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I seem to get flu on a regular basis these days.
Perhaps once in 2 months, my nose would be stuffed with phlegm and I will be having a bad headache throughout the day. Normally after a visit to the doctor and handful of antibiotics, vitamin C and flu tablets, I would recover. When talking to the doctor on this, she would always reply “It’s the weather – drink plenty of water”
“It’s the weather” – why I am not surprised?
The haze is back no thanks to the Indons and some selfish idiots, right here in Malaysia. So, with the stuffy nose, it tends to get worse – my nose has this stinging feeling as well. There is nothing much in the papers on it yet. At least not in the front pages last the time. Perhaps it is because everyone is so busy with the rollout of tenders under the 9th Malaysian Plan or the fact that Pak Lah just came back and everyone is waiting for his direction (as usual).
Indons will be busy with the earthquake & tsunami rescue efforts, so you can forget about them having the time to enforce the laws on the open burning. Worse come to worse, you can expect them to say sorry and put the blame on the Malaysian companies in Indonesia as being the main culprits. So, what’s new?
That leaves the rest of us having to breathe in and out the polluted air. Those who are driving and work in air conditioned offices faired slightly better than the rest. My dad had to cut down on his morning walk and my wife hardly opens the window. Luckily my son is adapting well.
Just being curious, I wanted to know the Air Pollutant Index (API) as at this morning. So, I clicked on the link to the DOE’s website and guess what? It took a very long time to open (despite broadband, almost 500 seconds to be precise) but in the end, it did open. I clicked on the link for the API reading as 19th July 2006 and another long wait ensued (I hope the department had submitted request for better servers in the 9th Malaysia Plan).
The API links eventually opens up and when I click on the July links – it opens up March figures. Someone must have screwed up the hyperlinks or intentionally hide away the July figures. After several tries, I managed to get the July reading – 66 for PJ (it was 56 back in January 2006). Hmm, still classified as “moderate” by DOE standard but one look out of the window does not seem so – haze looks bad.
The haze is here to stay and stay for a long time…damn!
Read also: When Government thinks is the best time to reveal the daily API?
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