U.S. Embassy in China Warns of 'Crazy Bad' Pollution

The only three people left in Beijing that can still exercise without masks on.

If you saw this scene every day, how would you describe it? Toxic? Disastrous? Post-Apocalyptic?

Well, apparently our friends at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing have come up with their own ultra-precise terminology: "crazy bad."

The embassy releases air quality notifications every day, but on an especially bad day this week released a report calling the status of the pollution "crazy bad." Sounds more like the next Beyonce song than a weather report.

Can you imagine if the National Weather Service starting feeling this relaxed about their work? Would the Indian Ocean tsunami "hella huge"? Hurricane Katrina "probably going to fuck everything up?" La Nina "hot as balls"?

The embassy says that it will try to find more precise language in the future. And I guess to their credit, U.S. expats and visitors in China are probably pretty used to interesting takes on the English language.

Full report from NPR here: http://www.npr.org/2010/11/19/131438688/u-s-embassy-beijing-pollution-is-crazy-bad