So apparently if you are a girl in your early 20s, by no means should you be interested in politics, and certainly don’t engage politicians via social media. If you must do both those things, at least have the grace to be hideous by the standards of conservative attack chihuahuas and mainstream society. And if you should happen to be attractive, for God’s sake don’t take pictures of yourself looking that way! Fug it up a little. Braid your hair. Put on glasses. That always makes hot chicks in movies look ugly and studious.

Some links from the long weekend.

You can see a kind of good cop-bad cop scenario emerging in Libya. The rebels have offered amnesty to any member of the Gadhafi regime who defects and joins the opposition. Given what we know about reports of brutality in Benghazi toward people connected with the regime, I’m not sure this offer is believable. But it’s out there. At the same time, British attack helicopters made a rare daytime raid, destroying guard towers at the Gadhafi compound. And they let leak the preparation of 2,000-pound bunker buster bombs for future attacks. So there’s this olive branch of reconciliation, amid the persistent destruction of airstrikes.

God will surf with the devil if the waves are good.

~ Dorian “Doc” Paskowitz, who brought the 13 surfboards into Gaza in 2007 for Palestine surfers who were using wind surfing boards with the sails removed and battered surfboards to catch the waves off the coast. Inspired by their dedication, Doc and friends, including one of guests tonight, Matt Olsen, Doc founded Surfing 4 Peace and arranged for 23 more boards, plus clothes, surf wax and gear to be hand delivered to Gaza by American and Israeli surfers.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) reported that global carbon emissions set a record in 2010, rebounding from the recession to exceed 2008 levels. The EPA found in April that US carbon emissions dipped in 2009, mirroring the rest of the world. But though the recession has recovered in 2010 slowly in the industrialized world, and economic output (which has followed carbon emissions, for obvious reasons) has not reached pre-recession levels, growth in emerging markets pushed emissions up. China and India accounted for most of the increase.

While we have been frantically playing defense against relentless assaults on multiple fronts, from anti-union legislation to draconian anti-choice laws to the attempted privatization of Medicare, the selling off of public assets to the private sector has received little attention.

Bernstein used to be Joe Biden ‘s chief economist, and was involved in most of the economic policymaking of the first Obama term. He’s moved out of government and back to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, where among other things he’s become a dirty hippie blogger.

Rather than dwelling on those who have given their lives in wars in the US (I am fortunate that for all the members of my family who have served in the military over the years, I think only my Great Uncle Will died while serving during war time and his death during the Spanish-American War was from disease), I want to discuss the folks who always seem to get lost, the veterans who return from war breathing but damaged in soul.

So here’s a new wrinkle for the recall saga in Wisconsin. Three of the elections against state Senate Republicans have already been certified. There is a hearing scheduled this week to deal with challenges to the other six – three against Republicans, three against Democrats. But the Government Accountability Board has delayed the decision on the Democratic recalls, because of allegations of faulty signature-gathering.

At the height of the Vietnam War, when thousands of young men his age were being killed in a pointless and tragic conflict, Willard was enjoying the first of his deferments — in France. That makes his remarks today about Memorial Day all the more jarring.