Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich acquired plenty of attention this week when he floated the idea that President Obama committed an "impeachable offense" by starting a war in Libya without congressional authorization last week, before flying to Brazil for a few days. Where in the Constitution, Kucinich asked, does it allow the president to jaunt off to Rio without even inviting Dennis Kucinich? And what about the "starting a war without telling anyone" thing, too?

Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi can be forgiven for his physical appearance these days. After all, his country is being bombed, rebels are fighting an increasingly bloody war with his army, and his "voluptuous blond" Ukrainian nurse left him. But things weren't always this way. Back in the heady days of 1995 Qaddafi, now 68 years old, gave a Brazilian plastic surgeon an envelope "full of U.S. dollars and Swiss francs" to halt the appearance of aging. The AP spoke to the doctor:

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, a critical U.S. ally who's been abandoned by several generals, is supposedly nearing a deal to resign "within days in favor of a civilian-led transitional government."

The obsessive semantic argument over what the United States and certain U.N. allies are "doing" in Libya really needs to stop. "War," "limited military operations," "freedom fighting," "paying off the defense industry," whatever. "We are shooting targets in Libya with missiles," is what the White House should say if it doesn't want to say anything. It's phrases like these, though, that just keep the confusion alive:

Like a haggard mother willing to sacrifice all her once-cherished notions of "responsible" parenting just to momentarily silence the ceaseless wails of her wayward toddler, the Daily Beast is now allowing Meghan McCain to write "comedy" pieces.

In your persnickety Thursday media column: Katharine Weymouth has a sweet gig, NPR fights back on "liberal bias," dark predictions for HuffPo, Steven Brill sells out, and Jay-Z mysteriously controls The Atlantic, apparently.

Steroidal workhorse Sylvester Stallone is launching a men's fashion line, also called Stallone, next year. Is it 1989 again?

Here's something that should restore confidence in the FAA: The only air traffic controller at Washington's Reagan National Airport early Wednesday morning was either sleeping on the job or got "locked out" of the control tower, forcing two pilots to land passenger jets on their own, according to The Washington Post. From midnight to 6 am, only one air traffic controller is on duty in the tower at Reagan. And apparently Wednesday's controller stopped responding to phone calls, pilot requests and even calls over a "shout line" loudspeaker in the tower. Here's a conversation between a Potomac TRACON controller (not at the airport) and one of the pilots:

Wow, looks like PETA might have been right about something! Last year, the animal rights group said the world's favorite captive polar bear, Knut, was basically crazy and that he "suffers from panic attacks and 'sways to and fro' in an abnormal manner." (PETA last year also said Knut's balls should be cut off, so fuck them and their ridiculous campaigns that make all vegetarians look look like assholes.) However, the the group may have been at least partially correct:

I realize we have a lot on our worrying plates, between all the tsunamis and Qaddaffis dominating the news these days—but if I could just momentarily direct your hopelessness in the direction of the adorable, oil-soaked rockhopper penguins above, I'd be much obliged. These faces are the innocent victims of yet another disaster that unfolded Tuesday on Nightingale Island, part of a South Atlantic archipelago located halfway between Argentina and South Africa.

In your improbably snowy Wednesday media column: CNN's new strategy, all important and unimportant NYT news, HuffPo tells AOL freelancers their fate, Jane Pratt's back, and an honest journalism job ad.

The War on Labor Unions in states with new Republican legislatures has opened a new front in Maine, where labor art is the target.

Conservative prankster James O'Keefe, the artless cad behind heavily edited video "stings" on NPR, ACORN, and other enemies of the state, has been paying for all of his work on his and his buddies' credit cards. Apparently it costs a lot of money to carry a camera and act like a jackass — $50,000, as it happens! So won't you be a peach and give him $50,000, or perhaps even $1 million? This is James O'Keefe's plea in an email to supporters.

Actress, legend, and original tabloid superstar Elizabeth Taylor died today at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles from congestive heart failure, which she was hospitalized for six weeks ago. She was 79 years old.

Miami! A town where you can stroll through South Beach in fashionable clothing, or—if you happen to be a black male—you can be shot by the police. Either/ or.

The Libyan government today released three journalists — reporter Dave Clark and photographer Roberto Schmidt of AFP, and photographer Joe Raedle of Getty Images — after the three were captured by pro-Qaddafi forces on Saturday in eastern Libya, according to Agence France Presse.

For whatever reason, Sen. Rand Paul can't find a decent candidate to back among the current crop of GOP presidential candidates. Perhaps because they are losers? So now he may just have to run for president himself, unless his daddy is running.

Jared Lee Loughner, the nutter who (allegedly!) shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and about 20 others in Tucson earlier this year, will undergo a month-long psychological exam to determine if he's fit to stand trial.

One of the House Republicans' budget cuts that got the most attention while they were crafting their spending bill for the next six months was the elimination of all federal funding to Planned Parenthood. The organization, which provides women's health and family planning services up to and including scary abortions, was obviously a popular target for the Republicans to satisfy their base with. Go to any conservative protest, over health care reform, taxes, Mexicans, whatever, and the anti-abortion folks are always the last ones there, screaming and hollering deep into the night.

Prep-school prankster Tucker Carlson, publisher of The Daily Caller, has hired another dynamo reportorial talent: Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, will work as a correspondent. Good choice! She's never scared to pick up the phone.