Since it works when you hit reload a few times, I bet its just one of the servers that are down. Load balancing is sending some requests to one server that is having problems, other requests are going to ones that work. If it was a DOS it would be hard to reach anything at all.
“Service Temporarily Unavailable
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.”
message is source addressed from “http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2633991/reply?c=58"; when attempting to reply to post #58.
Nope - I can ping both, and both answer up fast...