scanman’s posterous

Yogendra Singh Yadav was a member of an Indian grenadier battalion during a conflict with Pakistan in 1999. Their mission was to climb "Tiger Hill" (actually a big-ass mountain), and neutralize the three enemy bunkers at the top. Unfortunately, this meant climbing up a sheer hundred-foot cliff-face of solid ice. Since they didn't want to all climb up one at a time with ice-axes, they decided they'd send one guy up, and he'd fasten the ropes to the cliff as he went, so everyone else could climb up the sissy way. Yadav, being awesome, volunteered.

Half way up the icy cliff-o'-doom, enemies stationed on an adjacent mountain opened fire, shooting them with an RPG, then spraying assault-rifle fire all over the cliff. Half his squad was killed, including the commander, and the rest were scattered and disorganized. Yadav, in spite of being shot three times, kept climbing.

When he reached the top, one of the target bunkers opened fire on him with machine guns. Yadav ran toward the hail of bullets, pitched a grenade in the window and killed everyone inside. By this point the second bunker had a clear shot and opened fire, so he ran at them, taking bullets while he did, and killed the four heavily-armed men inside with his bare hands.

Meanwhile, the remainder of his squad was standing at the top of the cliff staring at him saying, "dude, holy shit!" They then all went and took the third bunker with little trouble.

For his gallantry and sheer ballsiness, he was awarded the Param Vir Chakra, India's highest military award. Unlike the Medal of Honor, the Param Vir Chakra is only given for "rarest of the rare gallantry which is beyond the call of duty and which in normal life is considered impossible to do." That's right, you actually have to break the laws of reality just to be eligible.

It has only been awarded 21 times, and two thirds of the people who earned it died in the process. It was initially reported that Yadav had as well, but it turns out that they just mistook him for someone less badass. Or they just figured no real human being could survive a broken leg, shattered arm and 10-15 fresh bullet holes in one sitting.

here's the man himself…

here's a picture of the Param Vir Chakra…

citation

this is the kind of story that raises goose bumps.

[read about 4 other soldiers who make rambo look like a sissy in the original article here]

ONE OF THE WORLD'S longest, bloodiest conflicts is coming to a gruesome conclusion on the island nation of Sri Lanka. The United Nations estimates that some 6,500 civilians have died and 14,000 have been injured in the government's merciless offensive against the Tamil Tigers in the northeast of the country.

...governments, particularly India and China, should pressure both the Sri Lankan government and the Tigers to halt the fighting and permit trapped civilians to escape.

...humanitarian intervention would be more likely to succeed if the interveners make it clear that Sri Lankan government officials and Tiger leaders will be held responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Accounts from refugees leave little doubt that both sides have perpetrated such crimes. It was probably to hide those crimes that Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Defense Minister Gotabahaya Rajapaksa, his brother, banned international aid groups and independent journalists from the theater of war.

At a time when 100,000 refugees need medical care, food, and shelter, and another 50,000 are under shelling in a five-square-mile war zone, the international community has proved impotent to live up to the UN's 2005 adoption of a "right to protect" civilians who are not protected by their government. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon deserves credit for announcing Thursday that he was sending a humanitarian aid team to the war zone. "So many lives have been sacrificed," Ban said. "There is no time to lose." Welcome as the UN chief's humanitarian initiative must be, the sad truth is that it comes woefully late, after too much preventable human suffering.

The Rajapaksa brothers have been able to get away with their no-quarter assault on the Tigers, with all the collateral damage that entailed, because they dressed it up as a war against terrorists. Their propaganda has been effective because it is grounded in a half-truth. The Tigers have committed terrorist acts. But the overwhelming majority of the victims in the Rajapaksa brothers' war have been Tamil civilians. For more than a quarter century, successive Sri Lankan governments have refused to grant ethnic Tamils in the north and northeast of the country some form of autonomy or self-rule in a confederal state.

