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A Better Sweepstakes

The Gun Thing

Received in the mail:  the NRA’s latest sweepstakes details — “Win 44 guns!” or something — which works as follows:

Out of a total of 44 guns, First Prize Winner must select 12 guns from Group A, 2nd Prize Winner 10 guns from Group B, 3rd Prize winner 8 guns from Group C, and so on.

Sounds good, but there’s a HUGE problem with the way it’s set up.  Here, for example, are the 18 guns from the 1st Prize selection, which I’ve grouped for easier comprehension:

Semi-Auto Rifles
Armalite M-15 Tactical Light Carbine (5.56mm/.223)
Bushmaster XM-10 Standard (7.62mm NATO)
Savage Arms MS Recon (.224 Valkyrie)
SIG M400 Elite TI (5.56mm)
Benelli R1 (.338 Win Mag)

Bolt-Action Rifles
Browning X-Bolt (6.5mm Creedmoor)
Remington 700 XCR (.308 Win)
Winchester 70 Extreme SS (.30-06)

Semi-Auto Pistols
Colt Delta Elite (10mm)
Desert Eagle (.44Mag)
Kimber 1911 Raptor II (.45 ACP)
S&W SW1911 Performance Center (9mm)

Revolvers
S&W 500 (.500 S&W Mag)
Colt King Cobra (.357 Mag)

Shotguns
Benelli Vinci (12ga)
Beretta A440 Extreme Plus (12ga)
Remington 870 (20ga)
Browning A5 Sweet Sixteen (16ga)

It’s a decent-enough selection of guns, I suppose — but the problem is that I would only want to own a few of them (4/18), namely:

  • Browning A5 Sweet Sixteen (16ga)
  • Remington 870 (20ga)
  • Kimber 1911 Raptor II (.45ACP)
  • Colt King Cobra (.357 Mag)

,,,and I’m kinda iffy about the short barrels on the last two anyway.  The rest of the guns are either in the wrong chambering (.224 Valkyrie?), duplicates of stuff I already own (.30x bolties), or a type of firearm I don’t care to own anyway (AR-15 variants) — even for free.  (If I were promiscuous when it came to guns, then I could take any of the eighteen, but I’m not That Guy.)

The same, by the way, is true of every other group of guns they’ve arranged for the prize winners:  3/10 in 2nd Prize, 5/8 in 3rd Prize, 3/6 in 4th Prize, and 1/4 in 5th Prize.  And of these prize guns, only a couple get me really  panting.

But here’s what’s interesting.  If you add up all my choices across the prize groups, you’d get 16 in total — and if pushed I could easily trim that to 8 or 10.

So why shouldn’t the NRA ask contestants to rank their top 10 favorites (out of the 44) on their entry forms, with a guarantee they’d get at least eight guns for 1st prize, six for 2nd, etc.  That way, contestants would get at least some  guns they actually want/need, instead of moaning that all the guns they wanted were in 4th Prize and they’d won 2nd instead, which contained only one favorite.

Yes, there might be a duplicate or two, but that’s not important.  And the NRA could share the “favorites” aggregate with the various gun manufacturers — and let me tell ya, that info is valuable.

Here’s the thing:  right now, I have little inclination to enter the sweepstakes, not only because I know it’s just a ploy for the NRA to get extra donations, but also because quite frankly, I don’t care for many of the guns they’re offering and even if I won a prize, it’s not worth my time to fill in the stupid form.

And because this wouldn’t be a Kim post without at least some kind of “favorites” list, here are my Top 10 Guns from all prize offerings in the NRA’s Stupid Sweepstakes, in order of “want”:

  1. Auto-Ordnance M1 Carbine (3rd Prize)
  2. Remington 870 in 20ga (1st Prize)
  3. Savage 110 in .300 Win Mag (3rd Prize)
  4. Remington 1911 R1 in .45 ACP (4th Prize)
  5. Browning A5 Sweet Sixteen 16ga (1stPrize)
  6. Marlin 1895 in .45-70 Govt (4th Prize)
  7. Henry Golden Boy lever rifle in .22 LR (2nd Prize)
  8. Ruger SP101 in .38 Spec (5th Prize)
  9. CZ 557 in .243 Win (2nd Prize)
  10. Winchester 94 carbine in .30-30 (4th Prize)

Feel free to add your own thoughts in Comments.

New Link

Housekeeping

He doesn’t post that often, but when he does, it’s a wonder of stream-of-consciousness bile and invective.  Just call him Ishmael:

…and in future you’ll find him among the permalinks over on the right-hand side of the page.

So What?

Business

Here’s one of those wealth-envy headlines which makes me want to load up the old AK-47 and take a day trip, not to the offices of the tax-avoiding corporations, but to the offices of the Daily Mail (and not for the first time either):

Big companies avoid £100billion a year in corporate tax thanks to ‘spider’s web’ of British offshore tax havens

  • Tax Justice Network ranked 64 countries on the tax avoidance they enabled
  • UK outsourced corporate tax haven game to ‘spider’s web’ of offshore territories
  • British Virgin Islands, followed by Bermuda and the Cayman Islands topped list
  • Network said UK bears the lion’s share of responsibility for the ‘breakdown of the global corporate tax system’

Looks like the Brits are finally doing something right, because anything that breaks down the so-called “global corporate tax system” can only be A Good Thing.

Reminder to the Daily Mail:

  • Tax avoidance means not paying unnecessary taxes according to the law
  • Tax evasion means not paying the taxes you legally owe.

Then again, if I’m going to be paying an AK-enabled visit to anyone, it should be to the offices of this “Tax Justice Network” crowd.  They seem like an evil bunch of assholes.

Lock Up Your Sons (And Fathers, And Uncles, And Brothers)

Men & Women

It appears that someone is looking for a mate:

Charlize Theron has declared she has been ‘single for years’ and is ‘shockingly available’ for dates.
The 43-year-old South African actress, who took a break from relationships after adopting her two children, hopes to find the ‘love of her life’ and said her ideal man would have a ‘good beard’ and can ‘make her laugh’.

Here’s a sample pic of said totty:

 

Quite toothsome a thing, and all in all, an interesting prospect, no?

No.

Unfortunately, the broad from Benoni is, to put it politely, fucked in the head.  Crazier than a sackful of cats.  Several pieces of boerewors short of a braaivleis.  Mad as a streetful of hatters.

In other words, to date this ditzy stukkie, you would have to be fucking insane yourself.  Exhibit 1:

 

This is a woman who (oh-so fashionably) adopted two Black orphans from Africa, and is now raising one as a girl (okay, “gender fluid”), which upbringing will no doubt go down like a Kardashian on a Black dude should said unfortunate child ever decide to revisit the continent of his birth.

The fact that La Charlize finds herself terrifyingly single and completely date-less seems to suggest that the Hollywood men of her environs have somehow become more sensible.  I rather suspect, however, that the word has gone out:  date this chick and seven kinds of shit will fall on your head.

Caveant Omnes.

Yes Yes Yes

Men & Women, Religion

According to this study, if you are a religious and conservative woman in a traditional (i.e. heterosexual) marriage, you are more likely to be sexually satisfied than other women:

…in other words, those women for whom the expression “Oh God, oh God, oh God!” is not just orgasmic, it’s a benediction.

Must suck to be a liberal lesbian atheist, huh?  (Mind you, this would explain Rachel Maddow quite well [warning: link contains Rachel Maddow], not to mention all the liberal participants on The View [no link, because ugh].)