THE PROBLEM WITH CAPITALISM IS CAPITALISTS. At Sykes Writes, some scathing commentary on war profiteers defense contractors who are defending their intellectual property against ... ten year olds with Exacto knives.

The defense giants do hold trademarks on planes like the F-15, F-16 and the B-17, and they say if a model company uses their planes to build replicas, it should pay royalties.

Perhaps the plane builders got the idea from Union Pacific, where management found time in the middle of their 2004 summer meltdown to go after the manufacturers of model railroad rolling stock for royalties. UP have gone so far as to roll out some new grain hoppers with CMO reporting marks (because the programmers writing the software for car interchange decided not to write code that could handle the proper CSTPM&O.) Was that to keep the Omaha Road from becoming public domain?