The misc. quest are:
1. Speak to Degaine
2. Speak to Verulus about the hall of the Dead
I think I know why it's doing this. When I got to the town I didn't speak to a lot of people and went straight to some of these people that gives quest. I spoke to Verulus before I even went to the Inn to hear some rumor or whatever. Well speaking to Verulus gave me the quest about the Hall of the Dead. Of course I was still doing some other quest so I didn't start on it right away. After a while I decided to go talk around Markarth and I went to the Inn and asked the Inn keeper some questions. He referred me to Verulus about the hall of the dead, that's when No. 2 up there was added to my journal. I have already spoken to him about the hall of the dead and now it won't clear out. In fact Verulus is now DEAD! I ATE HIM!
Same thing happened with No. 1 up there. I talked to Degaine before talking around the whole town. Then later when I did go around town to talk someone told me about a beggar named Degaine that was thrown out of the temple for something, then the Journal log was added to my misc. log. Thing is I already finished the damn quest, but I can't talk to him to clear it out at all. Only gives me the option of giving him 1 coin.
I really want to be able to remove these things in my journal as sometimes they confuses me after awhile and I actually think I haven't done them. So I go looking for these guys just to find out wait... I've already completed the quest....
It's a bug, I've read on a bunch of other site and some other people are having this same problem with these same quest. Mostly with quest number 2 I listed. Maybe Bethesda should check this out too please for the next patch. Of course this could wait, please fix the lag issues first if you can.