Free market filets Dixie Chicks tour plans

A sign that the free market system in this country is not totally dead.

Dixie Chicks cancel US tour dates

Country music stars the Dixie Chicks have cancelled some US tour dates after slow ticket sales.

Concert industry magazine Pollstar says shows have been dropped in Republican states such as Oklahoma and Tennessee.

The BBC does not factor in that Fresno is in California, obstensibly a Dem state, but that's nit-picking. We don't expect a Brit news service to ever understand Americans or what a huge country this is. Truth of the matter: most of us don't care for our entertainers engaging in negative politickin'. It's their right to do so, naturally, but it's also our right to not to spend our money on their propaganda.

Box office sales for a concert in Houston, Texas have also been cancelled.

But the band have encountered no problems in Canada.

Tickets for a Toronto appearance sold out in just eight minutes, and a second date has been added.

The Chicks can have all the Canadian gigs they can bag. We don't give a flip. All you really have to know is that their first single off the new album is titled, "Not Ready to Make Nice," which may or may not be a coded message to Red State America and the White House, but the prudent observer would bet that Natalie Maines is still furious over the fact that the Chicks went from darlins to dumplins overnight after she started shooting off her mouth. Seems only right that their tour should be "Taking the Long Way."