I was hoping my first post after 12 years of lurking would be something profound, insightful and straight dope worthy but a thanks will have to suffice.
‘Assistant to the Webmaster’ looked into my issue personally, unblocked all my IP addresses, informed me that I was living in a nest of spammers and even encouraged me to register. Great response time.
Thanks for being one of my must have fixes on the net. I live behind the Great Firewall now and this is one of the few ways I can catch up on news and intelligent debate.
Maybe some day I’ll even be an active poster here 
PW