Actor Henry Winkler, who will forever be known as Fonzie, the ’50s-style rebel from 1970s television, was in town last week to celebrate the completion of the fund-raising for the “Bronze the Fonz” statue. His likeness will be preserved somewhere along the Milwaukee River...

Although it’s both contentious and tedious, a new poll indicates that Wisconsin residents want legislators to get moving on approving the Great Lakes Water Compact, which would set new rules about the use of water along the Great Lakes.

School choice advocates George and Susan Mitchell, of Shorewood, have been living very comfortably off of wealthy, right-wing supporters of the school voucher program, but they quickly attacked a state legislator this past week for trying to impose some accountability standards on these dubious choice schools.

Lawmakers are debating whether to expand the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program to the suburbs—even with its documented flaws intact.

State Supreme Court justices typically are an anonymous bunch, with only a few generating widespread name recognition. But that’s changed with the latest addition to the court, Justice Annette Ziegler, who was elected in April in the most expensive Supreme Court race in Wisconsin history.

The Public Service Commission (PSC) of Wisconsin approved an increase in We Energies’ electric and natural gas rates last week, but it didn’t give the utility everything it wanted. Initially, We Energies asked for a 7.5% increase in 2008, and another 7.5% increase in 2009.

The state Department of Revenue just reported that while individuals paid more income tax this year, corporations’ income tax payments decreased 12% over the summer months. The cause? Shrinking profits, the business community argues.

It may be legal, but it stinks. The state’s biggest lobbying group, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (WMC), spent roughly $4.7 million to help the campaigns of Annette Ziegler, now a state Supreme Court justice whose ethical problems have made her the subject of an investigation, and J.B. Van Hollen, now the state attorney general. Both Ziegler and Van Hollen have come under fire for their participation in a sales tax case involving Menasha Corp., which is being heard by the state Supreme Court.

An appellate court ruled against the Northern Ozaukee School District, the William Bennettaffiliated K12 Inc. and virtual-schooling parents, including state Rep. Mark Gundrum (R-New Berlin), last week, saying the state shouldn’t pay for parents to teach their kids at home.

He’s now trying to pass it off as a “parody” that’s supposed to stimulate debate about the impossibility of negotiating with terrorists, but WTMJ’s rightwing talker Charlie Sykes stepped in it this time. On his WTMJ-hosted blog, Sykes posted and promoted as “pure genius” another person’s alteration of the peace-seeking bumper sticker that spells out “coexist” in symbols of many faiths. The “parody,” done by Tom McMahon, changed the symbol for transgender people into a hammer and sickle and the Star of David into a swastika.