The silence is deafening... multiple provider brokenness, (I'm
seeing problems on abovenet and XO and have heard of problems on
at least 3 other big providers) and no Donelan special report,
or anyone asking if $provider is having trouble?
Or is the mailing list broken?
I can confirm multiple fiber cuts. I know of major cuts in Michigan
and Atlanta at this time, and have reports of two other minor fiber
cuts in Dallas and New Jersey. They do all appear to be accidental,
so don't jump to conclusions. 
It's definately causing issues for a few providers.
John,
List not broke, but I concur with what you're seeing. BGP
flap-statistics through all three of our upstreams (primarily AS209
(Qwest)) have gone through the roof.
Sorry, I lost control of the backhoes today and they went a
bit crazy. I was distracted with other things.
Secretly, Sean is one of the leading shareholders in Catepillar.