>. "The FAA and DOW acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion.
The threat has been neutralized, and there is no danger to commercial travel in the region.
The restrictions have been lifted and normal flights are resuming."
>. "The FAA and DOW acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion.
The threat has been neutralized, and there is no danger to commercial travel in the region.
The restrictions have been lifted and normal flights are resuming."
“Threat” might be an exaggeration.
https://www.newsweek.com/us-military-shot-down-party-balloon...
Fox News first reported that the airborne object was intercepted after raising concerns of a potential drone operating near the southern border. Officials later concluded the object was not an unmanned aircraft but a party balloon, a U.S. official told the outlet.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/us-military-shot-down-party...
US military shot down party balloon near El Paso after drone suspicion, official says
Would be funny if they used some new fancy laser weapon to, let's say, discombobulate this imminent threat, as indicated by other reports.
Just think about the terrorist potential here. Buy a $10 party balloon, let it go near a major airport and they'll panic and shut down the airport. That's a lot of havoc for a couple of bucks.
It's one balloon, Michael. What could it cost, 10 dollars?
99 Luftballons
The lyrics of the original German version tell a story: 99 balloons are mistaken for UFOs, causing a military general to send pilots to investigate. Finding nothing but balloons, the pilots put on a large show of firepower. The display of force worries the nations along the borders and the defence ministers on each side encourage conflict to grab power for themselves.
In the end, a cataclysmic war results from the otherwise harmless flight of balloons and causes devastation on all sides without a victor, as indicated in the denouement of the song: "99 Jahre Krieg ließen keinen Platz für Sieger," which means "99 years of war left no room for victors." The anti-war song finishes with the singer walking through the devastated ruins of the world and finding a single balloon. The description of what happens in the final line of the piece is the same in German and English: "'Denk' an dich und lass' ihn fliegen," or "Think of you and let it go."
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99_Luftballons#Lyrics)
I'm learning to sing in German with Nena.
I especially like the way she rhymes "Captain Kirk" with "Feuerwerk".
https://genius.com/Nena-99-luftballons-lyrics
In other news, Director Gabbard and Secretaries Noem, Hegseth, and Kennedy met with Secretary Leavitt for her big Gender Reveal Party in El Paso...
She does that 'Captain Kirk' rhyme in the English version too though.
The real treat for German listeners is the first verse: ich, mich, dich, and neun-und-neunZIG (zig is pronounced like ich in the main German dialect).
With all of the 'neunundneunzig' (aka 99) repeated throughout the song, the ich/dich/mich/vielleicht rhymes is really a superior start over the English version.
It's a rhyming scheme that cannot be replicated in English at all.
Live performance (2018!) in German with English subtitles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIO5lfJ9dhs
(I can mostly understand spoken German. Have heard this song in German many times before. Never got the message. It's tricky!)
For me, singing the words myself forces me to understand them.
So just sing along. Every word, and understand as much as you can.
------
Once you know all the words, then the next step is to learn the grammar and learn how the words work together. If you give it a few months, full understanding will come!
Doesn't really pass the sniff test. Why would you need a 10 day closure to deal with a drone incursion?
I'm guessing DoD and the FAA were squabbling over a test the military wanted to run, and it didn't go up the chain fast enough to get resolved before testing was scheduled to begin.
Edit: Here's the actual notice from the FAA[1]. Note that it was issued at 0332 UTC, but the restrictions weren't scheduled to go into place until 0630 UTC. Either the FAA is clairvoyant, or Sean Duffy is lying.
[1]https://tfr.faa.gov/tfr3/?page=detail_6_2233
Recent updates say this was a unilateral call by FAA because DOD was refusing to coordinate with them for creating safety corridors for DOD drones and/or HEW usage. Issues came to a head after DOD shot down a highly threatening mylar party balloon, which FAA evidently considered to be a somewhat reckless use of military weaponry in a US city's airspace.
> Recent updates say this was a unilateral call by FAA because DOD was refusing to coordinate with them for creating safety corridors for DOD drones and/or HEW usage.
This is the first explanation I've seen that fits the odd facts perfectly. This is the kind of thing that happens when two regional bureaucracies collide. The FAA has long-standing mechanisms for coordinating military use of airspace with commercial and civilian flight operations.
But instead of the usual DEA border interdiction, the administration is now tasking the military to drive this. Military commanders on a new high-priority mission to intercept drones which can attempt to cross the border anytime and anywhere realized coordinating with the FAA would require committing to active corridors and time windows in advance, limiting their mission success and resisted. The FAA realized that could lead to lots of last minute airspace restrictions, flight cancellations and increased risk of a mistake resulting in downing a civilian flight.
The regional FAA administrators responsible for flight safety around El Paso decided to escalate the dispute by simply shutting down all civilian flights, knowing that would get immediate national attention. It was an extreme action but one that's within their purview if they can't guarantee the safety of the airspace. I'm sure they expected it would put political pressure on the military to limit operations and it worked. In a sense, it also helps the military commanders because being ordered to accept FAA operational limitations gives them cover if it reduces their mission effectiveness below what they'd promised. That's probably why the military wouldn't agree on their own without it being ordered from above. They're the ones responsible for deploying expensive new anti-drone tech in field ops for the first time. Future budgets and careers are on the line.
