Best Week: Green Party, teen drama and Ocho Cinco

By: Dan Kaplan

Posted: 10/24/08

Ralph Nader visits Syracuse on campaign trail

Nader, the presidential candidate for the Green Party, stopped by the Salt City to help celebrate the opening of a local party campaign office and show his support for Green party candidate Howie Hawkins. He later held a rally at the Westcott Theater. Unfortunately, only 200 people showed up. See, this is the biggest problem with Nader - he doesn't have nearly enough people to win the election, but just enough to screw it up. Watch out: the single-digit percentage (if that) of national votes that he'll get will come back to haunt the two big ticket candidates. Just ask Al Gore.

Google's Mail Goggles to prevent drunken e-mails

Google's new feature for its Gmail service aims to reduce the number of regrettable messages sent after nights of hard partying. It requires users to solve five math problems of varying degrees of difficulty before sending any e-mails. What? You mean no more "Lyke 0mG i LOOOOVE yoUU!" or "heyyyyyyyyy where u at?" messages at 2 a.m.? Thank goodness there's a loophole: Google's own calculator tool, built right into the search engine. Nice one, guys…

NBA preseason game held in Carrier Dome

The game matched up two playoff teams from last year - the Phoenix Suns and the Denver Nuggets - in the Ralph Crawford McDonald's NBA Classic. Some of the NBA's biggest names were on hand - including Nuggets guard Allen Iverson and Suns center Shaquille O'Neal. It also marked the return of Orange basketball legend Carmelo Anthony - five years and about 20 pounds later. Keep this rate up, and he'll be roughly the size of a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade float the next time he comes back.

Miss Louisiana Teen USA arrested, stripped of crown

Miss Louisiana, 18-year-old Lindsey Evans, allegedly skipped out on a $46 dinner bill with friends at a restaurant. Evans also managed to leave her purse behind, too - her purse containing a bag of marijuana. The intelligence level, or lack there of, of such a move is just staggering. But seriously, what's the deal with this state lately? First the Spears family and now this? Let's get it together, Louisiana.

Bengals' "Ocho Cinco" to remain "Johnson" until season ends

The Cincinnati wide receiver had his name legally changed from Chad Johnson to Chad Ocho Cinco in August, shortly before the start of this season. Unfortunately for Ocho Cinco, the NFL will not allow his new name to appear on his jersey this season unless he compensates Reebok for losses it would accrue on jerseys bearing his old name. Honestly, it serves him right. In this era of stupid moves by Terrell Owens and Joe Horn, Ocho Cinco's name change takes the cake.