The din of anti-war protesters grows, although in San Francisco it proved no match against panhandlers. Public opinion hasn’t been this blindly polarized since the O.J. Simpson trial. Parallels run deeper than the compunction to watch four gruesome hours of CNN despite your better judgment. The outcome is all but certain and even the players look the same. Saddam as the accused and President Bush as Marsha Clark, virtuous but unable to make a convincing argument in the face of such obvious guilt. Donald Rumsfield glares through his glasses ala Chris Darden, bristling at the hint of criticism with an arrogance neither justified nor supported by his intellect. Finally, Dick Cheney as the profiteering Johnnie Cochran with Halliburton contracts replacing high-profile clientele. Maybe Michael Moore should make a movie.

The recent flurry of bad economic news is fast becoming a blizzard. A week after learning that payrolls unexpectedly fell 110,000, we are buffeted by faltering consumer sentiment, shrinking industrial production and a record trade deficit. Things are so bad that the Japanese are dumping U.S. assets and plowing their money into Europe. And capacity utilization of 75% means capital spending will remain in the doldrums even if Greenspan takes interest rates to zero.

Bush rides to the rescue with the following logic: eliminating the taxation of dividends will boost stock prices and lower capital costs resulting in jobs and higher spending. Obligingly, Microsoft announced its first dividend and promptly watched its stock crater by seven percent. With Governor Ryan so busy liberating death row, maybe he should pardon the President for killing the economy.

A $35 billion gash in California’s budget has Governor Davis scrambling to raise taxes and slash services though Ken Lay has yet to leave the links for the grey-bar hotel. Sales tax will jump one percent while a pack of cigarettes will cost $1.10 more The once Golden State is also hocking its 1998 settlement with the tobacco industry by offering $3 billion of municipal bonds backed by future payments from cigarette companies. Never mind that those funds were specifically earmarked for victims of smoking-related illnesses not the Mercedes-driving denizens of Orange County looking to reduce their marginal tax rate. Don’t fret, however, because payments to the state aren’t fixed, but are based on cigarette sales which will be dented by the new taxes. Hence bondholders, when its all said and done, might watch their portfolios go up in smoke.

In my high school days getting a hummer was indeed a big deal, but it certainly failed to make the evening news (not that I would have been opposed to that – it would have saved a measure of locker room skepticism). But times are different and the Hummer in question is a $80,000 H2 SUV. Moreover, the owner is LeBron James, just 16 and the latest next Michael Jordan. LeBron’s father is in jail and his mother lives in the projects and so the question begs: Who’s Franklins be keepin’ LeBron drippin’ in bling-bling? Some deride the corruption in amateur sports, others say the boy is just getting what will soon enough be rightfully his. I just hope the young man doesn’t go Dale Earnhardt before he can fulfill so many dreams.