Sen. Lindsey Graham has joined the list of politicians who have been caricatured by Jim Carrey.

Carrey, whose Twitter feed these days is dominated by his artistic representations of current events, shared an unflattering illustration of Graham over the weekend, along with his commentary on the South Carolina senator’s angry remarks during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings.

“Ever wonder why women don’t report sexual abuse?” Carrey captioned his tweet. “Look no further than the hideous and hateful face of Lindsey Graham who offered nothing but anger and absolute disdain to Dr. Christine Blasey Ford following her courageous, and very credible, testimony. Talk about ‘a disgrace.’”

Carrey’s tweet refers to Graham’s behavior during last Thursday’s testimony, when he excoriated Democrats on the Senate Judiciary committee and called the sexual-assault allegations against Kavanaugh a “sham.” In separate comments to reporters, he claimed that Blasey Ford “is just as much a victim of this as I think Brett Kavanaugh is.”

Elsewhere on Carrey’s feed, he recently sketched his take on Kavanaugh in a darkened room, with another man holding a beer keeping watch. In another drawing, of a figure of a judge in a ski mask, he railed against Kavanaugh’s nomination and defended victims of sexual assault on college campuses.

“Colleges care more about donors than the victims of on-campus rape,” he wrote. “That’s why women don’t report it and why ENTITLED LITTLE (expletives) like Injustice Kavanaugh get to party and pillage their way to the Supreme Court. I’d like to suggest a new uniform for the highest court in the land.”

In August, Carrey told reporters from the Television Critics Association that “it’s not a choice” for him to be drawing his cartoons, but rather him doing his duty.

“I’m doing (them) because I can’t just watch this nightmare unfold,” he said. “I have to alchemize it into something creative and decent, even if it’s crass at times. I’m expressing the crass everyone else wants to express and can’t necessarily do so. When I stick a flag in Trump’s (behind), it’s because that’s what everybody is seeing. They’re seeing him owned.”

More: Sen. Lindsey Graham engages in fiery rebuke of Democrats during Kavanaugh testimony

Related: Jim Carrey draws Trump cartoons because ‘I can’t just watch this nightmare unfold’

 

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Early reviews for President Donald Trump’s new trade pact with Mexico and Canada: positive, but cautious.

The update of the North American Free Trade Agreement— agreed to late Sunday night and rebranded as the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA — came just hours before an artificial deadline set by the Trump administration.

The refreshed version of NAFTA will include increased labor protections for workers, increased standards for duty-free auto shipments, increased access to Canada dairy market for US farmers, and a slight tweak to the deal’s dispute resolution system.

Most business and lobbying groups signaled approval of the USMCA, especially given Trump’s threat to cut out Canada from the agreement. While the tone was upbeat, most groups cautioned that full support would only come after they digested the deal’s technical details.

Here’s a few of the initial reactions from Washington and beyond:

