Gourd's Laws, Part 1

[fr_defenestrato]

I've decided to compile a set of usage laws that apply in the business of Federal Government contract acquisitions. These apply to generation of text for both Requests for [Proposals, Quotations, Information, what have you] and the [proposals etc.] that would-be contractors submit in response to said requests.

Today I present the first law (that occurred to me; its primacy does not necessarily signify its importance relative to forthcoming laws):

Any document-initial statement of purpose, problem, or intent, in either a Government-issued request or a contractor-supplied response, must include (preferably in its second paragraph) a reference to "meeting these challenges," regardless of the immediately preceding text.

A few modest examples:

Kellogg, Brown, and Root has scored exponentially under President Bush in the warfighting racket, realizing obscene profits as never before under previous administrations. KBR is rolling in filthy lucre and can foresee no change of derailment of the gravy train.

To meet these challenges, KRB is requesting...

Ok, this one's real:

... The NETCENTS2 Services contract will be a companion contract to the other two contracts in providing users total network-centric IT solutions.

The NETCENTS2 Services contract is designed to meet these challenges...

Also real, at least until I edited the following text:

... Navy professionals have paved the way into the future with resourcefulness, inventiveness, originality of ideas, and meticulously planned initiatives.

To meet these challenges, the MPT&E organization...

I swear, it's just automatic. It's a law; people learn it by repetition and after a while it just doesn't matter what the frig you put in the first 'graph: the second talks about meeting these challenges.