WASHINGTON – Deep within the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, Congress’ statutory instrument to prevent a shutdown of the federal government, there’s a gem of legislative wisdom designed to prevent your tax dollars from being spent on an unconscionable waste of our nation’s internal revenue.

Does it require better accounting on the part of government contractors to assure the services paid for match the services rendered? Eh….not exactly.

Does it prohibit pork-barrel attachments to subsequent budgets? Let’s not get carried away, here; those pork-barrel attachments are what keeps America running—running to their local polling precincts to reelect the guy who wrote the rider, that is.

No, what Section 534 of the act does is way more important: It discourages government bureaucrats from watching porn across any network funded by the act.

The full text of the section reads

[QUOTE]None of the funds made available in this Act may be used to maintain or establish a computer network unless such network blocks the viewing, downloading and exchanging of pornography.[/QUOTE]

Look, if you’re Congress, you can’t just go around handing out trillions of dollars for the government to spend without attaching a few strings. You need to make sure the money isn’t wasted, lost, stolen, disappeared up a Kennedy’s nose or spent on the creation or maintenance of computer networks that don’t do enough to block the viewing, downloading or exchanging of pornography.

Sure, some critics will complain the term “pornography” isn’t defined in the language of the act, or anywhere else in related statutory language. Others will gripe Section 534 imposes a technical burden which can’t be met, since internet content filters are notoriously unreliable in terms of both over- and under-blocking, and pornographic content can be encrypted just like any other digital information, thereby defeating the filter’s attempts to identify the material as porn.

All such microscopic nitpicking aside, Section 534 is just one among many thoroughly sensible and completely necessary conditions imposed by the Act upon those who benefit from its legislative largesse.

Another Section of the ct sure to fundamentally change the way we do things in the U.S. and kick-start the Restoration of American Greatness comes right before the “no porno” provision, in Section 533:

[QUOTE]None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to pay the salaries or expenses of personnel to deny, or fail to act on, an application for the importation of any model of shotgun…. if all other requirements of law with respect to the proposed importation are met.[/QUOTE]

This is huge, because if there’s one thing the government is spending tons of money on right now, it’s the salaries and expenses of personnel who process applications for the importation of shotguns. I shudder to think about the enormous sum of precious public funds being consumed by paying bureaucrats to fail to act on such applications. I’m not certain precisely what fraction of the $1.1 trillion authorized under this act is allocated for the salary of the Director of Denying Shotgun Importation Applications, but I can’t imagine it’s less than $400 million a year, once adjusted for recent cost-of-living increases around the Beltway.

The sagacious funding limitations in the act do not stop with preventing porn watching or encouraging the importation of shotguns, however; NASA has some new rules to follow here, as well.

[QUOTE]None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to effectuate the hosting of official Chinese visitors at facilities belonging to or utilized by NASA.[/QUOTE]

This makes perfect sense to include, because representatives of the Chinese government visit NASA facilities all the time, and typically they are immediately ushered to key areas of the facility, then turned loose to take pictures and operate computer workstations without the supervision of NASA personnel. I know this sounds like an insanely dumb thing to do on the part of people who deal with advanced and sensitive technology integral to our national security, but let’s face it: The guys over at NASA are not exactly rocket scientists.

From the text of Section 511, it’s quite clear Congress knows it has to keep a close eye on the anti-religious fascists over at the DOJ, too.

[QUOTE]None of the funds made available to the Department of Justice in this Act may be used to discriminate against or denigrate the religious or moral beliefs of students who participate in programs for which financial assistance is provided from those funds, or of the parents or legal guardians of such students.[/QUOTE]

While I’m sure provision will come as a major disappointment to the folks who work in the Squelching Religious Freedoms department of the DOJ’s Civil Rights division, it’s still a prudent precaution.

After all, the fundamental charter of the DOJ’s Civil Rights division is to enforce federal law “prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, disability, religion, family status and national origin,” so obviously they’re chomping at the bit to discriminate against and denigrate the religious or moral beliefs of Americans—and American students participating in programs funded by the act, in particular.

Beyond the obvious benefits bestowed by the ongoing assurance the U.S. will have ample access to imported shotguns, plenty of blue-balled bureaucrats, unfettered funding of on-campus religious groups and no unapproved Chinese people hanging around Cape Canaveral, it’s nice to see Congress giving porn its due as a scourge. So many people have bemoaned the “pornification” of American culture lately, I was worried porn would no longer be viewed by Washington as the Very Big Deal, morally-corroding influence it is.

Granted, we’re probably not considered by Congress to be quite as threatening as Chinese people, a lack of foreign firearms or the Department of Justice, but at least we’re in the mix, right?