The Tigers may be crushed in the next few days. But the anger and alienation of the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka is more acute than ever. The ultimate solution for Sri Lanka's communal conflict can only be political, not military. If the Tamil populace sees no hope for autonomy within Sri Lanka, it may come to demand a separate state - after all, the secessionist goal of the Tigers.

[all emphases are mine]

a reminder that these are excerpts from an editorial in The Boston Globe, NOT from some rabid fanatic Tamil website.

it is sickening that tamil politicians who vie among themselves for the totally undeserved title of "leader of all tamils" do not have the moral courage to stand up for the rights of their brethren.

another reminder to all the well-meaning people in india (and abroad): support for the suffering sri lankan tamils DOES NOT EQUAL support for the murderous tamil tigers.

Researchers at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston have successfully used PET/CT to confirm the presence of brown adipose tissue, also know as brown fat, in adults. The surprising discovery could lead to new treatments both for obesity and type 2 diabetes.

The study also found defined regions of functionally active brown fat more frequently in women than in men, and noted that the amount in adults is inversely correlated with body mass index, especially in older people, suggesting a potential role of brown fat in adult human metabolism.

The Joslin study contradicts previous research indicating that brown fat exists in humans only during childhood and disappears, for the most part, with age. The Joslin researchers also showed that brown fat is metabolically active.

The findings are published in the April 9, 2009, issue of the New England Journal of Medicine (Vol. 360:15, pp. 1509-1517). Lead author Dr. Aaron Cypess, Ph.D., an endocrinologist and research associate at Joslin, credits the brown fat discoveries to the combination of functional imaging with PET and the structural anatomical information from CT.

"PET/CT gives you the first chance to see brown fat throughout the entire body," Cypess said. "Before, you would have to do a biopsy or autopsy to see the whole body that way."

Agents from the criminal investigations arm of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) have raided the Pennsylvania offices of Siemens Healthcare, according to federal officials. A Siemens representative said the search was related to the investigation of a contract the company has with the DoD.

Investigators from the Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS) arrived at the company's Malvern offices on the morning of April 22 to execute a search warrant, according to Ed Bradley, special agent in charge with the agency's northeast field office in Philadelphia, in comments to AuntMinnie.com.

Siemens Healthcare director of public relations Lance Longwell confirmed that DCIS investigators conducted a "limited search" of one floor of the Malvern building. Siemens asked employees who work near the area subject to the search to leave for the remainder of the day and to return tomorrow for a regular workday, Longwell said.

"Siemens has fully cooperated with the investigation and will continue to do so," he added.

The DCIS is the criminal investigative arm of the Department of Defense's Office of the Inspector General, Bradley said. The unit has authority to investigate issues related to defense contracts, weapons programs, and any other funds spent by the DoD.

Local news coverage of the raid cited unnamed sources as stating that investigators "are seeking documents and records involving several contracts between the military and the company," according WPVI-TV television in Philadelphia. The investigation appears to be focusing on medical contracts, the report said.

Siemens several years ago ran afoul of government authorities for issues related to corruption in the procurement of medical equipment contracts. In 2007, German investigators discovered a secret fund through which bribes were paid to obtain contracts internationally.

The Healthcare group acknowledged the existence of a fund worth approximately $2.1 billion and agreed to pay a fine of $317 million. The disclosures may have led to the departures of Klaus Kleinfeld, CEO of Siemens AG, as well as Erich Reinhardt, CEO of Siemens Healthcare. Neither Kleinfeld nor Reinhardt were ever linked personally to the fund.

In 2007, Siemens agreed to a plea deal that included a $2.5 million fine related to charges of procurement fraud in trying to obtain a radiology equipment contract at an Illinois hospital that required minority participation. Federal prosecutors charged Siemens, two Siemens employees, and a joint-venture business partner with setting up a "sham" joint venture in order to win a $49 million contract at Stroger Hospital in Cook County, IL.

wow!! a $2.1 billion slush fund!!
it must be good to be a huge healthcare conglomerate!!