empty ident error on pull

I'm tracking the Linux kernel repo via git, and got the following:

barbeque/zarathustra:linux-2.6: git pull
Unpacking 885 objects
 100% (885/885) done
* refs/heads/origin: fast forward to branch 'master' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6
Auto-following refs/tags/v2.6.16-rc4
Unpacking 1 objects
 100% (1/1) done
* refs/tags/v2.6.16-rc4: storing tag 'v2.6.16-rc4' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6
Trying really trivial in-index merge...
Wonderful.
fatal: empty ident  <barbeque@zarathustra.internal.psychosnugglebunnies.net.> not allowed

Then I tried the following:

barbeque/zarathustra:linux-2.6: git-fsck-objects
dangling tree 47678b69f7dcc6d5fcae007d1e4fe511fd260e5b
barbeque/zarathustra:linux-2.6: git prune
barbeque/zarathustra:linux-2.6: git-fsck-objects
barbeque/zarathustra:linux-2.6: git pull
* refs/heads/origin: same as branch 'master' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6
Trying really trivial in-index merge...
Wonderful.
fatal: empty ident  <barbeque@zarathustra.internal.psychosnugglebunnies.net.> not allowed

Okay... so... what now? I'm still a bit clueless when it comes to git. Using it for some of my personal projects has gotten me a bit more comfortable with it, but my usage is still along the lines of "CVS without warts", for now.

(And yes, it's the concept of the index file that's still throwing me for a loop :-)

I was tracking the repo with "current" versions of git until I got the above error message the first time. Went to a 1.1.6 tarball of git, pulled the repro from scratch, all seemed well. Upgraded to 1.2.1, tried a pull today, and got the above.

The system above is a Debian/sarge amd64 system, using gcc 3.3.5.

-- DN Daniel