OK, folks. Now I'm really filled with righteous indignation!

Blender Magazine, a music rag from the folks at Maxim aimed at your boom-box-toting teenie, has published their list of the "50 Worst Artists Of All Time". You know that any such list is bound to step on some toes, but I think they may actually have committed a crime: the #2 artist on their list is Emerson, Lake & Palmer.

Caution: Truth In Advertising requires me to state that I own most of ELP's albums, either in vinyl or on CD. I've been to three live ELP concerts in my life, plus one for Emerson, Lake & Powell. I have piano music for three of their albums.

Having said that, I think I can factually dispute their inclusion on this list. The folks at Blender do not seem to be able to distinguish between "genres of music we just do not like" and "bad artists". Besides ELP, the list also includes Alan Parsons Project, Rick Wakeman & Yes, and Asia, all of which plied the heavily synthesized, classically-based rock music that ELP pioneered.

Playboy Magazine in the 1970s produced monthly lists of the current top 25 artists in terms of abilities in various categories. For many months, Keith Emerson was the #1 keyboardist, Carl Palmer was the #1 percussionist, and Greg Lake was consistently in the top 10 guitarists. They were, technically, among the top in their fields. It is just factually inaccurate to list them among the worst artists of all time.

I would also point out that the list does not include the Starland Vocal Band, the group that gave us the heinous lyrics "gonna find my baby, gonna hold her tight, gonna grab some afternoon delight..."

The Oregon senate, with the assistance and pressure of Governor Ted Kulongowski, pulled an end-run around an end-run this weekend by reversing itself and passing a bill to authorize bond-backed funding guarantees for a professional baseball stadium in Portland. Passage in the house is expected, and the governer has indicated he will sign the bill.

Shame on you. If it weren't for the recall fiasco in California, we would be right up there on the list for ridicule on Jay Leno's monologue. Eight weeks of rancorous debate over the state's budget. The worst school funding problem in the nation. Elderly and handicapped being dumped out in the street because we can't find the money to continue their housing allotments and their prescription drug funding. And yet, in a matter of a few days, we can commit money to help one of the richest sports in the world.

This is an embarrassment. I sincerely hope the Expos move to Washington, DC, instead.

The Oregon state legislature meets once every two years, and is not allowed to adjourn until they pass a two-year state budget. They are now many months past their adjournment deadline, locked in partisan bickering. Today, they announced that negotiations had broken down (again), and that they probably will not have a budget in place before Labor Day, which means that the state's school districts will have to start school without knowing how much money they will have to spend.

On Oregon Public Broadcasting's morning news today, they interviewed State Senator David Nelson (R, Pendleton), who was part of the group that backed out of the budget talks.

Mr. Nelson pissed me off.

He went over the list of tax increases in the latest (rejected) proposal, and was quoted as saying "How can we in good conscience pass a budget" with those increases?

If Mr. Nelson is too stupid to answer that question, then he has no business being a state legislature, and ought to go back to lecturing the cow patties out in the pasture where his lack of insight won't hurt so many people. You pass a budget with tax increases, because you don't have the money to run the state government without them, Dave. Existing tax revenues will not support the services demanded by the citizens of Oregon, as the disasterous budget cuts earlier in the year demonstrated. Even a senator from the sticks of Eastern Oregon should be able to figure that out. How can he, in good conscience, not pass a budget? Does he seriously think that is a better solution?

The Republicans, who control the house, need to get off of their philosophical high horse and do the painful work of passing a budget with tax increases. It has to be done, and no amount of rhetorical speechmaking or partisan muckraking is going to change it. Raise taxes or kill people. Seems like an easy choice, doesn't it?

What ever happened to common sense?

We went to see Pirates of the Caribbean last night. I had been resisting, because I didn't think I'd like it.

I was wrong. It was hugely entertaining. The reviewers were right: Johnny Depp just steals this movie. It is clear from the very beginning that he enjoyed himself immensely while making this movie, throwing himself completely into his role as Captain Jack Sparrow. Although the movie itself is too fluffy to be mentioned, it would be a crime if Depp is not nominated for an Academy Award for this work.

The computer-generated sequences were well done. The cursed pirates become rotting skeletons when exposed to moonlight, and since many of the battle sequences are filmed at night under a full moon (naturally), the filmmakers had the difficult task of merging CG images with live images as the pirates dash in and out of moonlight and shadow. It was seamless.

I was also amused by the number of scene straight from the ride. As one of my office mates said, the jailhouse scene with the dog seemed even seemed to use the same faces.

Caution for parents: my 10-year-old (who has an active imagination and is easily frightened) could not take this movie. Mom had to remove him after the first turn-into-skeleton scenes.

There was one thing that annoyed me (there's always something). One of the previews was for the next Disney adventure: Haunted Mansion, also based on a Disneyland ride. I guess Disney has finally run out of fairy tales. I suppose next year, we'll be treated to Space Mountain: The Movie.

Explain this one to me.

I got a notice from BankOne today telling me they are changing the terms of my agreement. The basic change is the interest rate, which is now going to prime plus 15.7%, which makes it 19.95%. If you should dare to be late, the rate goes to 22.95%.

Who the hell do these guys think they are? Interest rates are at their lowest levels since the Hoover administration. The cost of money to BankOne is less than it has been in decades, and yet they are raising my rate to one that would have made the temple moneychangers gasp in disbelief. I could get a better deal from the Mafia.

The only satisfaction I can take from this is that I don't revolve balances, so I don't pay those usurious rates, but there's another principle involved here.

When a fee is based on dollars, you can justify a periodic increase as just part of the cost of living. But when a fee is based on percentage, that is not the case: the take rises as the underlying cost rises. Raising a percentage fee is nothing but pure profit-taking greed, and that's what BankOne is exhibiting here.

The 11 o'clock news on the local NBC affiliate, KGW channel 8, has started an annoying new tradition that really ticks me off.

They've always had a very high commercial-to-news ratio, but now they've taken it a step further. At 11:26 PM, they break for a 2-minute commercial break. When they come back, they do a single tidbit of fluffy feel-good news -- your basic public interest story -- for a full 50 seconds, and then they break for commercial again! This time, they take a full 3-minute commercial break, after which they do their 15-second goodbyes, and flow into another 3 minutes of commercials before rolling into Jay Leno.

Did you count that up? In the last 9 minutes of the newscast, there is exactly 65 seconds of content, and all of THAT lightweight.

I changed to the channel 8 news when the local CBS station (KOIN) hired on a bozo-and-bozo team (Jeff Gianola and Kelly Day) to do their evening news. I might have to consider switching again.

What a nation of sheep we have become, myself included.

I went to a movie last weekend. Besides having the unmitigated gall to charge me $7.50 to force me to watch 15 minutes of bad television advertising, they actually have the nerve to try to sell soda for $3.50, $3.75, and $4.00 for a 24 oz., 32 oz., and 44 oz. cup, respectively.

Holy carbonation, Batman! Why aren't we outraged at that? They're charging $3.75 for a paper cup with colored sugar water, when I could buy the EXACT SAME cup of colored sugar water at Seven-11 for $1.19, or at McDonald's for $1.50 with unlimited refills. Plus, neither Seven-11 nor McDonald's forces me to watch paid advertisements from Coke while I'm drinking it!

The time has come to end the "no outside food or drink" regime at our nation's theaters. You can't tell me that movie theater owners would go bankrupt if they cut all the concession prices by 50% tomorrow. I say we enact some civil disobedience and start smuggling in our own treats. Theater owners do not have a constitutionally-guaranteed monopoly on snacks.