Early Returns is rubbing its hands together with glee at the anticipated flood of city of Pittsburgh employees to this blog. Why so smug? Because this may be just about the only local political blog they can access from their work computers.

The city's Internet security provider, Websense Enterprise, recently updated its settings to eliminate access to "social networking and personal sites," a category that appears to include all of the "blogspot" addresses. Sources offer differing accounts on when this took effect, with some saying that as recently as yesterday they could access everything from the mayor-blistering Burgh Report to the call-em-as-I-see-em Pittsburgh Comet to the fawning (we think) I Luv Luke site.

Oh, hey, sorry, city workers -- didn't mean to rub it in by including those links.

City computer supercop Howard Stern said there was no conscious decision to block the blogs, and that the change in security settings came down, uninvited, from Websense. That said, he agrees with the new blog-proof city system.

"They're untrusted Web sites," he told us. They can transmit viruses, he said, "and that could knock out the whole city."

If a city employee or group of employees needs access to blogspot sites to properly serve the citizenry, they can have their department head e-mail him with a request to "open" that category for those users. They've done that for council offices researching gambling, and police units that need to access racy sites to fight sex crimes. So far, there's been a lot of griping, but no one has told him they absolutely need to read blogs to do their jobs, he said.

"If it's job-related, we'd be glad to open it up," Mr. Stern said. "There's no reason, otherwise, to expose my network to vulnerabilities and risks."

We at Early Returns figure it's only a matter of time before some director argues the need for access to The Angry Drunk Bureaucrat for customer service pointers.

Former House Speaker John Perzel, R-Philadelphia is at it again -- trying to get the Legislature to approve $56 million to hire 10,000 more municipal police officers over the next four years, or 2,500 officers per year until 2011.

Currently a bill he proposed, House Bill 1189, is stuck in the Democrat-controlled House Appropriations Committee, which shows no signs of sending it to the House floor.

"Crime is increasing throughout Pennsylvania. One of the most effective tools in fighting crime is putting more police on local streets," said Mr. Perzel at a press conference today. "The biggest obstacle to hiring more police is the lack of money."

If the bill is passed, a community that wanted to get police under the program would have to contribute 50 percent of the cost for each new officer.

Many of the new cops, if the bill were enacted, would be expected to go to Philadelphia, which has had a rising murder rate in the past several years. Some legislators from other parts of the state have been reluctant in the past to vote for something that benefits primarily Philadelphia, which they feel gets a disproportionate share of state money.

But other legislators changed the bill to set up a panel containing the state attorney general and county district attorneys, who would help decide how the new cops would be distributed.

As with all new pieces of legislation that have a price tag, there is a give and take over cutting state spending or doing more to fight crime. There are many new bills that would raise state spending, and legislators every spring face demands to reduce state spending and cut taxes as they prepare the next year's budget. So it's not known yet whether this $56 million spending bill will be approved.

State House Democratic leaders are fighting to block unemployment benefits for two of the seven workers ousted from the state payroll in November as casualties of the so-called "bonusgate" scandal rocking the Capitol.

Steve Keefer, former director of information services, and Lauren McClure, a former administrative specialist, applied for unemployment benefits, our friends at The Patriot-News in Harrisburg report. Leaders are fighting to keep them from receiving benefits.

The Department of Labor & Industry is expected to render a decision in several weeks.

Mr. Keefer and Ms. McClure were involved in the apparent distribution of tax-funded bonuses to people who worked on campaigns. Both were part of an e-mail chain in which staffers discussed a method for disbursing the payments according to the amount of time workers spent on campaigns, which would be illegal.

State Attorney General Tom Corbett is investigating those bonuses, which were part of $3.6 million distributed by all four legislative caucuses, but primarily House Democrats. No charges have been filed.

Capitolwire.com reports today that Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati has jumped on the Lease-the-Turnpike bandwagon.

His change of heart came when he learned there's a chance the federal government won't approve the state's plan to toll Interstate 80 to raise money for mass transportation and infrastructure repairs.

Now Mr. Scarnati, R-Jefferson, said those funds should be raised by leasing the Pennsylvania Turnpike to the highest bidder.