run to save our lives.” His own Pentagon says it was a laundry room fire. A sitting president publicly contradicting his own DoD during an active war is extraordinary — regardless of which version is true.

Trump on Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince MBS today: “He didn’t think he would be kissing my ass. He really didn’t. And now he has to be nice to me. He better be nice to me.” This is how the President of the United States describes America’s most important Gulf ally. The same Saudi Arabia that: — Cut oil production by 6.7 million barrels — Whose energy infrastructure Iran threatened to destroy — Who the US needs to keep oil markets stable — Who Trump is asking to join the Iran war Diplomatic relationships are built over decades. Trump just described the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia as someone kissing his body parts — on camera — while asking him for military cooperation. France got an 8 out of 10. Japan got Pearl Harbor. Saudi Arabia got this. The isolation of America is not just a policy failure. It is a daily practice.

BREAKING: Zelensky just landed in the UAE and signed a defence cooperation agreement with President MBZ. The deal on the table changes everything about this war. Ukraine is offering Gulf states 1,000 drone interceptors per day. Each Sting interceptor costs $2,100. Each Patriot missile it replaces costs $3.9 million. In exchange, Ukraine wants the Patriot missiles the Gulf states are burning through, because Kyiv cannot get enough of them to stop Russian missiles. Read that again. The country America refused to arm fast enough is now arming America’s allies with a weapon that costs 1,857 times less than the one America cannot produce fast enough. The National reported on March 27 that Zelensky told reporters: “We’d like to quietly receive the Patriot missiles we have a deficit of, and give them a corresponding number of interceptors.” AFP confirmed the UAE agreement on March 28. Eleven countries have formally requested Ukraine’s drone defence expertise per Zelensky’s own count. Over 200 Ukrainian military specialists are already deployed across the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Jordan. Here is the arithmetic that should terrify every Pentagon procurement officer on earth. The United States fired 943 Patriot interceptors in the first four days of the Iran war per a US Congressional study cited by the Jerusalem Post. That is eighteen months of Lockheed Martin’s annual production consumed in 96 hours. Each of those 943 shots cost $3.9 million. Total expenditure: $3.68 billion in four days on defensive interceptions alone. Iran produces 10,000 Shahed drones per month per Reuters. Each drone costs $20,000 to $50,000. The cost exchange ratio is 114 to 1 in Iran’s favour per Military Times. Ukraine’s Sting interceptor inverts this arithmetic entirely. At $2,100, the cost ratio flips from 114-to-1 against America to roughly 10-to-1 against Iran. Ukraine can supply 1,000 per day. That is 30,000 per month against Iran’s 10,000 Shaheds per month. For the first time in this war, the defender’s production rate exceeds the attacker’s production rate at a fraction of the cost. And the country that built this weapon is the same country that Trump publicly rejected. “No, they are not helping. We do not need their help. We know more about drones than anyone else” per Fox News. He doubled down: “The last person we need help from is Zelensky.” Meanwhile the Pentagon notified Congress of plans to redirect $750 million in Ukraine-bound Patriot missiles to Gulf states per House of Saud reporting. America is simultaneously refusing Ukraine’s cheap solution and cannibalising Ukraine’s expensive one. Zelensky framed this explicitly. He told The National: “No matter how many Patriots, THAADs, or other air-defence systems are in the Middle East, that alone is not enough for fully effective air defence.” He told the UK Parliament: “When it comes to shooting down massive Shahed attacks, only Ukrainian experience can really help with this today.” The Pentagon is spending $3.9 million per interception, raiding Swiss fighter jet accounts to cover shortfalls, and diverting Ukraine’s own Patriot supply to the Gulf. Zelensky is offering the same result for $2,100 and producing 1,000 units per day. The market has a word for this kind of disruption. The $2,100 drone is the most important weapon in this war. And the country that built it is the one America said it did not need. Full analysis - open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

When I travel outside of Ukraine, I get daily intelligence updates online. This morning, I was briefed that U.S. military facilities in the Middle East and the Gulf region were photographed by Russian satellites in the interests of Iran. On March 24th, they imaged the U.S.–UK joint military facility on Diego Garcia located in the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean. They also captured pictures of Kuwait International Airport and parts of the infrastructure of the Greater Burgan oil field. On March 25th, they took pictures of the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. The Shaybah oil and gas field in Saudi Arabia, İncirlik Air Base in Türkiye, and Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar were all imaged on March 26th. There are no Ukrainian facilities on this list. But who is helping whom when sanctions are lifted from an aggressor that earns daily revenue and provides intelligence for strikes against American, Middle Eastern, UK, and U.S.–UK bases and so on? When surveillance is carried out over facilities in Ukraine, we always understand that they must be protected, since plans are in motion to destroy them – energy and water infrastructure, military facilities, and so on. Everyone knows that repeated reconnaissance indicates preparations for strikes. How can sanctions be eased if this is what the Russians are doing? There must be pressure on the aggressor. And lifting sanctions is certainly not pressure. It looks strange. Sanctions are being lifted, while the aggressor is providing intelligence to strike facilities, including those of the countries that are discussing or have already lifted sanctions. From my conversation with journalists (3/3).

