The trouble with astro-turf ...

Is that, unlike real grass, it wears out.

That's a fact.

The other problem, of course, is that, (despite the fact that it's a Monsanto invention), you can't kill it with this Monsanto invention.

Unlike real grass, it has no roots. Where real grass, once established, adapts to its environment and then takes hold, astro-turf is held in place by another artificial substance - glue.

So ... the best way to get rid of the astro-turf is to dissolve the glue.

Stephen Harper was a "professional student"

Harper was hatched sometime in 1959. He finally finished a degree in 1993. The arithmetic is simple to anyone who can add or subtract....

Harper was still a student at age 34.

According to the box of doughnuts and double-double crowd at Stephen Taylor's fatuous moron corral that would make Harper one of those them thar "perfeshinal stoodnts".

And the vacuous were forced back to the rear of the drive-thru.

Astro-Turf burns your knees

So, you're flipping through the rag reading the Letters to the Editor. That's actually a good thing. It gives you a feel for those who actually want to add voice to their opinion. I've always read them and I've written them. Unfortunately, I was also sued for one I'd written. It didn't go anywhere, but it gave me a temporary scare.

So, those letters, in a public journal, are public and carry a level of jeopardy.

The Conservatives, in their penultimate wisdom, believe that a part of their "campaign without end" involves making sure that their operatives are... operative.

And one might think that some hard-palmed worker had simply lost his silence and fired off a letter.

Thank gawd for KNB who rooted out the identity of the letter writer and identified him as a Conservative Party staffer of Royal Galipeau, Conservative Party MP for Ottawa-Orleans.

Interestingly, whenever I wrote a letter to the editor, there was a check back to see if I had any affiliation which might lend authority to my words or, perhaps, suggest there was a motivation which exceeded my personal beliefs (ie. Career objectives).

Frankly, (Harper style conversation), the editorial page editors are not doing their job properly. They are not only enabling Conservative Party astro-turfing; they are promoting it.

My apologies for approaching this so politely.