Well put. Clearly, conspiracy allegations are not always bogus.

Still, I have a hard time believing any American would be part of plotting to destroy the WTC or participate in it. The downside of being found out on a scheme like that would be pretty enormous.

And how do you keep it quiet? Think Watergate. There is NFW that an internal American conspiracy capable of such massive destruction could possibly remain hidden from legions of investigators, amateur and professional. It defies rationality.

B

Okay, I'm hooked. I have never heard of bamboo flooring and am intrigued. Linkee?

B

I am starting to love you guys more and more........

B, Bamboo is a wonderful alternative and so is Cork....
and looky here I found you a link with both. I did not review link so I apologize if it not the best.......


HAVE A GREAT DAY ALL
http://www.duro-design.com/

The high school I attended had cork floors. They were wonderfully quiet and comfortable.

It's only been out for a few years, here anyway, best I can tell.

Smith and Fong will send you a bundle of samples and the link greasil posted also mentioned samples.

Home Depot carries a line of it, over here anyway, and I think they're pretty similar nation wide. The pictures on the web site don't really do it justice.

Speaking of which, is Home Depot in Louisiana? It may be a dumb question, as they are based in Atlanta, but I dunno.

Yeah, we have HD. Got electricity, too. I'm not in the building trade and have a house that requires mercifully little repair so my DIY home repair work is seldom needed and rarely undertaken. Hence my ignorance of innovations in that arena. It's all new to me.

My flooring is showing all the signs of age and so I'm interested in looking at what's around. I think I'll go with a ceramic because I like things simple and durable and that hold their value--I figure to sell this pig when my last kid leaves home in 3-4 years. Then I'll buy a patio home or condo or maybe a houseboat in the Atchafalaya. 20 minute commute.

B

Oh well, some franchise or chain operations don't extend to every last state. Ceramic is nice in its way. I like a little of both myself. I wouldn't want ceramic in the whole house. But that's just me.

If I were going to stay in this house I'd go with wood in most of the house. I have always liked the look and feel of stained natural grain, though I also like natural stone, but that isn't a material commonly seen in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley. If I were staying I'd sure consider slate or some of the other beautiful stones that I have seen. That is why the mention of bamboo caught my attention. I have always liked the texture and color of bamboo, especially if burned a bit--nowhere near charcoaling, but discoloration by heat reveals some beautiful toasty golds and browns. My imagination snagged me for a few moments of fantasy home decorator and before ya know it, I was wearing Armani and dancing to the BeeGees.

Since I'm not staying, I am looking for something that isn't too revolting and will not show significant wear over the next few years. Oh yeah, and is inexpensive to buy and install.

B

Can't say what the cost of ceramic vs. wood would be. For me, tile is labor intensive, more so than wood. But it's not my specialty.

We were looking at all variety of flooring. Bamboo is nice, as is cork. A friend of mine just put in bamboo throughout the house. Looked great, problem is it's not as hard as it appears to be. He's got several dents at this point and even the dogs claws leave marks. Maybe it was a bad batch, but I'm not gonna try it right away. Cork would look great in a bedroom but I'd have the same concern about hardness.

The schon flooring we're looking at has to be glued to the concrete floor. Pretty much the same process as tile, except with thick glue that's pretty much like using thinset. Once it's down, it's not moving...

Lumber liquidators seems to have good prices on bamboo, wood and cork with engineered floor (plywood with hardwood top) and solid flooring available.

Just did the bathroom in Travertine. Big 24x24 tiles. Hard to do since it was a small room and the tiles were big. Laid it on diamond pattern, there were 3 tiles out of 22 that didn't require some kind of cut somewhere. Looks great though. There are all kinds of new tile out there; porcelains, shiny metallic, oxidised metal looking, one cool one with old sailing maps, etc...

Hooray for technology!

What was this thread about, now???:confused: :P

here's another person targeted by 9/11 zealotry
 

REMEMBERING 9/11

The Path to Hysteria
My sin was to write a screenplay accurately depicting Bill Clinton's record on terrorism.

BY CYRUS NOWRASTEH
Monday, September 18, 2006 12:01 a.m.

I am neither an activist, politician or partisan, nor an ideologue of any stripe. What I am is a writer who takes his job very seriously, as do most of my colleagues: Also, one who recently took on the most distressing and important story it will ever fall to me to tell. I considered it a privilege when asked to write the script for "The Path to 9/11." I felt duty-bound from the outset to focus on a single goal--to represent our recent pre-9/11 history as the evidence revealed it to be. The American people deserve to know that history: They have paid for it in blood. Like all Americans, I wish it were not so. I wish there were no terrorists. I wish there had been no 9/11. I wish we could squabble among ourselves in assured security. But wishes avail nothing.

