[Fred Douglass]

Here's a question for one and all (engineers included): What do a nut-and-washer on a bolt and a rove on a rivet have in common?

Answer: they secure the bolt/rivet in such a way that it cannot pull (back) through the materials they are holding together. Ditto toggles, buttons, clinch-nails, etc.

NOW: The dip-**** engineers who felt that fiberglas plugs protruding up into (but not through) the cement beams above the "Newtonian" panels are akin to many other 'envelope pushers". Got blood on their hands.

The aforementioned fiberglass plugs simply rest in the cement beam above the panel. The bolts do NOT project THROuGH these beams. Therefore they lack any washers and nuts. Seems the dorks who thought this would work never (sucessfully) buttoned a shirt. Krikeys.

I have nothing against engineers per se---where would we be without them? But here's another example of the great need to double-check everything. Do you New Englanders remember the windows in the new John Hancock building? Yippa daing! E. N. Pei. He also did that nifty little glass pyramid in the courtyard of the Louvre. Blends right in with the work of Henri Mansart, et al, who did the rest of the building in the 1500s.

Good old Bahstin politics.

If the great storm of '76 clobbered that runtish pinko, Dokucka, what do you think the Bid Dig's gonna do with Mitt? I find that too bad, because I wouldn't trust McCain with the Keys to the Kingdom, I'll tell ya. Mitt might be a good Republican presidental candidate (as long as he keeps the 6 other wives stashed). Ar-ar-ar.