• Sen. Orrin Hatch, Republican Senate Finance Committee chairman: “I am pleased that the Trump administration was able to strike a deal to modernize NAFTA with both Mexico and Canada,” Hatch said. “NAFTA is a proven success for the United States, supporting more than 2 million American manufacturing jobs and boosting agricultural exports to Canada and Mexico by 350%. Maintaining a trilateral North American deal is an important prerequisite to preserving and extending those gains and the Trump administration has achieved that goal.”
• Rep. Kevin Brady, Republican chair of the House Ways and Means Committee: “This important and welcome announcement that the United States, Mexico, and Canada have reached a trilateral agreement to update and modernize NAFTA for the 21st century can be a big win for America’s workers, farmers, and ranchers.”
• House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi: “Fixing NAFTA means increasing the paychecks of American workers, delivering real, enforceable labor standards, ensuring fairness for American agriculture, and recognizing the connection between economic growth and environmental protections,” Pelosi said. “Democrats will closely scrutinize the text of the Trump Administration’s NAFTA proposal, and look forward to further analyses and conversations with stakeholders.”
• National Association of Manufacturers: “Manufacturers are extremely encouraged that our call for a trilateral agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico has been answered,” said Jay Timmons, NAM president and CEO. “Today, there’s a massive amount of goods flowing across North America, meaning our countries’ economies are inextricably linked. What’s more, as the United States works to put an end to China’s cheating and unfair trade practices, we are better off united with our North American allies.”
• Business Roundtable: “Business Roundtable is encouraged that the Administration has struck a deal with Canada and Mexico on updating NAFTA, maintaining its trilateral structure that is critical for North American supply chains,” the group representing American CEOs said in a statement. “Business Roundtable has shared the Administration’s goal of modernizing and strengthening the agreement in ways that expand economic opportunity, create US jobs, and increase the competitiveness of US companies.”
• Information Technology Industry Council: “Today’s trilateral agreement is a significant step toward creating a foundation for North America’s economic prosperity for years to come,” said Dean Garfield, ITI CEO. “While we are still reviewing text, we’re encouraged this plan will build upon the prior economic success of NAFTA and adapt it to the fundamentally digital economy in which we live through new rules on digital trade, intellectual property, and trade in goods”
• AFL-CIO: “The text we have reviewed, even before the confirmation that Canada will remain part of NAFTA, affirms that too many details still need to be worked out before working people make a final judgment on a deal,” Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO’s president, said. “Our history of witnessing unfair trade deals destroy the lives of working families demands the highest level of scrutiny before receiving our endorsement.”
• US Chamber of Commerce: “We welcome the announcement that negotiators have reached a deal to modernize NAFTA,” Thomas Donohue, the Chamber’s CEO, said. “We look forward to reviewing the details with our members to determine next steps, and we commend the negotiators for their commitment to finding a path forward that includes the US, Mexico, and Canada.”
• Rep. Kevin Brady, Republican chair of the House Ways and Means Committee: “This important and welcome announcement that the United States, Mexico, and Canada have reached a trilateral agreement to update and modernize NAFTA for the 21st century can be a big win for America’s workers, farmers, and ranchers.”

Rockstar Games is back with a fresh, extended look at its upcoming Wild West adventure, Red Dead Redemption II.

Where the previous video release from Rockstar focused on lots of gameplay minutiae — specific elements that shake up Rockstar’s proven formula for exploration-heavy action games — this new one is more about the ride. And I have only one takeaway: Train robberies.

The fantasy of the Wild West train robbery is something that no game has ever really managed to nail, not even the previous Red Dead. But the brief snippets we see in the opening minutes of this trailer look great. And as anyone who played Grand Theft Auto Online can tell you, Rockstar has a handle on turning elaborate heists into something playful.

This new trailer also peeks at more of the world and gives a better sense of the things you can do in it. Some of it will surely feel familiar to longtime Red Dead fans. It won’t be much longer until we see how all of this comes together; Red Dead Redemption II hits PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on Oct. 26.

Like millions of other people around the globe, in the United States and elsewhere, I was transfixed by the testimonies of both Dr Christine Blasey Ford and Judge Brett Kavanaugh, watching them from beginning to end.

I found her testimony believable, his not.

This is not a matter of blind partisanship. This is the result of being a witness in real time to a noble truth shining against a whole regime of falsehood – from President Donald Trump who nominated him to the 11 Republican members of the US Senate Judiciary Committee who were trying to railroad his confirmation and to Judge Kavanaugh himself.  

Dr Ford is one of a number of women who have accused Judge Kavanaugh of sexual assault and who had dared to go public against a powerful man and the even more powerful men supporting him. They came forward with their allegations of sexual assault at a time when the #MeToo movement falsely promised that such daring attempts to bring up sexual violence against women would be met with more sympathy by the public.

Her courageous act exposed how the class supremacy of white wealth and power would instantly resort to vindictive anger and fury to silence and dismiss anyone who would dare challenge its institutional privileges. 

After watching the two testimonies, I am more convinced than ever before that Judge Kavanaugh would be a calamitous appointment to the Supreme Court and would tip the balance in a decidedly reactionary right-wing swing for decades to come. 

Witness for the prosecution 

Facing accusations of multiple sexual assaults by a number of women, Judge Kavanaugh made even more evident his schoolyard bullying tendencies, brazen partisanship, and disdain for those who challenge his politics and doubt his judicial integrity during that fuming, sniffing, self-pitying spectacle he staged on September 27. 