Additionally, that airport would be used to coordinating with the military due to proximity of both Fort Bliss and White Sands.
It sounds like the DOD was being unusually indifferent to the concerns, and after deadly prior mishaps, the FAA has to be particularly careful here.
Can you share a source for this? It's not in the updates to the NYT article.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/airspace-closure-followed-spat-...
CBS is no longer a credible news source.
I think you're looking for Facebook, not HN
reckless use of military weaponry in a US city's airspace.
Balloon looked brown?
Charitably guessing that if they don't know how long they'll need to keep airspace closed then you give yourself plenty of time and rescind early if necessary, as opposed to continually issuing extensions which could cause confusion.
Or you say “until further notice”.
Indeterminate end dates are not a new problem.
FAA restrictions aren’t applied in a hand wavy fashion.
This story would suggest otherwise.
In what way?
Can you imagine how much more wild the speculation would have been if they had said that instead?
Was it meant to be "up to 10 days" rather than 10 days? If the drones are no longer flying over the airport it makes sense they'd open it back up.
The closure was for 10 days full stop. I can't think of a reason to do that in response to an active threat.
I think the point was to get headlines and attention, as someone else said it sounds like the FAA is frustrated that the DoD isn't cooperating, and this seems like a possible attempt to make this frustration public to pressure DoD into playing more nicely.
This is OpSec 101. Making the public closure too "tight" around the operational timeline could (negligently) leak operational details. You can always cancel a closure later.
Is Opsec 101 to increase the estimate by two orders of magnitude? "We think this operation will take about 10 weeks, so we're estimating 10 years."
The answer is "long enough to avoid giving away operational details," not some robotically applied constant multiplier like 10x.
We also don't know whether they expected this to take 1 day or more. Just because it worked out quickly doesn't mean that's the "worst case" operational timeline.
Isn’t that how estimating timelines should work?
Is saying "indefinitely" or "until further notice" any worse than "10 days?" The specificity of the timeline was what caught my eye.
Indefinitely infers permanence. You’ll scare everyone off with that language.
Ding ding. Always assume weaponized incompetence in this administration:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/airspace-closure-followed-spat-...
> FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford on Tuesday night decided to close the airspace — without alerting White House, Pentagon or Homeland Security officials, sources said.
In the meantime, the politician responsible of course made up a quick lie and yall ran with it, fantasizing about cartel MANPADs:
> Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement, "The FAA and DOW acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion."
[dead]
[flagged]
https://www.texastribune.org/2026/02/11/el-paso-air-space-cl...
Reuters has it too. It was indeed a lie.
I'm merely passing on live information to update the conversation. Don't shoot the messenger.
Is it OK to comment on and critique the message, though?
When you have multiple paragraphs in a quotation, each paragraph must start with a quote. Only the last paragraph in the quotation ends with a quote. Just pick up any book with dialogue in it and see for yourself. This is why I think your comment came across as you personally endorsing the official statement; it's not clear at first glance where the quote ends. The correct/incorrect placing of quotes is the kind of subtle thing that would lead someone to interpret one thing or the other without actually realizing what just happened.
Which writing style standard does that correspond to?
This is an internet discussion board with people from diverse backgrounds. Informal quotation style is common. Your comment is the first time I’ve seen someone assert that new paragraphs should start with a quote.
It's common practice when dealing with sites and clients that don't have fancy quoting features, going all the way back to USENET forums and probably before. It avoids just this ambiguity when you might be mixing quote and commentary.
Hmm, honestly I’ve mostly seen > used for quotations in plain-text-y environments. Not sure about USENET, but ever since email it seems to be the de-facto standard everywhere. (On HN, I mostly see >, italics, or monospace as the quotation indicators.)
Not sure which particular standard it is but it is a thing. Agreed that it’s nitpicking though, it’s pretty easy to understand the boundaries of the quotation either way.
And I was merely commenting on the likely veracity of the quote you posted. No shooting happening here.
HackerNews will be shut down for 10 days as we deploy counter-messenger technology.
Good news, the messenger has been neutered. You may continue messaging.
Productivity will go up, stress levels will go down, there will be fewer cases of down-vote-button-induced-carpal-tunnel-syndrome - DVBICTS - so it sounds like it is worth a try.
Thats true - and I noticed that (but I wanted clarity from shots fired). Though the other follow on comments are interesting - say I may or may not endorse by how I wrote it, that my grammar/punctuation (it was just a fast cut copy) makes it look like i'm endorsing.
My comment is a non statement but people are clearly riled up these days.
It seems like the messenger might endorse the message though, and is attempting to be coy.
Folks should be careful of people using the "messenger" title to attempt to obtain the appearance of impartiality.