Erie County Council passed a budget for 2010. It includes job cuts and, wait for it, tax increases. Erie County Executive Mark DiVecchio must sign the bill into law by December 1.

Someone or someones keep vandalizing the grave of Corporal Timothy Lauer in Crawford County. Lauer, killed in Iraq, has had his gravestone painted with white paint and items placed at the gravesite have been removed. What is the matter with people? I’m embarrassed to live here. I’m not a violent man, but if I caught the people doing this, I think something like this might happen.

Having solved the state’s budget issues, the state House voted to enact a law making it cheaper for people to place legal notices in the newspaper. Newspapers are going to miss the revenue, but why aren’t these types of notices placed online? Or are they already? I can’t tell you the last time I read the legal notices of the classifieds.

Speaking of websites, as of late last evening, GoErie.com is still being marked as malicious by Google and several other badware services. We dug around the code and didn’t see anything glaring, so either Google hasn’t purged the bad results or something is hiding pretty well. Check out Chrome’s scary warning screen.

We found a cool story in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review about a group that’s proposing a hiking and biking trail from Erie to Pittsburgh. We like that idea – in fact you could probably just put it right down the middle area of I-79.

Jason Himrod of Erie will spend years in prison on charges of transporting child pornography. Not cool.

Hamot Medical Center has been named one of the nation’s 100 top hospitals for cardiovascular care. Hamot received the recognition from Thomson Reuters, a New York City-based health-care and business-information company. It is the sixth time that Hamot made the list, one of only three in the state to make it that many times. No other hospital has been recognized more times.

This post is full of YouTube awesomeness. I think we’ll wrap it up with “So Your Cat Wants a Massage.”

Sports

The Mercyhurst College women’s hockey team reclaimed its title as the unanimous No. 1-ranked team in the country on Tuesday. The Lakers were awarded 190 points and all 19 first-place votes in the latest USA Today / USA Hockey Women’s Hockey Poll to own all first-place votes in both national polls.

The Erie SeaWolves are proud to announce that once again, they will partner with the United States Marine Corps for the second annual “FILL A TRUCK AT THE UHT” Toys for Tots event to Jerry Uht Park. On Saturday, December 12 from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m., the main plaza in front of the Jerry Uht Park front gates will serve as a Toys for Tots drop-off. The Marines will be on hand with tactical vehicles including a 7-ton truck to fill with gifts for needy children in the Erie community and two hmmwvs. This holiday season, the Marines are in need of toys for 10,000 area youths.

Events