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Calling US AID! Why Have You Not Installed a McDonalds in Tirana? For the Children?
I thought that–just this once–I’d expropriate The Daily Outrage post, and invite the Ricochetti to weigh in on my terms.
The Telegraph headline, on a UK immigration story:
Albanian criminal’s deportation halted over son’s distaste for chicken nuggets.
Ahh–Yep.
Evidence about child’s picky eating helps convince immigration tribunal that being forced to leave UK would be unduly harsh.
I hope Tom Homan is preparing himself for this sort of lunacy, on this side of The Pond.
If you read the Telegraph article, you will also discover that the child has “sensory difficulties” with certain types of “socks.”
And also that the child’s father emigrated to the UK and entered illegally in 2001 (24 years ago) as a “15 year old unaccompanied child.” He used a false name and false Yugoslavian birth information (he’s actually an Albanian). His asylum claim was rejected, but in 2007 he was granted UK citizenship with “exceptional leave to remain.” IDKY. And apparently neither does anyone else.
He has three children with an Albanian woman who gained UK citizenship in 2006. In 2017 he (the father of the nugget-challenged child) was jailed for two years after being caught with £250,000 cash–the proceeds of a known crime.
Ever since then, he (the father) has been kicking around in the immigration system, using one-after-another junior lawyer, and one-after-another excuse on the backs of his children, to prevent his deportation.
Chris Philp, shadow home secretary [a Tory], said: “This case shows how bogus asylum seekers and foreign criminals are ruthlessly exploiting human rights laws and weak judges to stay in the UK when common sense clearly shows they should be kicked out.”
It’s hard to believe things could get worse, or more dangerous or absurd. But what I’ve described above is yesterday’s Telegraph story. This morning’s Telegraph story has to do with the fact that a Pakistani paedophile escaped deportation because it would “harm his children”:
The unnamed father of two toddlers, who was granted anonymity by an immigration court, had been banned from living with his children since he was convicted of trying to get three “barely pubescent” girls to engage in sex and was jailed for 18 months.
However, a lower tribunal judge ruled that he should not be deported back to Pakistan because it would be “unduly harsh for the children to be without their father”.
I’ve remarked–often–that I couldn’t possibly live in my native country in this day and age because I’d be the lead story on the 11 o’clock news every night. And not in a good way.
I rest my case.
In comparison to the above, and as so often, the thought of getting my panties in a bunch, or of setting my hair on fire, over every single thing Donald Trump has said, or over every single thing Donald Trump has done, seems to me like a work of such supererogation that I can’t but conclude that those who enthusiastically embrace the concept have either lost the plot, or simply don’t have enough to do in their lives. Poor them. (Or, as it should more properly and grammatically be, I suppose, “Poor They.”)
PS: Regarding the post title, a quick Google search indicates that there are no McDonald’s in Albania. How is this even possible? Does US AID not understand the harm this is doing to underprivileged children who’ve not emigrated to the UK, and who find the Albanian chicken nugget equivalent unsupportable? Good grief. Enough already with the trans operas in Ireland, or the Sesame Street equivalents in Iraq. This is serious business!
Published in General
I think you’re using humor, but a lack of McDonalds MAY BE an indicator of a possible serious problem in the country, a problem more worthy of U.S. attention than is a desire for trans operas in Ireland and Sesame Street equivalents in Iraq.
Not the lack of McDonalds per se. But the lack of willingness by McDonalds to do business as an indicator that the country may lack a stable system of government with a predictable rule of law. McDonalds needs (or at least strongly wants) a stable system of government with predictable rule of law before doing business.
Since countries with stable systems of government and predictable rule of law generally don’t wage war on each other, promoting stable systems of government and predictable rule of law as a tool of world peace might be a reasonable use for United States foreign aid. A not-unreasonable objective of U.S. foreign aid might be “make country open for McDonalds.”
Now maybe the Albanian system of government and rule of law are stable and reasonable, and McDonalds just does not see enough business potential to justify an investment. But, the lack of McDonalds could be a flag.
My Ukrainian refugee friends who came to the US in the Gorbachev days were amazed at the McDonalds. Just ask for what you want, pay your money and receive your food almost instantaneously. (I don’t know if McDonalds were more efficient then, but it seems that way).
I wouldn’t be at all surprised to discover that there are many reasons that there aren’t any McDonalds in Albania, some of which reflect what you refer to as “serious problems” in the country.
But that’s not really what this post is about.
Poor They!
Indeed. It’s past time to find a life and get on with it!
I had to laugh when I saw the title of your post. Since my fairly recent addiction to YouTube I knew exactly what you were talking about. I watch the GBNews and miscellaneous podcasts from the UK and just saw this item . Funny if it weren’t so depressing.
Does anyone else think Unsupportable Albanian Chicken Nuggets would be a great name for a heavy metal band?
Or maybe a porn star.
Lack of McDonalds is probably an indicator of better health all round, but who am I to say?
Well, maybe. Interesting idea. MMHA (Make Migrants Healthy Again!) by deporting them to their McDonald’s-free countries of origin so they can once again responsibly enjoy their own national cuisine, unburdened by worries over too many unhealthy fats, too much ultra-processed food and too much red dye #3.
