"Unplugged" but not offline

[Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com>]

Any one else noticing that v0.65  goes on line even when
"unplugged"? 

Here is what I am seeing.

Start gnus with ppp link up.  Press `J u' or `J s' to get some or all
groups into the agent cache.  Press `J j' and enter a group
(emacs.ding)
Gnus goes right on line to get the headers again.  Even though the
Unplugged sign is showing in the mode line. 

I confirmed this was happening by watching the data transfer with
'pppstats'` 

If I shut down the PPP
link and try entering while "unplugged" I get the message:
>>> writing to process: network is unreachable, nntpd<1>

After restarting ppp connection:

If I shut down gnus and adjust .emacs to start v0.64 and repeat the
same process. All works as it should:  

Start gnus "online" (v0.64)
Press `J u' to download emacs.ding (predicate "true")
Press J j  - enter "emacs.ding"
Gnus enters emacs.ding
(unplugged) and immediately shows a summary buffer.  (No data transfer
occurs)

I've seen no posts about this, so suspect it is something local. 
However the fact that all works normally under v0.64 does seem
to indicate something has gotten out of whack between versions.  The
change-log for v0.65 indicates only minor changes to a couple *.el
files.

Is anyone else seeing this behavior?

-- 
Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com>
Running Redhat Linux 5.1
.