[jdom-interest] malformed URL exception exception in saxbuilder.build due to unreachable URL

[cliff palmer]

I'm reading through several hundred thousand existing XML documents
building counts of XML tags and have encountered a
Java.net.MalformedURL Exception raised by saxBuilder.build because the
xmlns points to a URL that can not be reached.
I am using JDOM 1.1.2.
Is there a call or parameter setting that will cause saxBuilder to
ignore namespaces when parsing?
Thanks!
Cliff