also, some things to think about...

- we have a naturalized Austrian that can directly compare WWII to today's elephant-in-the-room...https://tinyurl.com/2p8zsj9m

- one of the few Republican leaders that speak to the Russian people (not rooting Putin on)...https://videosift.com/video/A-message-to-the-Russian-people

- self-made (seriously made) millionaire*, that was a governor of a large state - enough to qualify as a nation by itself - who is the closest to the template of St. Reagan alive...and he has much disdain for the GOP.

makes the head reel. an Austrian leader speaking out against fascism. another of the 1937 reasons NOT to support the red.

*what bk33 avatar's wishes it represented

Neighbors exist as a fuck you to neighbors.

I deeply enjoy butchering German.

Many Germans believe Czech was created to mock them.

My son has a theory that Polish is a made-up language that they only pretend to use when we can hear them. At home they speak like normal people (us).

Austrian is like Canadian, virtually non-existent, but you know it when they speak it.

Slovakian was basically made up by czech schoolteachers in early 20th century. Joke.

Hungarian, like Finnish, is from another galaxy altogether. Also we last had a border with Hungary 27 years ago, I should get used to that.

None of the random words I got were fit for publication. Apparently the Austrian village isn't the first association people make with that word.

p.s. Tried again, and got Random words: either, advertisement, decadence, graduated, comfortable

I get it, but I also suspect it's not pronounced that way.

Although the mayor's name is probably correct.

Fucking Austrians...

Austrian Protestant? The last time they were relevant was in the 16th century.

Murderers by faith? Spread the fear, keep stupid people subjugated.

The video is a lame innocent joke with zero actual content and yet what interesting comments. I should google this hip-hop thing.

You really don't know the history of your own religion, do you?

"Hey, Protestants, convert or die!" says the French Catholic.
"Hey, Catholics, convert or die!" says the Austrian Protestant.
"Hey, Jews, convert or die! Uh, but lend us money first -- we need to kill those false Christians over there!" says both the French Catholic and the Austrian Protestant.

You know Christians waged wars on each other over whether the Bible should be in common vernacular or not, right?

Also, you have no fucking clue about Islam. Learn about them? I've gone to a mosque (Sunni); I've watched them pray; I've talked to an Imam. Which of any of the above three have YOU done, O Scholar of Islam?

I'm pretty sure the stupidest war ever was the War of Jenkins' Ear, which not only was dumb in it's own merit but also spawned two additional wars that killed close to 2 million people.

Basically Britain and a trading company decided that a little war would help to spur trade, so they seized on an 8 year old incident involving the Spanish boarding a ship and cutting off the captain's ear to fan the flames of conflict.

While the casualties of this little conflict were only around 30k dead or wounded, and a paltry 500 ships, it nicely helped kick off the War of Austrian Succession. That fun conflict led to around half a million dead.

Not satisfied, the powers of Europe stewed over the previous two incidents and then decided to really get down and dirty. The Seven Years war was the first really 'global' war, involving every European great power of the time and spanning five continents. Roughly 1.25 million people got to shuffle their mortal coil off the world thanks, in part, to a little trade war over an ear.

Trump did condemn, unlike Arnold's dad.

Truth and facts but left out that his dad was a Nazi.

His dad decided not to beat the loud and angry voices of the Nazi with louder more reasonable voices. His dad just joined them.

Military career[edit]
Schwarzenegger had served in the Austrian Army from 1930 to 1937, achieving the rank of section commander and in 1937 he became a police officer. After enlisting in the Wehrmacht in November 1939, he was a Hauptfeldwebel (Master Sergeant) of the Feldgendarmerie, which were military police units. He served in Poland, France, Belgium, Ukraine, Lithuania and Russia. His unit was Feldgendarmerie-Abteilung 521 (mot.), which was part of Panzer Group 4. Wounded in action in Russia on 22 August 1942, he had the Iron Cross First and Second Classes for bravery, the Eastern Front Medal or the Wound Badge. Schwarzenegger appears to have received much medical attention. Initially, he was treated in the military hospital in Łódź, but according to the records he also suffered recurring bouts of malaria, which led to his discharge in February, 1944.

Russians? Pfft. When the Austrians make one, THEN I'll be worried.

I do give them points for dual-wielding.

Absolutely. We've had our share of - primarily Austrian and French - mercenaries as part of our internal wars. These were groups who enlisted for one of the fighting parties.

In Syria, however, you've had thousands of mercenaries who were not fighting for the government or the "rebels", but for their own. And we're not just talking about ISIS carving out pieces of Syria for their own caliphate, but also other jihadists who merely want to turn Syria into another failed state, like Libya.

To describe this as a civil war distorts the nature of this conflict, it makes it sound as if it were a struggle for control between two groups of Syrians. It may have been at some point years ago, but it hasn't been for a long time.

Mali is looking awfully similar by now, too. Lots of foreign fighters in nation states that were only ever stable on paper anyway -- a recipe for disaster.

Oh come on, that's vicious even in my opinion.

And I think Josef Fritzl is a hilarious topic to bring up with austrians.

Why would getting on and off a paternoster be different from stepping onto a normal moving staircase (escalator)? Its just one step.

As for "I can easily imagine severed limbs" or "slow moving guillotine" web articles - I have never seen severed limbs or heads anywhere near a paternoster. Difficult to compare but I would expect accidents to be similar to escalator accidents (which can be pretty bad, Ive had one myself).

In any case paternosters are just as popular (though rare) all over central (Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Austria) northern (Sweden, Finland), part of western Europe (Germany, England, Denmark, Netherlands), and even as far as the Austrian Empire extended southward into the Balkans (Beograd).

When Baron Von Steuben was asked about the colonial troops he'd trained during the American Revolution, he wrote, "‘The genius of this nation is not in the least to be compared with that of the Prussians, Austrians, or French. You say to your [European] soldier, “Do this,” and he doeth it, but I am obliged to say, “This is the reason why you ought to do that,” and he does it.’”

That, in a nutshell, is what it means to be an American. We'll do it, but first you have to explain yourself. Of course, that can be trained out of them, but it's a lot harder than you'd think.

This one deserves more attention than it currently gets, I'd say:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11447805/Eurozone-faces-first-regional-bankruptcy-as-debt-debacle-stalks-Austrias-Carinthia.html

Short version: Austrian bank ignores due diligence, does shitload of risky business in Balkans/Eastern Europe, business goes sour, trouble gets magnified by several events, bad bank is created, bad bank is now insolvent, new bail-in rules apply -- murder and mayhem everywhere.

The bank itself has a rather fascinating history of corruption within both Austria and Germany. In fact, it was taken over by a public bank from Bavaria under extremely dubious circumstances, and separated again a few years back under equally dubious circumstances. A whole lot of money laundering for our conservative party went through that bank, I can tell you that much.

Good source of entertainment, that one.