with python 2.3 and above there is a problem with
HTTPSConnection that comes to life in the following code:

conn = HTTPSConnection(server,port)
conn.connect()
conn.request('POST', '/', data, headers)

This works fine, unless the remote host closes
unexpectedly (unexpectedly for the client. say, reboot
-fn or reset button)

sometimes (not always) when that happens, python gets
stuck on the conn.request command, it never returns or
raises an eyebrow (or an exception...) even after the
remote host is back online. 

problem only happens once every many such occurences

the remote host is running apache (which is really used
a proxy to a python http server on the same remote
machine).