ROYALTY CHECKS IN THE MIRROR MIGHT BE SMALLER THAN THEY APPEAR: Selling sex has never been so lucrative.

POINTING THE FINGER WHERE IT SHOULD BE: Prejudice among Gatekeepers.

FROM DOUG DANDRIGE: Exodus: Empires at War: Book 11: Day of Infamy (Exodus: Empires at War.)

FALLEN ANGELS IS JUST A SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL, RIGHT GUYS? RIGHT? GUYS? ‘Winter Is Coming’ Warns The Solar Physicist The Alarmists Tried To Silence.

AS ALWAYS, HILLARY WILL SAY WHATEVER IT TAKES: To hear Hillary Clinton tell it, Donald Trump is both a typical Republican and a dangerous outlier unfit to serve as president.

FRANCE’S WAR ON TERROR, AS SEEN FROM LANGUEDOC:

A village friend, an upstanding citizen and vigneron who has carried a tiny utility knife in his pocket since God’s dog was a puppy, had it taken off him the other day by the police, who have charged him with carrying a weapon under the state of emergency. This is the same minuscule knife carried by everyone who works with wines and vines. It’s about as lethal as a biro pen.

And what are we supposed to do about the terrorists? Throw a croissant at them? . . .

Here in my corner of France, we’re still a long way from sauve qui peut (a beautiful French expression, roughly translatable as “every man for himself, “or perhaps more colloquially, channeling Dad’s Army’s Private James Frazer, “we’re doomed.”). The prime topic of conversation is instead the expectation of a much smaller harvest of grapes than usual, with less juice, as a consequence of no rain.

But there are some exceptions. There was an angry man at our table at the village fête. ‘The Muslims, they should get out,” he said, over and over again, jabbing his thumb in the vague direction of the Mediterranean. “Out,” he repeated: (Dehors !) Nobody was paying much attention to him.

Well, yet.

THIS IS WHY WE DO DISASTER PREP: A Major Earthquake in the Pacific Northwest Looks Even Likelier.

Though, personally, I’m more worried about the New Madrid fault.

AT AMAZON, deals galore in Training & Fitness.

And shop the Amazon Emergency Prep Store. Plus, Emergency & Long-Term Storage Food Deals. When bad things happen, it’s good to have food.

Plus, Generators and Portable Power for Storm Season. Or if a generator isn’t practical, consider an inverter. Summer storms are coming!

And don’t forget the mosquito control stuff.

RIP KENNY BAKER, THE MAN INSIDE R2-D2:

The British actor who played R2-D2 in the Star Wars films has died at the age of 81 after a long illness. Kenny Baker, who was 3ft 8in tall, shot to fame in 1977 when he first played the robot character.

He went on to play the character in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, as well as the three Star Wars prequels from 1999 to 2005. He also appeared in a number of other much loved films in the 1980s, including The Elephant Man, Time Bandits and Flash Gordon.

Back in 2003, I wrote the cover story for the premiere issue of the robotics-oriented magazine Servo on the history of robots in the movies. (The cover photo was a shot of C3PO from the prequels with his gleaming gold head covering removed.) For the article, I interviewed Don Bies of Lucasfilm, the man who operated R2 when he was radio controlled in the prequels. Bies told me that due to advancements in that technology, while Baker was in episode one “a fair amount,” as the prequels went on, R2 was increasingly operated remotely, but there was always at least a few shots of Baker inside the R2 suit in each prequel, just so that his name could legitimately appear in the credits. RIP.

YOU PAYS YOUR MONEY AND YOU TAKES YOUR CHOICE: Shot: Always correct election forecast model predicts Trump win, 51%-48%.

Chaser: GOP insiders: Trump can’t win. “‘Trump is underperforming so comprehensively…it would take video evidence of a smiling Hillary drowning a litter of puppies while terrorists surrounded her with chants of ‘Death to America,’’ said an Iowa Republican.” Well, who know what might turn up on Wikileaks?

But the way 2016 has gone so far, I assume that the election will be decided by space aliens.

UPDATE: App maker: Trump will win election. “His app poses questions and polls responses based on an average of 100,000 daily users.” Hmm. Well, I’m still going with the space aliens.

HAPPY NATIONAL FILET MIGNON DAY! Reminder: Go Ahead and Eat That Steak. It Won’t Destroy the World.

21st CENTURY HEADLINES: While a Family Innocently Slept, the Roomba Was Smearing a ‘War Zone of Poop’ All Over the Living Room.

Isn’t there a codicil in Asimov’s Laws of Robotics to prohibit such disasters?

OLYMPIC OIKOPHOBIA: ‘Little Known’ Olympic Shooters Snubbed by Sponsors While Media Play Dumb — Media ignoring America’s shooting athletes, scaring away corporate sponsors.

THE SCIENCE ISN’T SETTLED: Researchers orbit a muon around an atom, confirm physics is broken. “This ‘proton radius puzzle’ suggests there may be something fundamentally wrong with our physics models. And the researchers who discovered it have now moved on to put a muon in orbit around deuterium, a heavier isotope of hydrogen. They confirm that the problem still exists, and there’s no way of solving it with existing theories.”

Hmm. Well, stay tuned.

BECAUSE LAWS ARE FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: Why Should Malia Obama Face No Consequences, and a Poor Black Kid Face Jail?

AT AMAZON, New Releases in Movies & TV.

Plus, deals on Dockers For Men.

FIGHT AGAINST ZIKA TURNS TO SEX. “While mosquitoes are the primary carriers of the virus, which has swept across the Americas and the Caribbean, infecting tens of thousands of people and causing devastating birth defects in more than 1,800 newborns, health officials are concerned that the threat of sexual transmission remains little understood, largely underpublicized and worryingly underestimated.”

I DON’T KNOW, BUT I REMEMBER WHEN MICHAEL J. FOX FLUSHED HIS CAREER WITH AN AD SAYING THAT THEY’D CURE EVERYTHING, AND ONLY HORRIBLE, AWFUL PEOPLE COULD POSSIBLY DISAGREE: Technology Review: Will Embryonic Stem Cells Ever Cure Anything? “The public definitely doesn’t appreciate that much of science is failure.”

THAT CERTAINLY WORKED OUT WELL FOR ALL CONCERNED. Flashback 2013: Salon Publishes Article With Title ‘Hugo Chavez’s economic miracle.’

Gee, I wonder how Venezuela ran into such a spot of “bad luck?”

THE FUNNY THING IS, I KNOW PLENTY OF PEOPLE WHO WOULD BUY THIS: PetChatz HD Two-Way Audio/Video System that Dispenses Treats.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: The Immigrant’s Dilemma.

WHO NEEDS SPORTSMANSHIP WHEN YOU HAVE ANTI-SEMITISM? Egyptian Judo Athlete Refuses to Shake Israeli’s Hand After Olympic Match.

THESE ARE KIND OF COOL: 17 Spy Satellite Mission Patches.

DID HOLLYWOOD MAKE A PRO-GUN MOVIE? Hell or High Water Features Armed Citizenry.

From the original libertarian-themed Ghostbusters to the uber-conservative Dark Knight Rises, strange things happen when far left Hollywood puts story ahead of ideology.

VIDEO: WATCH A LIVE CAR SEAT DEMO GO TERRIBLY, HORRIBLY, HILARIOUSLY WRONG. Two year old Noah wants no part of a Philadelphia morning TV show car seat demonstration, and isn’t afraid to make his opinion abundantly clear.