In sharp contrast to him stood the towering courage of Dr Ford who came forward, faced the blatant hostility of 11 white Republican men tipping the balance of the US judiciary committee and accused Judge Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when she was 15 years old. 

Why do I find her testimony more believable?

Because her first and final witness was Judge Kavanaugh himself!

The quiet power and neuroscientific precision of Dr Ford’s testimony reduced Judge Kavanaugh to a 17-year-old boy sitting in a 53-year-old man’s suit, angry, conspiratorial, vindictive, in full denial, self-entitled, and seemingly caught red-handed. It was as if he was sitting in the principal’s office with his parents, vehemently and nervously defending himself.

In his spectacular performance, Judge Kavanaugh produced the single most believable eyewitness Dr Ford needed to convince me in her story: The man I saw on TV behaved like a 17-year-old Brett Kavanaugh the morning after he had sobered up from a terrible deed he had done the night before and had moved into full, self-entitled, white boy denial.

Dr Ford’s supporting evidence was her own life – going through extensive therapy, suffering from anxiety and claustrophobia to the point of demanding a second security door in her home and more importantly, dedicating her career to the very science that would teach her how never to forget the precise scientific description of what had happened to her.

She sat there in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee having earned an undergraduate degree in experimental psychology (1988), a master’s degree in clinical psychology (1991), a PhD in educational psychology (1996) and writing her dissertation on “Measuring Young Children’s Coping Responses to Interpersonal Conflict”, before earning yet another master’s degree in epidemiology (2009). 

Dr Ford had translated her teenage trauma into a lifelong academic and scholarly career. On September 27, she sat before the Senate Judiciary Committee the victim, the eyewitness, and the expert – all in one. 

“Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter,” she said when asked what she remembered the most of that night. 

When Senator Dianne Feinstein inquired: “How are you so sure that it was he,” Professor Ford simply said: “The same way that I’m sure that I’m talking to you right now, just basic memory functions and also just the level of norepinephrine and epinephrine in the brain… That neurotransmitter encodes memories into the hippocampus, and so the trauma-related experience then is kind of locked there whereas other details kind of drift.” 

The scream that Dr Ford said that horrific night had stifled finally come out in the precise, specific, scientific, staccatos of her testimony 36 years later for the whole world to hear.

Has something broken? 

There is much more at stake here than the barefaced, boastful, ambitions of an ultra-conservative judge riding on the political wave of Trump and Trumpism – brandishing his toxic masculinity, repeatedly yelling: “I drank beer with my friends, almost everyone did. Sometimes I had too many beers, sometimes others did… I liked beer, I still like beer.” His pathetic bravura machismo had only one audience: Donald Trump, so he would not drop him cold and move on to the next on his list. 

The spectacle of the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings and the obscenity of a gang of 11 white men shamelessly disregarding a woman describing a traumatic experience dismantled every shred of credibility the US Senate may have ever thought it had. 

“The US Senate used to be known as the world’s greatest deliberative body. On Thursday, it shredded most of what remains of that reputation.”

That is the judicious opinion of Edward Luce of the Financial Times, who seems to have a distant and generous memory of a time when the US Senate was worthy of that praise. I have no such memory.

For the over 40 years that I have lived in the US and for as long as my memory of racism and misogyny in the US remembers, the US Senate has never been anything but what we saw during the Kavanaugh confirmation hearing – an overwhelmingly white privileged, self-entitled group of men perpetuating the privileges of their race and class. 

Their outrageous demographic obscenity was emphasised that much more by the presence of a Rachel Mitchell, a sex crimes prosecutor who they had brought to do their dirty work for them: questioning Dr Ford as if she were a suspect.  

A New York Times editorial published on September 28 rightly pointed out the cowardice of those 11 Republic senators who did not dare face Dr Ford themselves. It noted: 

“Eventually, as Judge Kavanaugh testified, the Republican senators ventured out from behind their shield. Doubtless seeking to ape President Trump’s style and win his approval, they began competing with each other to make the most ferocious denunciation of their Democratic colleagues and the most heartfelt declaration of sympathy for Judge Kavanaugh, in a show of empathy far keener than they managed to muster for Dr Blasey.”

