I'm in Los Angeles, Thury, and I never claimed to be an expert on Iraqi Internet access (or much of anything else), though I know a little bit about the technical side of Internet and email protocols.

I just think you're reading too much into a non-technical article that over-generalized the situation. The excerpts you posted didn't say "internet access was ceased", they said "email access was ceased". Two very different things. The excerpt also talked about blocking some sites, which implies that others (probably most others) are not blocked. Which would suggest that Salaam Pax might still be able to read his email (and post to his blog) from Iraq.