”For their own good.”
It could work…
Since I seem to have had a hand in derailing the point of this post, let me try to bring that point back.
As much of a fan of trying to maintain family togetherness as I am, the idea that a known pedophile who is already banned from living with his children should nonetheless stay in proximity to those children is nuts.
The logic behind refusing to deport a criminal because he needs to stay near his children (that he is prevented from living with) leads to saying we should not imprison criminals because doing so breaks up families and takes fathers away from their children.
No worries at all and thanks.
Yes, the whole thing is nuts. There’s a cartoon in the Telegraph today which I won’t post for copyright reasons (link), but it shows a Wheel of Fortune-type scenario, where the “wheel” is made up of “reasons why I shouldn’t be deported,” ranging from “My child prefers British chicken nuggets” to “I’ve forgotten how to speak my native language.” You get the idea.
Sometimes, ridicule is the
bestonly rational way to respond to the idiocy.Speaking of ridicule, it appears that The Telegraph risks turning itself into the UK equivalent of The Onion, but merely by accurately reporting the news each day. Today’s effort highlights the NHS doctor “Beth” Upton, who insists that he is “biologically female” and therefore eligible to out whatever bits of himself he pleases, in women’s changing rooms, whenever he feels like it:
Yeah, Dr “Beth.” Whatever you do, don’t “appeal to the dictionary too much.”
There’s a medical certificate in the UK just begging to be pulled.
“Man, will you look at those nuggets!”
Why it’s becoming so hard to distinguish “reporting” from “satire.” And, as the Babylon Bee people often point out, trying to write satire that stays ahead of actuality is getting harder.
Ha! That’s a get out of jail free card for migrants from some countries. (Deep fried Marş Bar, just saying.)
Are you suggesting deporting the Scots?
So are not medical doctors in the UK required to take (and pass) a biology test? Ya know, the place where they talk about genetics and chromosomes (including that XX and XY thing that permeates every cell in the human body)?
I managed to avoid a formal biology class throughout high school (I took physics and chemistry instead) and college (engineering major), but even I picked that bit up that bit of information.
That would be not deporting them. Though I think it’s North of England too?
I’ll wager they smoke like chimneys and drink like fish o’er there.
And the hits just keep on coming. This morning: Court gives Gazans right to settle in the UK. Short version: A British judge has ruled that Gazans who can show that they have a relative in the UK (whether said relative is a UK citizen or not) have the right to settle in the UK under a scheme that was invented and passed into law by Parliament and which was explicitly created for Ukrainian refugees. The judge has ruled that denial of the Gazans’ right to settle in the UK by applying under the Ukrainian scheme is a violation of their “human rights.”
It is apparently irrelevant–to this judge at least–that the Ukrainian Family Scheme, which was the original piece of legislation, was time-limited and was shut down a year ago. Even Ukrainian refugees are no longer automatically grandfathered in under the extinct law, and must go through the proper channels if they want to apply for asylum. (Full disclosure: The Gazan family in the test case applied for asylum under the Ukrainian resettlement scheme last January, just before it closed. However, the closure of the scheme, or the fact that this family is Gazan rather than Ukrainian, doesn’t seem to have played into the judge’s decision–which finds its basis in the European Convention on Human Rights–and his decision is expected to open up a new round of asylum claims from Gazans in 3..2..1..):
Even “Two Tier Kier” Starmer has said that he believes the judge’s decision is wrong, and that decisions on refugee resettlement should be enacted into law by Parliament. We’ll see how long his resolve lasts, once the ECHR weighs in.
Meanwhile, I believe all the neighboring countries in the vicinity of the Gaza are still unwilling to absorb the refugees next door. Aannd…crickets.
Yes, I understand they enjoy a slug of raki with their breakfast coffee. Here’s an entertaining little vignette on Albanian drinking habits from a hiker who obviously has some affection for the country. An excerpt:
He also muses on the fact that Albania is a majority Muslim country, and that raki is…umm, you know…about 100 proof. Which amused me, because when I did my little bit of research into why there are no McDonalds in Albania, the first reason that came up was that Albania has a significant Muslim population (about half the people who express a religious preference say they are Muslims), and that so many of McDonalds products are made with pork.
So no McRibs with their raki! I guess @johnyoo won’t be visiting Albania anytime soon.
So, the US isn’t the only country suffering from robed legislators. If they are going to insist on behaving like that, they need to face the electorate.
That can’t be right. We have McD’s in India with no beef, no pork and in fact for some selected burgers no meat (the aloo mctikkee happy meal….)
I suspect Albanians do whatever they want, sensibly eschewing McDonald’s but leaning into the raki (which they also drink in quantity in Turkey – it’s double the proof of Ouzo, just for info).
Sounds like many British judges, like many American ones, need to be impeached ASAP.
The UK’s Parliament has a delightful institution known as “Question Time” where members can query ministers as to government policy. Maybe they could extend that to their judiciary and the general populace.
Maybe we could too.
I don’t know how it is over there, but we get some pretty sorry excuses for judges here.