My Iranian parents fled tyranny and oppression. I know and appreciate deeply the sanctuary America has offered. Only in this country could a person such as I have had the life, liberty and opportunity that I have had. No one needs to remind me of this--I know it every single day. I know, too, as does everyone involved in the production, that we kept uppermost in our minds the need for due diligence in the delivery of this history. Fact-checkers and lawyers scrutinized every detail, every line, every scene. There were hundreds of pages of annotations. We were informed by multiple advisers and interviews with people involved in the events--and books, including in a most important way the 9/11 Commission Report.

It would have been good to be able to report due diligence on the part of those who judged the film, the ones who held forth on it before watching a moment of it. Instead, in the rush to judgment, and the effort to portray the series as the work of a right-wing zealot, much was made of my "friendship" with Rush Limbaugh (a connection limited to two social encounters), but nothing of any acquaintance with well-known names on the other side of the political spectrum. No reference to Abby Mann, for instance, with whom I worked on "10,000 Black Men Named George" (whose hero is an African-American communist) or Oliver Stone, producer of "The Day Reagan Was Shot," a film I wrote and directed. Clearly, those enraged that a film would criticize the Clinton administration's antiterrorism policies--though critical of its successor as well--were willing to embrace only one scenario: The writer was a conservative hatchetman.

In July a reporter asked if I had ever been ethnically profiled. I happily replied, "No." I can no longer say that. The L.A. Times, for one, characterized me by race, religion, ethnicity, country-of-origin and political leanings--wrongly on four of five counts. To them I was an Iranian-American politically conservative Muslim. It is perhaps irrelevant in our brave new world of journalism that I was born in Boulder, Colo. I am not a Muslim or practitioner of any religion, nor am I a political conservative. What am I? I am, most devoutly, an American. I asked the reporter if this kind of labeling was a new policy for the paper. He had no response.

The hysteria engendered by the series found more than one target. In addition to the death threats and hate mail directed at me, and my grotesque portrayal as a maddened right-winger, there developed an impassioned search for incriminating evidence on everyone else connected to the film. And in director David Cunningham, the searchers found paydirt! His father had founded a Christian youth outreach mission. The whiff of the younger Mr. Cunningham's possible connection to this enterprise was enough to set the hounds of suspicion baying. A religious mission! A New York Times reporter wrote, without irony or explanation, that an issue that raised questions about the director was his involvement in his father's outreach work. In the era of McCarthyism, the merest hint of a connection to communism sufficed to inspire dark accusations, the certainty that the accused was part of a malign conspiracy. Today, apparently, you can get something of that effect by charging a connection with a Christian mission.

"The Path to 9/11" was intended to remind us of the common enemy we face. Like the 9/11 Report itself, it is meant to enable us to better defend ourselves from a future attack. Past is prologue, and 9/11 is merely another step in an escalating Islamic fundamentalist reign of terror. By dramatizing the step-by-step increase in attacks on America--all of which, in fact, occurred--we are better able to see the pattern and anticipate the future. That was the point of the series, its only intention. Call it the canary in the coal mine. Call it John O'Neill in the FBI.

Despite intense political pressure to pull the film right up until airtime, Disney/ABC stood tall and refused to give in. For this--for not buckling to threats from Democratic senators threatening to revoke ABC station licenses--Disney CEO Rober Iger and ABC executives deserve every commendation. Hence the 28 million viewers over two nights, and the ratings victory Monday night (little reported by the media), are gratifying indeed.

"The Path to 9/11" was set in the time before the event, and in a world in which no party had the political will to act. The principals did not know then what we know now. It is also indisputable that Bill Clinton entered office a month before the first attack on the World Trade Center. Eight years then went by, replete with terrorist assaults on Americans and American interests overseas. George W. Bush was in office eight months before 9/11. Those who actually watched the entire miniseries know that he was given no special treatment.

It's good to have come to something approaching the end of this saga, whose lessons are worth remembering. It gave us, for one thing, a heartening glimpse (these things don't come along every day) of corporate backbone in the face of phenomenal pressure--and an infinitely more chilling one testifying to the power and reach of politically driven hysteria. A ripe subject for a miniseries, if ever there was one.
Mr. Nowrasteh wrote the screenplay for "The Path to 9/11."

I'm thinking Tango dancing...

Some friends of ours moved into a co-housing townhouse a few years ago. It had new bamboo flooring. I've not been impressed. Joints are showing up the same way they do in old Pergo. I like the idea because of the ecological implications of using a fast growing tree, but the results are less than ideal in my opinion. Solid hardwood seems superior to me.

I think that was the difference in old Pergo and old Witex--you glued the joints on the Witex. The bamboo stuff does feel a bit soft, but I have a friend that has a beach house in Punta Vedre, FL that put it throughout, and it has been great for him (low traffic, and easy to clean sand up off of.)