Index: includes/bootstrap.inc
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvs/drupal/drupal/includes/bootstrap.inc,v
retrieving revision 1.241
diff -u -p -r1.241 bootstrap.inc
--- includes/bootstrap.inc	22 Oct 2008 20:44:53 -0000	1.241
+++ includes/bootstrap.inc	12 Oct 2008 14:44:10 -0000
@@ -365,7 +365,7 @@ function conf_path($require_settings = T
 }
 
 /**
- * Initialize variables needed for the rest of the execution.
+ * Initialize server and PHP variables needed for the rest of the execution.
  */
 function drupal_initialize_variables() {
   if (!isset($_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'])) {
@@ -378,6 +378,8 @@ function drupal_initialize_variables() {
   error_reporting(E_ALL | error_reporting());
   // Prevent PHP from generating HTML errors messages.
   ini_set('html_errors', 0);
+  // Set a sane default timezone.
+  date_default_timezone_set('UTC');
 }
 
 /**
Index: modules/node/node.module
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvs/drupal/drupal/modules/node/node.module,v
retrieving revision 1.988
diff -u -p -r1.988 node.module
--- modules/node/node.module	13 Oct 2008 00:33:03 -0000	1.988
+++ modules/node/node.module	12 Oct 2008 14:43:17 -0000
@@ -842,8 +842,8 @@ function node_validate($node, $form = ar
       form_set_error('name', t('The username %name does not exist.', array('%name' => $node->name)));
     }
 
-    // Validate the "authored on" field. As of PHP 5.1.0, strtotime returns FALSE instead of -1 upon failure.
-    if (!empty($node->date) && strtotime($node->date) <= 0) {
+    // Validate the "authored on" field.
+    if (!empty($node->date) && strtotime($node->date) === FALSE) {
       form_set_error('date', t('You have to specify a valid date.'));
     }
   }