This is at the crux of the matter – the structural white masculinity at the heart of right-wing American politics. There is a long distance between the neo-Nazis marching in Charlottesville and this spectacle of white male privilege ganging up against a vulnerable woman. But the two poles connect the same spectrum of raging white power. 

Historical context 

Over the more than four decades I have lived in the US, this is the fourth time that I have seen the nation transfixed by a public spectacle on which hangs the fate of the country – its moral fibre, its sense of self-respect, its fear of decadent implosion.  

The first was the July 1987 televised congressional hearing of Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North of the National Security Council on the Iran-Contra affair, when the Reagan administration was implicated in illicit exchange of arms for the release of US hostages and the use of the proceeds to finance a covert operation in Nicaragua. On that occasion, the depth of US clandestine treacheries interfering in other nations’ affairs was put on full global display.  

The second was the testimony of attorney Anita Hill, who accused Judge Clarence Thomas, a Supreme Court nominee, of sexual assault. During those proceedings, the selfsame shameless masculinist abuse targeted a young African American woman daring to share publicly her harrowing experiences. 

The third was the trial of O J Simpson in 1994 when the racial divide tearing this country asunder was on full display. 

And the fourth was these US Senate confirmation hearings of Judge Kavanaugh, a deja vu of the Anita Hill hearings, which look and feel as if nothing has changed in between. Some of the very same Republican senators are still serving on the same committee staging an identical, callous disregard for another human being’s suffering. 

These four events were massive dramatic spectacles, which brought the entire nation in front of TV screens, wondering where their country was headed. 

The point at issue in all of these cases and in this most recent trauma is not just the overwhelming testimony of Dr Ford and the categorical way in which it was disregarded by the Republicans. 

It is also the structural misogyny that comes down from Trump, spreads to almost the entirety of the Republican party, represented by the 11 white men serving on this committee and then manifested in the angry, vindictive, and arrogant screed of Kavanaugh. 

In the end, Dr Ford’s testimony will go down in history as one of those pivotal moments which pave the way for women to have a safe and dignified space to live, work and thrive, to be taken seriously in their pain and suffering, so the deep-seated misogyny of power can be dismantled.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Another Yale classmate of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh has challenged the truthfulness of the Supreme Court nominee’s Senate testimony, saying Kavanaugh was often “belligerent and aggressive” when he drank.

Charles “Chad” Ludington, an associate professor of history at North Carolina State University, released a statement saying Kavanaugh “has not told the truth” when denying he never blacked out and otherwise downplayed his drinking as a young man.

“On many occasions I heard Brett slur his words and saw him staggering from alcohol consumption,” Ludington wrote. “When Brett got drunk, he was often belligerent and aggressive.”

Ludington said he would not discuss Kavanaugh with the media, but would tell his story to the FBI. The agency is conducting a one-week investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against the federal judge that date back to high school.

Last week, a former freshman-year roommate of Kavanaugh’s at Yale challenged the nominee’s drinking claims. James Roche said Kavanaugh was a “notably heavy drinker, even by the standards of the time, and that he became aggressive and belligerent when he was very drunk.” 

Roche also said he believed Deborah Ramirez, another Yale classmate who claimed sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh has denied all the allegations.

More: Republicans’ prosecutor says Kavanaugh’s accuser has weak case

More: Sens. Flake and Coons discuss drama that led to call for FBI probe

Ludington said he was a varsity basketball player and that Kavanaugh enjoyed socializing with athletes. But Ludington said he “cringed” when he watched Kavanaugh describe his drinking on a Fox News TV interview and in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“In recent days I have become deeply troubled by what has been a blatant mischaracterization by Brett himself of his drinking at Yale,” Ludington wrote. “Brett was a frequent drinker, and a heavy drinker.”

Ludington wrote that heavy drinking as a youth should not “condemn a person for the rest of his life.” But he said the statements Kavanaugh is making now do matter.

