Hello. I am getting an exception when I try to execute the following
simple code:

   URL rssURL = new URL("http://rss.slashdot.org/Slashdot/slashdot");
   rssURL.openStream();

Here is the exception. It is very baffling and annoying since I can not
figure out what is "null" since I don't have the source to the JDK (I
did download the SCSL source, but it's from version 1.5.0.0 and the
line numbers in this class do not line up with 1.5.0.9)

Does anyone have any idea what is wrong?

java.lang.NullPointerException
       at
sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.plainConnect(HttpURLConnection.java:785)
       at
sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.connect(HttpURLConnection.java:673)
       at
sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.getInputStream(HttpURLConnection.java:917)
       at java.net.URL.openStream(URL.java:1007)