[Phpgroupware-developers] what does this mean??

[Bradley W. Langhorst]

        if (!!($rights & $required) == True)

i understand the $rights & $required
eg (rights = 00000001
 required  = 00000001)
we get 00000001

but !! appears to be not not - which appears to do nothing

is there some special meaning to !! as opposed to ! !
(not according to http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.operators.php)

does php's == not know how to handle boolean comparison between an int
and a bool but its ! operator does know how to cast from an int to a
bool?  If that's what this is - yikes  - could it BE any uglier? 
(i hope you catch my Chandler impression...)

thanks!

I think I'm making some headway now...

brad