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THERE WAS A GUN-RIGHTS RALLY IN HARTFORD YESTERDAY. A lot of people showed up.

TECH STARTUP AS SELF-DEFEATING SWEATSHOP? How Sleep Deprivation Drives The High Failure Rates of Tech Startups.

There are also subtler degradations in thought capacity and performance that can come from less extreme kinds of sleep deprivation. A study in Sleep, the journal of the American Sleep Disorders Association, found significant declines on “divergent” thinking, a category of mostly creative brain functions. The study found double-digit declines in tests for fluency, flexibility, and originality of thought using the Torrance Test, a standard measure of the different categories involved in creative thought. Another meta-survey of sleep deprivation research found a strong correlation between weakened long-term memory, impaired decision-making abilities and lessened visuomotor performance, while people living with chronic sleep deprivation took significantly longer to return to normal than those who’d been subject to extreme but limited forms of sleep deprivation. This year, researchers at the Center for Sleep and Circadian Neurobiology at the University of Pennsylvania found that going without enough sleep can kill brain cells and lead to permanent damage to neurons associated with alertness.

How can any work ethic connected to such dimming of cognitive function produce anything worth having? Any culture that celebrates the loss of sleep as a virtue must inevitably become a backwater of degraded thoughts and fragile idealism.

Even in college, I tried hard to get enough sleep. Sometimes in law school I went 5 hours a night, but never for more than a few days. You’re better off working with a clear head.

CIVIL RIGHTS MILESTONE: First Defensive Gun Use By A Chicago Carry Permit Holder. “The man was walking from his garage to the front of his home when two males in hoodies appeared in a gangway between his home and the neighbor’s home, Sullivan said. One of the two men pulled a handgun from his waistband and pointed at the man who took out his own gun and managed to fire several times at the males, Sullivan said. The males fled the area without being struck and the shooting did not result in any property damage, police said.”

OUCH: “Thank goodness we are nothing like intolerant societies that are ruled by mobs. We have evolved.”

I’M ALWAYS HAPPY TO MAKE TWITCHY: Instapundit schools Jesse Jackson on ‘immorality’ of Hiroshima bombing.

For a longer-form response, you can’t beat this from Bill Whittle.

LIGHTNING DEAL: For the rest of the hour, 33% off this All-Clad Multicooker/Steamer pot.

BY NOW, IT’S HAD TIME TO RAISE A SET OF KITTENS: Washington Post: ‘Cat’s Out of the Bag’ on IRS Targeting Scandal.

THE WHY FIREFOX IS BLOCKED WEBSITE. “Here’s a quick little script to detect Firefox and send the brower to this site. Just copy and place it in the head of any page you want to use it on.”

WALTER HUDSON: Why Campaign Finance Should Be Anonymous: If you support secret ballots, you should oppose campaign finance law.

MOZILLA IN THE SILICON VALLEY BUBBLE: “I have no idea whether this will end up hurting Mozilla, but I doubt very much that Mozilla anticipated even the possibility.” They have a diversity problem.

UPDATE: Coming tomorrow: Mozilla Monday?

THEOLOGIANS, IN GENERAL, ARE WEAKER ON ECONOMICS THAN ECONOMISTS ARE ON THEOLOGY. Mistakes To Avoid For Theologians Talking About Economics.

ANDREW SULLIVAN: Brendan Eich & Hillary Clinton.

Some of the very same people who have jumped up and down with delight as Brandon Eich lost his job will doubtless be backing Hillary Clinton for president in 2016 if she runs. The “Ready for Hillary” ranks are crowded with gay men – and good for them. But it’s worth US President Bill Clinton (l) in picture taken 16considering some consistency here. If it is unconscionable to support a company whose CEO once donated to the cause against marriage equality, why is it not unconscionable to support a candidate who opposed marriage equality as recently as 2008, and who was an integral part of an administration that embraced the Defense Of Marriage Act, signed into law by Bill Clinton? How do you weigh the relative impact of a president strongly backing DOMA – even running ads touting his support for it in the South – and an executive who spent $1000 for an anti-marriage equality Proposition?

Hillary Clinton only declared her support for marriage equality in 2013. Before that, she opposed it. In 2000, she said that marriage “has a historic, religious and moral context that goes back to the beginning of time. And I think a marriage has always been between a man and a woman.” Was she then a bigot? On what conceivable grounds can the Democratic party support a candidate who until only a year ago was, according to the latest orthodoxy, the equivalent of a segregationist, and whose administration enacted more anti-gay laws and measures than any in American history?

They’ll find a way. In fact, I suspect that, in a sense, Hillary’s sins have been loaded onto Eich.

LELAND YEE UPDATE: Checks And Votes Seem To Coincide. So if disclosure of donations is a check on corruption, how come nobody noticed this until now?

BILL MAHER: “I think there is a gay mafia. I think if you cross them, you do get whacked.”

HMM: Do Huckabee’s Endorsements Hinge On Nepotism? “Mike Huckabee has had a bit of a streak of endorsements that coincide with the hiring of his son-in-law’s team of consultants.” But how much is a Huckabee endorsement worth these days?

YEAH, WELL, NOT SO MUCH, ACTUALLY: Glenn Beck: “Mitch McConnell Is As Big Of A Danger To This Country As Barack Obama Is.” Not a huge fan of McConnell, but this is (almost) of a piece with the NRSC stuff I was criticizing earlier. Maybe, at this point, the firing squad shouldn’t be formed in a circle? Just sayin’. . .

OH, THEY PROBABLY OWN MORE THAN ONE DEMOCRAT: “A prostitution sting earlier this week resulted in the arrest of an employee of Forum Communications, which owns just about every major news outlet in North Dakota, as well as a Democrat running for state legislature in South Dakota.”

NEWS FROM VENEZUELA: Prison interview: Jailed Venezuelan opposition leader warns world not to ignore abuses.

Related: Kevin Spacey on Venezuelan Freedom. “More than 1,400 students were arrested, there are more than 40 confirmed cases of torture and Leopoldo Lopez still sits in a Venezuelan military prison. He has urged the students to exercise their legal rights to peaceful protest and free speech and he repeatedly emphasized they must do so without violence. President Maduro has blamed Lopez for the violence that has beset the country and ordered his arrest on charges of murder, arson and terrorism. To date, the government has presented no evidence of the charges against him and their legal case is falling apart.” Yeah, not so sure the nonviolent thing shouldn’t have a sunset date. But perhaps I’m overly pessimistic.

Plus, I saw this at the Lakeside Tavern in Knoxville the other day.

FIVE FREE ALTERNATIVE BROWSERS FOR WINDOWS. Most of these also have OSX versions. There’s also the Epic Browser.

AUDIO: Milt Rosenberg interviews the Insta-Wife about her new book, Men On Strike, and the reaction to it.

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NEWS YOU CAN USE: How To Email iPhone Video That Isn’t A Blurry Mess.

IS DANCING protected by the First Amendment? Only when it’s nude dancing.

BROWSER DOWN: Mozilla only made things worse by letting CEO Brandon Eich go. “One does not simply let Pablo Picasso go from the art faculty.”