On the last Friday of February, state officials met in Albany for their annual ritual: adopting an economic and tax-receipt forecast to use for budget negotiations the following month. But the pols and finance geeks who assembled for this subdued and uncommonly apolitical event were missing a key piece of information. They had no idea the United States was hours away from war — and with it, oddly enough, a rare opportunity to make Albany a little less dysfunctional. The last four weeks have