From what I can tell from the Texas Parks and Wildlife website, quail season in both North and South Texas ended in January. I don't know that this was a "canned hunt" with purely farm raised birds, but if it was perhaps they are not bound by the legal seasons.

The hunting season info can be found here.......

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/huntwild/hunt/season/2006/animal_listing/#quail

Man, the gun Cheney was using is a $10K+ bespoke Italian brand. It's a Perazzi Brescai. And they had the gall to make fun of John Kerey's high-end mountain bike?

On a related note, seems like a waste to spend that much on a gun and then not learn how to hunt with it.

We'll just jump on him for a $7 stamp, and conveniently ignore the fact that he shot somebody.

Is anyone asking about whose nickel funded this and any of Cheney's other blood "sports"? Did American taxpayers pay for Cheney and any of his companions to fly to Texas for the "hunt?" How often does he take shooting trips? Does taking the ambassador to Switzerland with him to Texas make his trip a foreign policy meeting? Dare we call it gunboat diplomacy?

Texas wildlife officials say that Vice President Dick Cheney was violating state law when he shot a 78-year-old attorney while hunting Saturday

Why? Is that illegal in Texas?

You people don't get it, do you ? In Texas, Dick Cheney IS the law and he can change it any time he wants - - and, yeah, he can change it back again if he wants. Just ask him. You don't seem to realize just who's in charge there - - ahhh, here.

He don't need no measly license to shoot down them birds. All he has to do is have one of his aides call up the Chief of Staff, have him call in an air strike, and get him all the dead birds he wants.

Of course, he has more fun shooting the little birds with his billionaire buddies. After all, they owe him an awful lot of favors, so they darned well ought to take him on some hunting trips now and then. Just ask his boon companions at Haliburton and the the safety first boys at the NRA.

Anyway, what's a few shotgun pellets in the rear (or elsewhere) among buddies? Let's break out the six packs and offer Dicky a couple o' beers. His throat is probably pretty well parched by now mumbling all those those fantasy stories on FOX NEWS.

When they authorized Bush(Cheney) to take military action if needed against Iraq, they were also giving Dick and George the right to listen in on their political, I mean terroristic enemies, and of course, shoot lawyers in Texas.

What a deal.