I have noticed a lot of e-mail services (and sites) unavailable at the same time the 'cat was down.
my pet theory is they (pick a paranoic target) are forcing the installation of intercept software
here in the UK it was going to happen but after 9/11 it seeems inevitable.
I reckon a few major ISP's did it at the same time and the dimiution of capacity made everything go slow.
Not all went smoothly either, my e-mail was out for 4 days and Yahoo and joymail were inaccessable.
call me a conspiracy theorist but I noticed uncle Bill's hotmail was available!