Pete Corbett, vice principal of Charleston’s George Washington High School, has a new job, at least for now. He’s a hot dog vendor.

Pete Corbett plans to spend his week of unpaid suspension scurrying between a huge grill and a table set up with chips, hotdogs, hamburgers and soft drinks.

…

When Corbett found out about his suspension Monday, he immediately went into action. He bought hot dogs, buns, hamburger, sodas and chips. He called the health department to see what he needed to do to get into business.

Corbett was suspended for supervising a student cookout that was held in the GW parking lot on April 20th, after the principal (Nancy Alexander) had closed the campus and forbidden outside activities from April 16-20 (the week of the Virginia Tech shootings). All proceeds from his hot dog sale are going to a battered women’s shelter.

Unfortunately, there was no report yet from the WV Hot Dog Blog on how good his hot dogs were, and though it wasn’t far from where I live, but he wass only open during office hours, which made it hard for me to get there. Too bad, too. I like hot dogs, it was a good cause, and it would’ve been a nice way to thumb my nose at a government authority (even if it was just the school board). I wish I could’ve made it to buy a hot dog or two.

As the first half (or, with the strike, possibly the entire 2nd season) of Heroes nears its close, Claire and her family deal with the loss of her father, who is actually not dead but a prisoner of the Company. Niki, infected with a deadly virus that attacks people with abilities, visits Micah in New Orleans while Mohinder tries to use Claire’s blood to come up with a cure. Monica dons a mask and becomes 9th Wonder‘s St. Joan and finds herself in over her head. Sylar gets rid of an obstacle while keeping Maya close so he can get her power later. Peter goes looking for answers about the Shanti virus and while Hiro learns that Adam (a.k.a. Takezo Kensei, a.k.a. Mr. Sark) had tried to release the virus in 1977.

This episode was a lot like last year’s Landslide, the episode before the finale. It was very good, and left us expecting a big super-powered fight next episode. Hopefully, Powerless (Next week’s ep) will be better than How to Stop an Exploding Man (Which I never wrote about, and I wasn’t quite as disappointed as my commenters in that linked post, but it was quite a letdown).

I’m a little behind in writing about this. I’ve been meaning to address it since it was first announced, but every time I sat down to write about it, I got distracted by something else.

Last Tuesday, the Supreme Court announced that it would decide on District of Columbia v. Heller. In this decision, they said, they would be deciding whether a D.C. statute “violate[s] the Second Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any state-regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes.”

The importance of this cannot be overstated. In deciding on this issue, the Supreme Court will be considering what very well may be the most important sentence in our Constitution or any of its amendments. The Declaration of Independence said, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The Second Amendment is the amendment that, among other things, helps to ensure our right to defend ourselves, our right to life.

What happens when you take guns from the people? Ask Britain. Far too many people find it far too easy to blame the tool for the evil that its wielder can do, but as the story Kevin quotes (and many, many others like it) proves, taking away guns doesn’t make criminals civilized — it makes law-abiding citizens more tempting victims, since the police, though they try, simply can’t always arrive in time. As the saying goes (sorry I can’t source this; I just know I’ve heard it), “When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.”

Dafydd ab Hugh, at Big Lizards, writes about the actual court case much better than I could:

I believe any fair-minded reading of the Second will lead a judge to agree that “the right of the people” in that amendment means the same as the exact, same phrase in the Fourth Amendment: an individual right held by each individual person. Thus, I believe that we can count on the four fair-minded judges, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito, to vote to uphold the circus-court ruling finding the D.C. gun ban “unreasonable and unconstitutional.”

I tend to agree with Dafydd’s assessment that any fair-minded reading of the Second Amendment would lead to the conclusion he reaches, but I’m not nearly as confident that we can trust these judges to find in a fair way, even if they tend to be fair-minded in other decisions. That’s probably just my pessimism talking, though.

According to USA Today, WVU is now #1 in the coaches poll after last night’s win vs. Connecticut.

[WVU is #2 in the AP poll, though.]

Nintendo accused of making game systems designed to be fun.

I ran across an old story at Joystiq today, in which Chris Hecker of Maxis/Electronic Arts complained that the Wii doesn’t treat gaming as an art form. Instead, he says that “Nintendo does not treat gaming as an art form, but simply a tool for fun.”

Darn that Nintendo, providing us a way to have fun.