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Was David Kernell the hacker in the Palin case? (Photo credit: Emily Spence / Associated Press.)

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No indictments Tuesday in Palin hacker case. The Chattanooga Free Press reports that a federal grand jury ended its session at noon Tuesday without indicting University of Tennessee economics major David Kernell, who authorities believe may have hacked into Sarah Palin's Yahoo account.

Three students who didn't give their names to reporters testified before the grand jury, and were allowed to leave through a back door. FBI agents left the courtroom from the front doors but declined to comment.

***

Two gay-lesbian titles donated to Wasilla Library. The Frontiersman reports that a man who read about Sarah Palin's queries over banning books while mayor has donated two children's books that deal with same-sex couples.

Whether the books will be shelved is unclear. According to KJ Martin-Albright, the library's director, donated books are either added to the collection or donated to Friends of the Library to be sold. Martin-Albright confirmed receipt of the books, but did not offer a timeline for when a decision will be made.

The books are "Heather has Two Mommies" and "Daddy's Roommate." September 27 is the beginning of Banned Books Week, the American Library Association's celebration of the freedom to read.

***

Even Fox News calls a foul on Palin UN media control. Here's a selection of reactions to VP candidate Sarah Palin's photo opportunities with world leaders today in New York.

> All friends, no media (Robert Schlesinger, U.S. News & World Report)

In case you've missed it, Palin's meetings with Karzai, Uribe, and former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger were supposed to get pool coverage-one television camera, that network's TV producer, a print reporter, and a wire reporter would get to see first contact between Palin and these world leaders. The pool would then be ushered out before anything of substance (or more likely of "substance") transpired. Fairly standard stuff.

But an hour before her first meeting, the campaign announced that the producer and print reporters would be barred.

> Palin media blackout continues (Fox News)

This means that the Palin camp has the benefit of pictures of her shaking hands with world leaders and have that video broadcast all over the world, but there would be no risk of her having to answer even one question from a reporter at the beginning of the meetings. It is many television network's policy, including Fox News Channel to not provide a camera if an editorial presence is not allowed in. Once the campaign realized that these pictures would not be seen they relented, but the print pool is still not allowed to enter the Karzai event, which is about to begin.

> Tightly controlled crash course (Associated Press)

"I found her quite a capable woman," Afghan President Hamid Karzai said later. "She asked the right questions on Afghanistan."

"Rather than make specific policy prescriptions, she was largely listening, having an exchange of views and also very interested in forming a relationship with people she met with today," former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said.

> Palin's speed dating, Obama's whirlwind tour (Deutche Welle, German-American blog)

Let's just take them for what they are - highly choreographed efforts to showcase to voters and the media that the candidate is suited for the world stage. Neither Obama nor Palin are now all of a sudden foreign policy experts.

***

Alaska plays role in the quiet growth of U.S. missile defense system. NPR has an ambitious five-part report on this system, which has gotten little coverage over the past six years of its development. Jump to the bottom of Newsreader for a look at the series that started today.

***

Quiet New York entry for Sarah Palin. Today is a big day for VP candidate Sarah Palin. But last night, when she arrived at her hotel off Times Square about 9:30 p.m., the street was quiet, and she was followed into the hotel only by Todd carrying Trig. The New York Times was watching and commented that police cleared the street and kept New Yorkers inside nearby restaurants until 9:45 p.m.

So much for the quiet. Today, Canada.com reports that Palin's visit with world leaders is expected to upstage President Bush's final talk at the United Nations. The Washington Post reports that the meetings are off-site from the United Nations. Maybe not. CNN.com reports that Palin has no plans to deliver any type of speech or hold press conferences. "Her meetings will be low-risk in that she will not take any questions from the media."

Today she meets with Henry Kissinger, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and Afghan President Hamid Karzai. On Wednesday she meets with Georgian President Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Sing. John McCain is expected to join her Wednesday. She'll also meet U2 star and African aid advocate Bono at the McCain campaign's request.

In a quick wrapup of other Palin news:

> View The Onion's "War for the Whitehouse" spoof page on Palin (The Onion)

Here you will learn her general philosophy: "Chestnut brown with amber highlights."

> Writer George Saunders parodies Palin's small-town ways (The New Yorker)

Sarah Palin was also the mayor of a very small town. To tell the truth, this is where my qualifications begin to outstrip even hers. I have never been the mayor of anything. I can't even spell right.

> A pastor writes about how Palin's religion is portrayed in the media (Washington Post, On Faith)

Whether a candidate speaks in tongues or not is not indicative of how he/she will govern nor is it relevant to his/her role as a national leader. I am not going to vote for candidates simply because they belong to my denomination, nor will I disqualify them from my vote because they belong to another tradition.

...I will not vote for someone because they use faith-language in iconic ways but neither will I mock them or their belief in ways that show contempt for their faith.

> Palin backs out of nine fundraisers in five states (Politico.com)

Indeed, the tearing up of the planned schedule for the then-unknown number two is yet another reminder of the outsized role Palin is playing in the race and what an untraditional vice presidential candidate she is. Most running mates are designated attack dogs, dispatched to toss out hunks of red meat in B-markets and squeeze in fundraising receptions as often as possible. The idea is to divide and conquer, ensuring local coverage in separate media markets each day.

But almost immediately after St. Paul, it became clear to the campaign that she was essential to the Republican ticket's buzz quotient and thus needed at McCain's side to ensure large crowds and enthusiasm for the GOP ticket. A schedule built around solo grip-and-grin sessions with well-heeled donors was no longer deemed as the best use of her time.

