664 vs. touch -d now

[jidanni]

Gentlemen, what's the deal, or have we been through this before and
I'm just not using the current version or something here on Debian sid
GNU/Linux 2.6.22.

$ ls -al
drwxr-xr-x 2 jidanni jidanni 60 2008-01-03 08:40 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 jidanni jidanni 60 2008-01-03 08:23 ..
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root    jidanni  2 2008-01-03 08:35 a
$ touch -d now a
touch: setting times of `a': Operation not permitted
$ touch a
$ ls -l a
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root jidanni 2 2008-01-03 08:41 a
$ touch --version
touch (GNU coreutils) 5.97
$ uname -a

Also noticed with (which inspired me to send this bug):
$ touch b
$ cp -a b a
cp: preserving times for `a': Operation not permitted

Info says:
      If changing both the access and modification times to the current
  time, `touch' can change the timestamps for files that the user running
  it does not own but has write permission for.  Otherwise, the user must
  own the files.

Well at least: Ah ha, isn't "now" the current time? Bug! Muhahaha.

Wait, you will pull out the fine print, fully aware I don't know how
to change my screen resolution to read it (OK, can use xrandr),

     The strings `now' or `today' are relative items corresponding to
  zero-valued time displacement, these strings come from the fact a
  zero-valued time displacement represents the current time when not
  otherwise changed by previous items.  They may be used to stress other...

OK, OK, you win or whatever. As usual, I was... only trying to help.