There has been an explosion of botnet-generated SPAM over the last four months or so. (In that period I've gotten about 1000 spams at my work account, up from about one every few MONTHS that got past the filters.)
One of the real-time black hole lists was just shut down (throwing in the towel, since the botnets make IP-based filtering impractical).
Some major ISPs are dropping over half the email due to flooding, and filtering systems are being tuned into progressively more parinoid settings as the spammers find ways to subvert them.
So don't be surprised if your email to or from Ed is not getting through, even if others' is.
IMHO this is the year that filtering technology hits the wall and e-mail becomes useless unless massive direct attacks on spammers (by governmental criminal prosecutions and/some or other means) becomes more than a lick-and-a-promise or a couple show-trials.
