Perhaps there is an issue at Google...It might be a good idea to follow their suggestion as well - "For most sites, Googlebot should not access your site more than once every few seconds on average. Since network delays are involved it is possible over short periods the rate will appear to be slightly higher. If you find that we are placing too high a load on your site, please let us know by sending us e-mail at googlebot@google.com."
I and others use Google regularly to search Oacs since the Oacs search engine regretably does not always produce the best results....
