A few items from around the sphere

(Apologies to those for whom a lot of this is redundant, but many of my readers aren't regulars at the major blogs, and rely on IM to keep them posted.)

• Bill O'Reilly makes some shockingly daffy comments about how eating at a predominantly black restaurant in Harlem is surprisingly like eating in any other restaurant. This is yet another instance of making Jon Stewart's job too easy.
• Those Republicans trying to trick California into splitting its electoral votes by congressional district (absent equivalent action by red states) have apparently given up. Kudos to all those who fought this.
• Rush Limbaugh calls a bunch of American troops in Iraq "phony soldiers". We're waiting for Senate resolutions condemning his behavior. UPDATE: Well, there's a House resolution. Now that I think about it, I don't think the House should be criticizing Limbaugh either, annoying as he is. Why don't they actually end the war, or at least give our troops sufficient rest/retraining intervals? That would actually do something.
  
• Senator Larry Craig (R-Minneapolis airport bathroom) isn't resigning. He's waiting to see if he can withdraw his guilty plea on the disorderly conduct charge stemming from the now-infamous bathroom sting operation. I can hear the heads of the Republican Senate leadership exploding from all the way out here in California. I think he should get some therapy, come out of the closet, and stay in the Senate and force the Republican party to deal with its massive closet issue. OK, like that's going to happen. But it's my blog. I can dream.
• Paul Hogarth (whom I met through my friend Paul Dosh) writes on DailyKos how he avoided going on Hardball because he didn't want to be a straw-man opponent for the "Hillary's nomination is inevitable" meme that the beltway establishment is desperately pushing.