I just saw an article on CNN about Tiger Woods. Apparently Tiger Woods got into a car crash this weekend in his neighborhood. Fortunately nobody was hurt and nobody else was involved. The only damage done in this accident is to Tiger Wood’s car and apparently a fire hydrant that was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Tiger Woods gave his insurance information and license to the police, and then went back to his home and hasn’t talked to the police since.

None of this should have made it past the fifth link in the sports section, but of course, Cartoon Network News thinks this is a front page issue! And they’re actively trying to make it an issue by talking to themselves. Check out this quote from the CNN article…

“CNN: Can the police do anything about it if Woods continues to refuse to talk to them?

Toobin (Cartoon Network News’ current “senior legal analyst”): The police don’t have a lot of options. If someone doesn’t want to talk to you, you as a police officer can’t do anything about it.”

Hey CNN. You need to quit talking to yourselves. Because this is exactly how it’s supposed to work! The 5th amendment. The idea someone is “innocent until proven guilty”. Moving some things through a civil court as opposed to a criminal court. Crazy country, huh?

If Tiger Woods wants to drive into his car into his swimming pool so he can learn how to scuba dive in a Lexus, he can do that. If Tiger Woods wants to roast some marshmallows on his property with a brand new BMW that’s on fire, he can do that. If he has a lawnmower that needs a 12 gauge buckshot overhaul, he can do that too. As long as no one is hurt or under threat of becoming hurt and some other person’s private property is not damaged or under threat of becoming damaged, the police don’t need to get involved.

Since this happened in a public location, though, the police had to get involved. Fortunately since no one else was hurt and no one’s personal property was damaged, the police only needed to make a traffic report. Tiger Woods submitted what he was required to under the state law for this traffic report, so that should have been the end of it. The police can now hand this over to the city and any interested insurance companies since this is no longer a criminal matter in any way. Done. End of story.

The police have thousands of better things to do than follow up on this non-criminal issue, and I hope the police chief in the area has the stones to tell the media just that. CNN is inflaming non-issues to give facetime to idiots.

Cartoon Network News’ real motivation is painfully clear with their closing statement…

“CNN: A story in last week’s National Enquirer alleged that Woods has been seeing a New York night club hostess. The woman has denied any affair with Woods to The Associated Press. She’s also apparently retained attorney Gloria Allred.”

Hey CNN. Quit that. The National Enquirer and the Globe are far better at this kind of “journalism” than you are.

Over the weekend, the FAA released the recordings and transcripts of conversations between ATC and the pilots of Flight 188. The gist of the whole conversation(s) can be summed up in one sentence…

“Ah [just] cockpit distraction, that’s all I can say,” is the [pilot’s] response.

Wow. 144 passengers onboard, and an hour and a half with zero ground contact, speeding along at Mach 0.78 35,000 feet over and 150 miles past the Minnesota airport and “we were distracted” was the best they could come up with? And they want their licenses back??

Minnesota ATC did have the pilots confirm through directed maneuvers that they were actually in control of the plane and did allow them to come back and land at the airport without escort though. Personally, I would have made them wait in a holding pattern until they were properly flanked and escorted down by the military on a secure runway and had everyone sifted on a restricted tarmac.

Here’s the link to the CNN article on the pilot’s comments and the FAA and ATC conversations.

Here’s a link to the FAA transcript of ATC trying to contact Flight 188 [NOTE : PDF file].

Here’s the cross-link to my rant and diagrams on how bad Flight 188 was really off.