Quail Hunting in America

The anticipation builds as you ease up behind the dogs, rock solid on point in front of you. Muscles tighten, the gun quivers, and you ask yourself, "Is this going to be a bobwhite quail, or chukar partridge, or maybe the big cock pheasant you've been looking for all morning?" Now you're even with the dog and still no birds have broke. About that time you start to think that maybe the bird has moved on. You relax just a little, and turn your head to the guide for instructions. That's when they catch you off guard, as the air around you explodes with the whirring of wings and clucking of a half dozen escaping Chukar. The guide yells out, "Bird up!", and you try to regain your composure enough to snap off a couple of shots before they get completely out of range. Maybe this time you connect, maybe you don't, but it really doesn't matter, when you're hunting in Texas with us. There's plenty more birds!
— Texas quail hunting with the Hunting in Texas guide service

At last, "Cheney" dislodges "Mohammed Cartoon" from its run as the top search on Technorati. It's hard to make light of the Vice President's hunting mishap after watching Vice Presidential Firearms Mishap Analyst Rob Corddry break it down on The Daily Show, so I'll leave it to the experts. Crooks and Liars has the video.

Defenders of the Vice President say Whittington should have announced himself if he didn't want to get shot, sort of like Cool Hand Luke getting permission from the boss to come up out of the ditch after taking a leak. No one has yet raised the difficulty of identifying a quail with muscles tightening, gun quivering and diseased heart palpitating. It's not as easy as you think.