Wednesday notes *

* Updated with newest posts at the bottom

• The February issue of Hustler will carry the story by Michael Collins and Mark Cromer that liberal critics of Rep. David Dreier hoped would prove he is hiding a gay lifestyle. It doesn't, despite the headline "Gay and Ashamed" and a cover teaser "Gov. Arnold's Girlie Man." The hearsay about Dreier and his chief of staff, Brad W. Smith, sounds about the same as in the LA Weekly stories that tried to out the Republican in September. The latest piece is posted at LarryFlynt.com.

• Starbucks has moved more copies of the Grammy-nominated Ray Charles album "Genius Loves Company" than any other retailer, the LAT says in a front pager by Geoff Boucher.

• Jonathan Kirsch has sold two more books. Via Publishers Lunch, the first is "about the Book of Revelation, about the time, place, purpose and meaning of the ancient text, the ways in which Revelation has been re-interpreted and misinterpreted over the centuries, including the strange role it has come to play in the 21st century." Next is "THE SWORD IN THE WIDOW'S BED, retelling and examining the hidden texts of the Bible and biblical tradition in search of the flesh-and-blood women whose stories allow us to understand the lives, aspirations, and destinies of real women who lived in biblical antiquity." To Harper San Francisco.

• Thursday at 10:30 a.m. is the Orange County journalists roundtable on Larry Mantle's Airtalk on KPCC. Guests will be Chris Reed of the Register, Jean Pasco of the Times and Gustavo Arellano of the OC Weekly. Caltech president David Baltimore follows at 11 a.m.

• Bob Hertzberg explains to blogger Martini Republic why his campaign runs ads on the blog of author Roger L. Simon, even though he disagrees with some of Simon's politics.

• The Times' Bob Drogin, Jeffrey Fleishman and Greg Miller were finalists for the 2004 ICIJ Award for Outstanding International Investigative Reporting. Their series, "The Weapons Files," was "the first to document how Saddam Hussein had given up his weapons of mass destruction in the 1990s, how a Syrian company tied to the ruling regime had secretly helped funnel arms to Iraq before the war, and how a key claim of U.S. intelligence came from a now-discredited Iraqi defector code-named Curveball."

• The Los Angeles Film Critics Association has a new website. There's a membership directory and a roster of past winners of the critics' awards. Apparently the website is the first place where this year's winners wll be announced on Saturday evening. The groups' current officers, by the way, are president Henry Sheehan, vice president Lael Loewenstein, secretary Len Klady and treasurer Alonso Duralde.

• County supervisor Mike Antonvich, one of the few Republicans in local elected office, endorsed Bernard Parks for mayor. This further dooms the comatose notion promoted by candidate Walter Moore that L.A. Republicans would somehow flock to his camp.

• Jason Weiner is the new editor of The Planning Report, the monthly "insider's guide to managed growth" published downtown by David Abel. Weiner replaces Laurence Segal, who edited 50+ issues before taking a job at KB Home.

• Mayor Hahn delivers the annual State of the Valley address tomorrow at 12:30 to the Valley Industry and Commerce Association. It's at the Airtel at Van Nuys Airport.