Well, the error was introduced into Debian on 2nd May 2006 by Kurk Roeckx in this commit:

http://svn.debian.org/viewsvn/pkg-openssl/openssl/trunk/rand/md_rand.c?rev=141&r1=140&r2=141

The previous day, he posted an email to the openssl-dev list asking whether this patch would be sensible:

http://marc.info/?l=openssl-dev&m=114651085826293&w=2

A few hours later, Ulf Möller responded that he was in favour of the patch.

http://marc.info/?l=openssl-dev&m=114652287210110&w=2

According to the OpenSSL webpage, Ulf Möller is a member of the OpenSSL development team:

http://openssl.org/about/

… and has been for quite a some time

http://web.archive.org/web/20000815074639/www.openssl.org/about/

I wonder whether the OpenSSL team are still “falling around laughing”.

You should read the book. Dawkins talks about this, by using a scale from absolute faith in God at one end to absolute ‘faith’ that there is no God at the other. He points out that there a good deal of Christians at the one extreme, but very few people (not even himself) at the other, for the very reason that you can’t prove that something doesn’t exist. Existence of the celestial teapot or the Flying Spaghetti monster can equally not be disproved.

It’s true very few people have three or more legs. I did hear about an interesting operation to save a chap’s hand where they couldn’t re-attach it immediately due to infection and muck in the wound. Therefore they attached his hand to his groin to keep it alive for a while.

All good fun.

A more interesting fact (I think) is that the average person has less than two legs - lots of people have one (or none), whereas very few people have three or more….

“The Bible is sufficient evidence that God’s outlook on and involvement with humanity quite clearly has changed.”

I would probably disagree with this; I would argue that the Bible charts different UNDERSTANDINGS of God through the ages. As you have already noted, the Bible was written over a very long time. None of us is able to fully know God, therefore each author of the Bible has a different perspective on God.

As concerns homosexuality, I went to a very good talk at Greenbelt by a Catholic theologian who argued that OT condemnations of homosexuality are linked with issues of hospitality and right treatment of guests. There is also an underlying cultural assumption that gay sexual acts have nothing to do with loving relationships; thus these passages are pretty much irrelevant to a debate concerning loving, monogamous relationships between two people of the same sex.

Also, if CICCU was so “biblical”, it would have to agree with the Catholic Church’s official line on contraception; I suspect the only reason it doesn’t is because it is *gasp* Catholic!

Excuse my bigotry; you know how hard I find it to be charitable towards CICCU. Adrian Plass once said that it would be easy to be a Christian, were it not for other people …

To be honest, I was just looking for a way to communicate said article to you without posting a message saying “and here’s a link for Kate.”

There’s no need to grasp the wrong end of the stick quite so violently.

I think it’s very easy to cast aspersions on contact lenses when you have perfect eyesight. In five years of wearing lenses I’ve never had any problems with them, or suffered eye infections, and know nobody who has. Contact lenses tend to give better vision than glasses, as well as offering a convenient and safe alternative to people (like me) who don’t want to wear glasses full-time.

Perhaps if you ever get told your vision’s failing, you’ll be less disparaging of contact lens wearers on the basis of one (somewhat over-dramatic) article.

So, no, I don’t comprende.