1. Radio shock jock Don Imus comes under fire after making racially insensitive remarks about the mostly black Rutgers women’s basketball team. Imus’s remarks bring back painful memories of the heated and often violent debates that raged after the 2002 release of the seminal women’s basketball drama Juwanna Mann.

2. Medical researchers at Vanderbilt University report that the infamous Hatfield-McCoy feud that has festered for generations may be the result of a rare genetic disease that causes too much adrenaline output in the McCoy family.A Southern family with a defective gene pool? Now I’ve seen everything.

3. Occidental Petroleum CEO Ray Irani made more than $400 million in 2006, according to a report from the company. Sure, but because of the oppressive federal income taxes needed to support our bloated social programs that help the poor and disadvantaged, he’s only going to see, like, $250 million of that money. Where’s the justice?

4. Disney opens its Fairy Tale Wedding program to same-sex couples. At long last, Chip, Dale and the other Rescue Rangers can come out and enjoy the same rights as heterosexual couples.

5. Film director Robert Clark, best known for directing The Christmas Story, dies after his vehicle is struck by a drunk driver. Clark’s last words? “FUUUUUUDGGGEEEE!”

6. Kansas State loses its head basketball coach after Bob Huggins leaves after one year to coach at West Virginia, then promotes assistant coach Frank Martin 24 hours later in a desperate attempt to keep Michael Beasley and other recruits in Manhattan. This comedic drama to the west has somehow managed to make Mizzou’s athletic department look like a well-oiled, classy operation. I love it when funny things happen to stupid people. Kudos, ‘Cats, and long live Huggyville!

7. American billionaire Charles Simonyi blasts off into space aboard a Russian spacecraft, becoming the fifth space tourist in history. So let’s see: It’s terribly cold, you can’t go outside, the food sucks and the actual traveling is a bitch. Hey, cool vacation, man, $25 million well spent.

8. The top aide to embattled U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez resigns amid the controversy surrounding the allegedly political firings of federal prosecutors. And if you’re familiar with this story at all, I’m surprised you’re reading Hawk Topics.

9. Vice President Dick Cheney reasserts that Al Qaeda was working with Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi government before the U.S. invasion, despite another report that says there was no such link. Cheney also praised the execution and progress of the Iraq War, the swift and effective government response to Hurricane Katrina and the awe-inspiring acting and dialogue in his favorite show, Grey’s Anatomy.

10. The super-popular HBO series The Sopranos begins its final nine-episode season. Which means that in ten weeks, America will go back to trying to ignore New Jersey.