Thumbs up: The final bells of the school year are starting to ring. Some private and parochial schools have already shuffled their young charges out of the door and Racine Unified will follow on Monday with their final day - an exam day for many students. Summer is a great time (if it warms up a little) for kids, but it's also a dangerous one. More than 40 percent of all accidental injury-related deaths occur during the summer and over the course of the next three months about 2.5 million children will visit emergency rooms or be hospitalized with an injury, according to health professionals. If you're a driver, slow down. Watch for bikes and be alert when passing parked cars. If you're a parent, find that bike helmet if you haven't already. Pick up your vigilance. Buckle up and have your children do so when they're traveling, even for a short ride. Keep an eye on them. We hope your worst problem is a scraped knee or a mild sunburn.

Thumbs down: As the state budget winds its way toward its inevitable conclusion this month, the bellowing and cajoling of groups and agencies that are losing some funding will no doubt reach a crescendo. Most of those pleas will likely fall on deaf ears as lawmakers try to patch a $6.5 billion deficit. Still, we had to recognize the merits of the arguments of SmokeFree Wisconsin and the American Cancer Society and other groups this week, as they argued against an $11.8 million cut in state-supported smoking cessation programs. That's a 40 percent cut. The groups noted that Wisconsin was boosting its state tax on cigarettes by 75 cents per pack - on top of a federal tax increase as well. We would note, as well, that the statewide public smoking ban goes into effect next year. "Smokers subject to the increased tax deserve at least a small share of the resources from these taxes to help them quit," the groups said. Too logical, perhaps. Remember this is the state that squandered its tobacco settlement to balance another budget.

Thumbs up: Keep those cards and phone calls coming. We've had some less than kind words for some of the nonbudget policy issues that have been stuffed into the state budget by Gov. Jim Doyle and the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee. One of our harshest criticisms has been for Doyle's proposed changes in state liability laws which would have allowed state trial lawyers to hunt for deep pocket targets even if they didn't shoulder much blame in a liability situation. We weren't the only ones complaining - business groups united against Doyle's plan and opinion columns in other newspapers weighed in against it. Assembly Democrats apparently were facing the heat and jettisoned the changes on Wednesday. We'll give that a thumbs up for listening - but this is still not the last act in the budget capers and the issue could be revived.

Thumbs down: With impeccable timing, Gov. Jim Doyle last week declared Thursday as "Heat Awareness Day."

Always a sucker for a good proclamation event, we celebrated by turning up the thermostat to counter the 40-some degree temperatures overnight and wondering if we might have to bring the hanging plants inside. Wisconsin's cold, wet June is doing nothing to supply any good kind of stimulus for outdoor activities and we fear the kids just getting out of school may decide to hibernate for the summer. OK, we know typical summer heat can pose a danger and, in fact, we have had an arrest here already of a woman who allegedly left an infant inside a locked car. So beware. But we would still welcome a return to a real June. Maybe the governor can proclaim something for June 21. He can call it autumn if he likes, as long as it's warmer.

Thumbs down: Marketing gurus are always trotting out "new and improved" products of one sort or another to keep American consumers interested, so we shouldn't have been too surprised early this week when the weatherman decided to give Monday's brief but furious storms a little facelift: "Won't you welcome, please, the Gustnado …" The what? Perhaps we have lived a sheltered, or even tornado-sheltered life, but we hadn't heard of a "gustnado" before. Sure enough, though, they live in Wikipedia as a "specific time of short-lived, low-level cyclonic cloud that can form a severe thunderstorm. The name is a shortening of 'gust-front tornado.' "

Some newsroom staffers who hail from the Hoosier state say the gustnadoes - and the name - are common in Indiana. Wikipedia, however, notes that it is "yet to enter accepted weather nomenclature." Hmmph. Just another young upstart downburst or something. It used to be you could call a tornado a tornado.