Odd, all right. Blockchain shows the last block as height 308923, with 2348 transactions, making it appear to be a legitimate delay. Interestingly, http://blockexplorer.com/ shows that block and the next one, 308924, with 1666 transactions, which was still 20 minutes ago when I wrote this. I'm not sure why that block isn't showing up in Blockchain. So far, it seems like a normal network quirk.
This may be strange, but I see no reason to think that the mining network is offline - that statement doesn't even really have any meaning. There is no mining network other than the whole Bitcoin P2P network. I don't see how that could possibly be down, being P2P and all, short of a global campaign by all governments and ISPs to block all Bitcoin traffic.
And whoop, there's another one, just as I'm finishing up. Almost certainly nothing to see here.
Quit posting X is (offline|down), definitely when it doesn't make sense ("The Bitcoin network"), is technically inaccurate ("Didn't you mean blockchain.org"?), or will be discovered by the person accessing it, and they'll find out anyway (Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, etc).
My wallet reports 8 connections and no issues at all, status at the bottom of the blockchain.info pages reports 'Ok (466 nodes connected)'. How did you determine that the network is offline?
(my own wallet also seems to be working just fine, I just received a transaction).
This may be strange, but I see no reason to think that the mining network is offline - that statement doesn't even really have any meaning. There is no mining network other than the whole Bitcoin P2P network. I don't see how that could possibly be down, being P2P and all, short of a global campaign by all governments and ISPs to block all Bitcoin traffic.
And whoop, there's another one, just as I'm finishing up. Almost certainly nothing to see here.