> To recap:
> 	My problem is that occasionally when I telnet to any of:
> 	127.0.0.1
> 	localhost
> 	localhost.starwolf.com
> 	localhost.starwolf.com.
> My nameserver wants to jump out the door and resolve it externally.

Way back when I had a part time link, I set up the PPP ip-up and ip-down
scripts to kill and restart the name server after swapping the file root.cache.
When the link was down, root.cache was a file that listed my nameserver as
THE root nameserver and hardwired the handful of addresses I needed; when 
the link was up, it was a proper root.cache file.  That worked pretty well,
although once "lookup file dns" was implemented, I scrapped that and never
had any trouble.  Now I have a permanent link, but I don't see any major
problems when the link is busted (still with my favorite hosts listed in
/etc/hosts).