Arnold Schwarzenegger

Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger (born July 30, 1947 in Thal, Styria, Austria) is an Austrian-American actor, Republican politician, bodybuilder, and businessman, currently serving as the 38th Governor of California. He was elected on October 7, 2003 in a special recall election which removed sitting Governor Gray Davis from office. Schwarzenegger was sworn in on November 17, 2003 to serve the remainder of Davis' term, which lasts until January 2007.

Miscellaneous

• In honor of its most famous son, Schwarzenegger's home town of Graz named its new football (soccer) stadium after him. The Arnold Schwarzenegger Stadion, which is the home of both Grazer AK and Sturm Graz and has a capacity of 15,400, cost €20.5 million, and opened on July 9, 1997.
• In 2005 Peter Pilz from the Austrian Green Party in parliament demanded to revoke Schwarzenegger's Austrian citizenship because of his involvement in the exercise of the death penalty in California. This demand was based on article 33 of the Austrian citizenship act that states: "A citizen, who is in the public service of a foreign country, shall be deprived of his citizenship, if he heavily damages the reputation or the interests of the {Austrian} Republic". The European Convention on Human Rights, which bans the death penalty, is part of the Austrian constitution. Schwarzenegger justified his actions by referring to the fact that his only duty as Governor of California was to prevent an error in the judicial system.
• Because Schwarzenegger opted in 1997 for a replacement heart valve made of his own transplanted tissue, medical experts predict he will require repeated heart valve replacement surgery in the next two to eight years (as his current valve degrades). Schwarzenegger apparently opted against a mechanical valve, the only permanent solution available at the time of his surgery, because it would have sharply limited his physical activity and capacity to exercise.
• He bought the first Hummer manufactured for civilian use in 1992, a model so large (6,300 lbs and seven feet wide) that it is classified as a large truck and U.S. fuel economy regulations do not apply to it. From the Diesel H1's fuel capacity and range ratings, it may go as few as 16 miles per U.S. gallon. (Source: The Book of Useless Information, page 14, published 2002) During the Gubernatorial Recall campaign he announced that he would convert one of his Hummers to burn hydrogenhttp://msnbc.msn.com/id/3180817/. The conversion was reported to have cost about US$21,000. After the election, he signed an executive order to jumpstart the building of hydrogen refueling plants called the "California Hydrogen Highway Network", and gained a DOE grant to help pay for its projected $91 million cost.http://www.bmwworld.com/hydrogen/schwarzenegger.htm California took delivery of the first H2H (Hummer 2 Hydrogen) in October 2004 http://trucks.about.com/od/hybridcar/a/hummer_h2h.htm.