Anyone for Quick Hits? They go so well with a delicious glass of lemonade during these hot summer months. Here we go…

• Review-Journal columnist John L. Smith found fault with the Las Vegas Sun on Friday for cutting references to the R-J from a Wall Street Journal story that ran in the Sun. (The R-J played a role in a key witness coming forward in the quirky Howard Hughes/”Mormon will” case.)

Since the story also ran in the R-J, and the Sun is inserted in the R-J, Smith found it ironic.

We do, too.

But the newspaper industry pettiness isn’t confined to the Sun. For example, political reporter Molly Ball’s Saturday story mentions a recent debate between Democratic gubernatorial rivals Dina Titus and Jim Gibson occurred “on Las Vegas One,” the cable TV station that’s a partnership between KLAS Channel 8, Cox Communications and the Sun.

But the debate didn’t just occur on Las Vegas One; it occurred on a TV show called Face to Face with Jon Ralston. Ralston, as most know, is a former R-J reporter and columnist who left the paper in late 1999 to join the Sun, a condition of which would be his own show. Yet the R-J, in a Soviet-style bit of denial worthy of … well, the paranoid leaders of the Sun, refuse to even mention his name. Is he dead to them?

Apparently not: A search of the R-J’s archives reveals “Face to Face with Jon Ralston” has been mentioned 10 times between 2002 and 2006, usually by writers like Erin Neff or us, back in the days when we at Various Things & Stuff used to work in the bowels of the windowless brick building on Bonanza Road.

• Now, we know we’re late on this. We know our friend and colleague Hugh Jackson over at the Las Vegas Gleaner has already commented on the story. But we couldn’t help but be amazed that U.S. Rep. Jon Porter would not comment to the Las Vegas Sun for a report on that feel-good resolution on the Iraq war last week.

No comment?

On a pro-war, pro-troops resolution?

We understand why Porter doesn’t want to talk to us at Various Things & Stuff. We understand why even his press secretary won’t call us back. We know things, and ask tough questions. We follow-up, and bring up all sorts of embarrassing memories from the past. And Porter isn’t exactly fleet of foot when it comes to dodging those rhetorical bullets.

But to not talk to a hometown newspaper about a resolution that’s so simple and easy to defend, you’d have to be a certified moron to screw it up? Something’s wrong.

We believe every lawmaker has a obligation to speak to the press, and through them, to their constituents. We also believe that when a lawmaker shrinks from that obligation, there’s usually a reason, and it’s seldom good. And while it appears Porter can hit the keyboards all over Washington, D.C. (including at a White House picnic!), it also appears he can’t — or won’t — articulate even the most basic information to reporters.

If only there was a way to change things.

• Credit Dan Kulin of the Las Vegas Sun for being all over the bobblehead beat.

Not only did Kulin pen a story describing each of the 11 different kinds of Mayor Oscar B. Goodman bobbleheads that exist out there, he’s also discovered that at least some of the dolls were paid for by … you guessed it, taxpayers.

The city’s coffers have been raised to the tune of $6,242.50 for two of the dolls, one posing with a tennis racket and the other holding a city proclamation. (It’s too tiny to read, but we think it might be the “Authorization to Use City Funds for Private Use in Contravention of State Law Act” of 2002.)

“I am the face of the city, even though some people may not like that,” Goodman told Kulin. (And by “some people,” we think he might mean “homeless people,” who have seen the ugly business end of Goodman’s mayoralty.) “When they look at these bobbleheads, they think of Las Vegas, not Oscar Goodman.”

Actually, when we look at them, we think of city services unrendered, but that’s just us being all fiscally responsible and whatnot.

Sure, it’s not much for an organization with millions in its annual budget. But every little bit helps, and wasting tax dollars is one of the worst sins government officials can commit.

Never fear, taxpayers. We at Various Things & Stuff are trying to tally all the taxpayer dollars Goodman has used for personal expenses, and we plan to present him with a bill — including interest — by the time he leaves office, which will likely be in 2011. We’ll keep you posted when we can finally determine the whole tab.