🇺🇦🇪🇺 Sönke Neitzel liefert eine Einschätzung, die einem den Atem raubt: "Der EU-Verteidigungskommissar hat neulich eine Studie vorgestellt, die letzlich forderte: Wir Europäer müssen die Unterstütungsleistung für die Ukraine verdoppeln, dann wäre die Ukrainer in der Lage auch wieder offensiv zu werden" - "nur das Problem ist, das wird man in Europa nie durch bekommen. Denn die Europäer, die die Ukraine unterstützen, sind gerade mal 9 Staaten: Die baltischen Staaten, die nordischen Staaten, die Niederlande, Deutschland und Polen" "Und das ist das Bittere, dass dieser Kontinent mit 450 Millionen Einwohnern nicht willens ist, für den Luftschutz der Ukrainer zu sorgen." - "Also der Befund ist: Die Europäer wollen offenbar nicht."

BREAKING: EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas confronted Marco Rubio at a G7 foreign ministers meeting Friday, pressing him on when the U.S. would get tougher on Russia, Axios reports. Details: During a Ukraine discussion, Kallas criticized the U.S. for not increasing pressure on Russia She noted Rubio had said a year earlier that U.S. patience would run out if Russia blocked peace efforts. “A year has passed and Russia hasn’t moved,” Kallas said. “When is your patience going to run out?” Sources say Rubio was visibly annoyed. “We are doing the best we can to end the war. If you think you can do it better, go ahead. We will step aside,” he replied, raising his voice. Kallas is obviously right. Vladimir Putin has rejected every ceasefire proposal and Donald Trump is still blocking serious sanctions on Russia and continuing to go after Zelensky, accusing him of being an obstacle to peace.

@EduardHabsburg Your relative did not fight in Colorado. Sometimes, one letter matters.

Visting friends I ran into great great great grand uncle Archduke Charles - first man to beat Napoleon in a land battle (Aspen).

Diese Vermengung von „rechts“ und „rechtsextrem“ ist nicht nur kurzsichtig sondern, schlimmer noch, ein Fehler, @arminthurnher. Rechts und links, so unzureichend diese Begriffe auch sind, gehören zu jeder Demokratie.

@Footballtweet Borussia Dortmund.

Name a football club without the letter "A" or the letter "E". You can't. 🔫

BREAKING: Pope Leo XIV triumphs over Donald Trump as the Catholic Church sees a MASSIVE surge in converts as his anti-MAGA message spreads like wildfire around the world. It turns out that love and compassion are popular... According to a new report in The New York Times, people are joining the Church in "surprising numbers." They discovered that the Archdiocese of Detroit will welcome 1,428 new Catholics this Easter Vigil — the annual night before Easter on which coverts enter the church — marking its highest numbers in 21 years. The Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston will see its highest number in 15 years while the Diocese of Des Moines is experiencing a 51% jump from last year, an increase from 265 people to 400. “Of course we think the Holy Spirit is [behind this]. But we are kind of stymied," said Cardinal Robert McElroy of Washington. His diocese will receive 1,755 new converts, up from 1,566 last year which had been a 15-year record. “‘What is your number? What is your number?’” McElroy said a group of bishops were asking each other at a recent conference. The Times checked conversion data at two dozen dioceses including massive ones like Los Angeles and Phoenix as well as substantially smaller ones like Allentown, Pennsylvania. In each location, they discovered a "significant jump." “In our age of uncertainty, and in our age of great anxiety, is a thirst and hunger for God and stability that faith brings to people’s lives,” said Archbishop Mitchell Thomas Rozanski of St. Louis. His diocese is seeing record high numbers since 2016. “I think technology has isolated us from one other. I think that Covid just really magnified that isolation,” he added. “We are realizing many of the ills of our society, particularly anxiety and depression, come about from that isolation.” But you cannot rule out the role of the papacy in this trend. And while it certainly helps that Leo is the first American pope, more importantly his message of kindness towards migrants and opposition to war has gone out to a world in desperate need of hope. He has labeled Trump's Iran War a “scandal to the whole human family” and called for a total ban on aerial bombardments. That opposition to the relentless cruelty of the Republican Party under its current cult leader has led to a massive backlash against Leo from the MAGA base, who now regularly smear him as a "communist" and "demonic." Yet he is undeterred in his message. At a time when the so-called "Christians" that make up Trump's Evangelical base are salivating for death — and even calling for a reinstatement of biblical slavery in some cases — Leo is echoing the simple, true message of Christ: Love thy neighbor. Please ❤️ and share if you're a fan of Pope Leo!

Canada has hit its 2% NATO defence spending target. We made a promise to transform our defence — and we’re getting it done.

Anlässlich des heutigen Todestages von Ludwig van Beethoven: Im Wiener Straßennetz gibt es insgesamt vier verschiedene Gemeindestraßen/Verkehrsflächen, die dem Komponisten gewidmet sind - der Beethovenplatz, die Beethovengasse, der Beethovengang und die Beethovenstraße. #WienFakt

#Österreich, Niederösterreich: Im Bezirk Lilienfeld kommen binnen der kommenden 24 Stunden bis am Freitagabend oft nochmals 20 bis 50 cm Schnee dazu! In Annaberg sind schon 30 bis 40 cm gefallen! #Schnee /CG kachelmannwetter.com/at/modellkarte…

I am Sarah, a servant of Jesus Christ, and I come as one seeking the grace of God, to travel with you in his service together. I am sent as archbishop to serve you to proclaim the love a Christ and with you to worship and love him with heart and soul, mind and strength.

Europa sollte hier massiv, ich sage MASSIV, in die Lücke stoßen!!!! @DoroBaer @bundeskanzler @_FriedrichMerz @vonderleyen

Die Graz 99ers sind nach dem Viertelfinale österreichischer Eishockeymeister. Das is echt absurd