Cartoon

Ridiculous

Written by SK Ashby

(Cartoonist - Clay Bennett)

In other news, the Supreme Court has ruled that approximately half of Oklahoma falls under the legal jurisdiction of Native American authorities

In a joint statement, the state, the Creek Nation and the other four of what is known as the “Five Tribes” of Oklahoma said they were making “substantial progress” toward an agreement on shared jurisdiction that they would present to the federal government. The other tribes are the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw and Seminole.

“The Nations and the state are committed to implementing a framework of shared jurisdiction that will preserve sovereign interests and rights to self-government while affirming jurisdictional understandings, procedures, laws and regulations that support public safety, our economy and private property rights,” the statement said.

Meanwhile, the first woman has graduated from the Army's special forces training course and joined the Green Berets which have always been all male.

Get'em!

Finally, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is reconsidering his decision to allow China's Huawei to continue operating in the UK, but Britain's telecom industry says it would take them five to seven years to replace Huawei's equipment at the cost of billions.

It would cost Vodafone on the lower end of “single-figure billions” to swap out its thousands of Huawei stations and antennas across the country, according to Andrea Dona, Vodafone’s head of U.K. networks, speaking to the U.K. Parliament’s Science and Technology Committee on Thursday.

Dona added it would take a minimum of 5 years to swap Huawei out without disruption. Howard Watson, BT’s chief technology and information officer, agreed and said it would take “ideally seven” because of the practical limitations on closing streets and dispatching engineers to sites.

“It is logistically impossible, I believe, to get to zero in a three-year period,” said Watson, referring to the time-frame targeted by some Conservative party lawmakers. “That would literally mean blackouts for customers on 4G and 2G as well as 5G throughout the country.”

It could cost BT “tens to a hundred million” beyond the 500 million pounds ($632 million) the company already earmarked for complying with rules imposed by Prime Minister Boris Johnson in January, which limit Huawei’s presence to 35% of 5G and fiber networks outside sensitive core components, where they will be banned by 2023.

This is a massive hassle over something that is ultimately a political decision. Vodafone or any other domestic carrier using a piece of equipment manufactured by Hauwei is not a security threat.

The equipment that European carriers use won't even be manufactured in China soon. Huawei is building a factory in France that will supply the entire European market. That factory will be online long before the time it would take to purge their equipment from Britain's grid.

It's not like I enjoy defending a shady Chinese company, but this is all so stupid and there are actual threats in the world we aren't dealing with.