“If he lied about his past actions on national television, and more especially while speaking under oath in front of the United States Senate, I believe those lies should have consequences,” Ludington wrote. “It is truth that is at stake, and I believe that the ability to speak the truth, even when it does not reflect well upon oneself, is a paramount quality we seek in our nation’s most powerful judges.”

Not all his buddies from Yale are challenging Kavanaugh’s drinking claims. Former NBA player Chris Dudley said he regularly drank with Kavanaugh while the two were classmates at Yale University – and “never, ever saw him blacked out” drunk. 

 

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WASHINGTON – After a week in which some of the most explosive allegations ever lodged against a Supreme Court nominee were aired in public, this week begins with questions about an FBI investigation happening in private that could help decide whether Judge Brett Kavanaugh makes it to the nation’s highest court.

Democrats scored a victory Friday when Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., called for the FBI to spend a week following up on sexual misconduct allegations against Kavanaugh. Those include accusations by Christine Blasey Ford, who said a drunken Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her while they were in high school. He vehemently denied all the allegations.

The question of whether the White House was interfering with the FBI investigation dominated Sunday talk shows. The White House said it was not.

“I’m very concerned about this, because the White House should not be allowed to micromanage an FBI investigation,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

More: White House is not involved with FBI investigation into Kavanaugh allegations, officials say

More: Sen. Lindsey Graham seeks investigation of ‘despicable process’ behind Kavanaugh hearing

Here’s a look at the developments:

Last week’s drama

In emotional testimony that riveted viewers Thursday, Ford told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that she is “100 percent” sure that a drunken, 17-year-old Kavanaugh pinned her down at a party in 1982, groped her and covered her mouth when she tried to scream. Kavanaugh, testifying after Ford, blamed the allegations on “a calculated and orchestrated political hit, fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Donald Trump and the 2016 election.”

Trump’s order Friday for the FBI to reopen its investigation into Kavanaugh’s background came after Flake called for the weeklong inquiry during the Senate Judiciary Committee’s vote on the nomination.

Flake said he would vote to advance the nomination out of the committee, but he would feel comfortable “moving forward” on the Senate floor only if the FBI conducted the additional investigation. Three other senators who are swing votes – Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska; Susan Collins, R-Maine; and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. – supported the move.

“I think that we ought to do what we can to make sure that we do all due diligence with a nomination this important,” Flake said, hours after releasing a statement that he would vote to confirm Kavanaugh.

Flake said there wasn’t a single moment that influenced him, but he was shaken after being cornered in an elevator as he headed to the committee meeting by two people who said they had survived sexual assaults.

“You’re telling me that my assault doesn’t matter,” one woman said, her remarks captured by TV cameras.

Flake called for the one-week investigation as part of a compromise he struck with his friend Sen. Christopher Coons, D-Del., who argued Friday that the additional inquiry was “about the court’s legitimacy.”

After voting to advance Kavanaugh’s nomination, the Republican-led committee requested the supplemental FBI investigation Friday, calling for it to be “limited to current credible allegations against the nominee” and saying it “must be completed no later than one week from today.”

‘FBI’s hands must not be tied’

More sparring continued along partisan lines during the weekend after a lawyer claimed that his client’s accusations against Kavanaugh weren’t treated seriously. After Ford and Deborah Ramirez came forward, a third woman, Julie Swetnick, accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct and claimed she was gang-raped at a party decades ago. 

“This investigation is only as good as the scope,” Michael Avenatti, a lawyer for Swetnick, told USA TODAY. “If the scope doesn’t include my client and the others who have accused Mr. Kavanaugh, how can it be a credible investigation?”

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said on Twitter that the “FBI’s hands must not be tied in this investigation.”

“We need the facts,” she wrote.

When the White House announced the investigation last week, the president said it “must be limited in scope.”

Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the inquiry was “not meant to be a fishing expedition,” but it’s up to the FBI to determine what “limited scope” means.

As he left Saturday for a rally in West Virginia, Trump said FBI agents have “free rein” over the investigation.

“Whatever it is they do, they’ll be doing things that we’ve never even thought of,” he said.

The FBI declined to comment.

What’s next?

FBI agents will probably seek to question anyone who Ford said attended the gathering where the alleged assault happened. That includes Kavanaugh’s high school friend Mark Judge, who Ford said was in the room. Judge said in a statement that he has “no memory” of such an incident but that he would cooperate with law enforcement.

Agents will probably talk to P.J. Smyth and Leland Ingham Keyser, who Ford said attended the party. Both issued statements indicating that they no recollection of the gathering.

The FBI reached out to Ramirez, a former Yale classmate of Kavanaugh’s, who said he exposed himself to her at a drunken party, Ramirez’s attorney, John Clune, told USA TODAY.

It’s unclear whether agents will investigate claims from Swetnick, who alleged that Kavanaugh and Judge attempted to ply teenage girls with alcohol at wild parties where girls were sexually abused.

Former FBI officials told USA TODAY the agency has considerable resources to dedicate to special investigations.

“They could knock this thing out in a couple of days,” said Jim Davis, a former agent who participated in at least 50 such background inquiries.

Results of the investigation will be handed over to the White House, which will be responsible for turning them over to senators for review. A full Senate vote could happen this week.

Republicans hold a slim 51-seat majority and can afford to lose only one vote if all Democrats vote against Kavanaugh. In that case, Vice President Mike Pence would cast the tiebreaking vote.

Kavanaugh said Thursday he would not voluntarily withdraw.

“You may defeat me in the final vote,” he said. “But you’ll never get me to quit. Never.”

Contributing: Eliza Collins, Richard Wolf, Christal Hayes, Donovan Slack, Jessica Estepa

 

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AP/Richard Drew

General Electric head John Flannery is out after just more than a year at the top of the company. He will be replaced as chairman and CEO by H. Lawrence Culp, Jr., who served as CEO and president of Danaher Corporation from 2000 to 2014. Culp has been a GE board member since April. GE shares are up more than 15% on the news. 

GE said it will take a $23 billion goodwill charge for its power business. “GE expects to take a non-cash goodwill impairment charge related to the GE Power business,” the release said. “GE Power’s current goodwill balance is approximately $23 billion and the goodwill impairment charge is likely to constitute substantially all of this balance.”

In its second-quarter earnings report, the company said profit from its power business dropped 58%, but was able to match expectations with solid earnings growth in its aviation and healthcare businesses. Flannery said he expected the power business to “remain weak through 2020.” 

The conglomerate also warned that it will miss its 2018 earnings-per-share guidance. In July, the company reiterated it expected to see adjusted EPS of $1 to $1.07 a share. 

“While GE’s businesses other than Power are generally performing consistently with previous guidance, due to weaker performance in the GE Power business, the Company will fall short of previously indicated guidance for free cash flow and EPS for 2018,” the release said. 

Flannery spent more than 30 years at GE. He worked for two decades in financial services before running GE’s business in India and eventually leading GE Healthcare.

GE’s stock had fallen more than 35% this year through Friday.

This story is developing…

Markets Insider

Image: Anadolu Agency / Contributor

How much time do Google engineers spend devising elaborate Easter eggs as opposed to actually doing what they’re supposed to? We’re guessing it’s a fair amount, as Google’s myriad services and products hold an impressive amount of hidden treasures which don’t serve any other purpose except to amuse. 

The latest among these, discovered by Reddit user attempt_number_1 (via RockPaperShotgun) is a fully functional text adventure game, hidden inside the development console of Google’s Chrome browser. 

To launch the game, first do a Google search for “text adventure” in Chrome. Then hit Cmd+Option+J  (if you’re on a Mac) or Control+Shift+PC (if you’re on a PC). A console window will open with the following prompt: “Would you like to play a game? (yes/no)”. 

If you type Yes, the game will launch. It looks like this: 

If you aren’t familiar with text adventures, they’re an ancient type of game which gives you text descriptions and reacts to typed commands such as “eat bread” or “flip switch.” This particular game turns you into a big letter G, who’s tasked with finding the rest of the letters in “Google”. 

The game is fairly simple but not completely without depth, which you will realize when you first grab a map and start exploring. 

Have fun playing the game, and check out some other Google Easter eggs here, here and here. Also, Wikipedia has a pretty comprehensive list. And to play other text adventures — there are many, and some, like Zork and Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, are legendary — go here.