> Don Mitchell on Palin's attorney general and his qualifications (Alaska Dispatch)

But rather than doing his job, insofar as the Troopergate investigation is concerned, Talis Colberg has abdicated his office, first to Tom Van Flein and now to Edward O'Callaghan. Simply put, when Sarah Palin selected him, Talis Colberg was professionally unqualified to be the attorney general of Alaska. And he's demonstrated by his conduct as a shill for the McCain campaign that he's also ethically unfit to serve.

> Sarah Palin should come clean on Troopergate (Kansas City Star)

Maybe Sarah Palin has seen the light. Maybe Palin realizes she looks combative -- and might be losing votes with law-abiding Americans -- because she's not cooperating with an independent investigation into her firing of Alaska's public safety commissioner.

***

It's Day Two for Sen. Ted Stevens, on trial for failing to disclose gifts. Politico.com sets up today with a discussion of what the prosecution will argue and how the defense will respond.

Prosecutors are expected to argue that Stevens engaged in a system in which people seeking his help were forced to pay for it through legal campaign donations or through illegal, unreported personal gifts to him or his family.

Stevens' defense team ...is expected to attack the government's case by arguing that Stevens was not charged with trading official acts for personal gifts. Stevens' attorneys also are likely to argue that since he was not charged with trading official acts for gifts, any acts he may have taken in office were legal and were done solely to help one of Alaska's biggest employers, Veco, which once had as many as 4,000 people on its payroll.

The Los Angeles Times focuses on a tape-recorded conversation that it says may speak to the mind of the senator.

The telephone conversation between the two businessmen concerned an old friend, Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, and the subject was money -- or at least Stevens' feelings about it.

"Ted gets hysterical when he has to spend his own money," said one of the callers.

"I know," replied the other.

Prosecutors want jurors to hear it because they say it illustrates that both men, Robert Parsons, Double Musky restaurant owner - who made the "hysterical" remark - and Bill Allen, who heard it, were engaged in a mutual enterprise to "enrich" the senator. The judge had not yet responded to a complaint from defense attorneys over this.

The Associated Press reports that Stevens asked permission to leave the trial when necessary to vote on ongoing Wall Street bail-out negotiations. The judge agreed, but said he would not inform the jury why Stevens was leaving the courtroom.

***

Wasilla basks in the attention Palin mania has brought. Columnist Steve Lopez of the Los Angeles Times was not smitten by downtown Wasilla.

Some towns have character. Some have a sense of place.

And then there is Wasilla, which greets visitors with Wal-Mart, Target, Lowe's, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Carl's Jr., McDonald's and Taco Bell.

They paved paradise, and all they've got to show for it is chalupas and discount tube socks.

I expected better, Sarah. I really did.

No matter. The Seattle Times cites the Alaska Travel Industry Association Web site that says Wasilla has experienced "a 656 percent increase in click-throughs to the governor's page." And USA Today reports that the Wasilla housing market is doing quite well, thank you. Check out the "most expensive" shot of a luxury estate valued at $2.35 million and a "median-price home" at $209,400. Does that mean all those visiting Outsiders will come back and buy a house?

***

Homer's mayor says "never mind...." Last week, popular Homer Mayor James Hornaday said that, despite filing for re-election in the Oct. 7 municipal election, he had decided not to continue in office. Monday, the Homer News reports that Hornaday withdrew his resignation.

The mayor said his actions were not prompted by illness but by a disagreement with the City Council, an argument he has rethought.

"I'm not going to mention any names ... I'm not going to get into anything specific," he said. "It's just apparent they were heading in a new direction. I wish them luck. I wish them success."

***

Southeast Alaska may become home for wood pellet manufacture. The Juneau Empire reports that Sealaska and Viking Lumber are researching the possibility of using wood waste for pellets. High fuel prices make wood look more attractive, and not having to ship the wood pellets up is even more attractive.

"The cost to get pellets delivered to Southeast Alaska is more than the cost of the pellets themselves," said Dan Parrent, wood products specialist for the Juneau Economic Development Council.

***

News quiz: What cost $60 billion, took six years to build, and you've read almost nothing about? That would be the U.S. anti-missile defense system, as reported today by NPR.

Their series that starts today is a comprehensive look. The line-up:

> An overview that describes the series

Active missile interceptors are now in silos in the ground in Alaska and California and in a permanent state of readiness. A growing number of U.S. warships are equipped with missile interceptors and have been deployed to potential trouble spots around the globe. And the U.S. has built a new set of high-tech radar stations, capped by a billion-dollar floating radar station that can be moved anywhere in the world, to provide crucial early warning and tracking data for the whole system.

The downside? Critics argue whether it will work in the event of an attack.

> Part One: What is the system? The current program is a scaled-down version of Ronald Reagan's Star Wars defense. In its current inception, it is less a defense against Russian's arsenals and more protection from "isolated rogue states" in the world.

"There could be groups that are either non-state actors or groups within a government, operating potentially outside the government, that want to use this to strike a blow for their cause," says Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, director of the Missile Defense Agency. "They would not be deterrable necessarily; they would not even concern themselves with retaliation because they don't care. These are the kind of things we're trying to think through as we face the future."

> Part Two: Visit the ground-based interceptors at Fort Greely near Fairbanks. This base almost closed in the 1990s but got rejuvenated after President Bush took office in 2000. Missile fields are under construction at the base. "The missiles are housed below ground in silos, covered over by clamshell-shaped hatches."

These are "mid-course" interceptors, according to Col. George Bond, the lead officer for the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency.

"(The missile) is 140 pounds. It contains absolutely no explosives, and it destroys an incoming warhead simply by kinetic energy," Bond says. "It's traveling at speeds (of) approximately 15,000 (miles) an hour, so at 140 pounds at those kind of speeds, it creates tremendous kinetic energy when it strikes the rocket."

Read the debate over their effectiveness. From leading critic Joe Cirincione, president of Ploughshares Fund: "General (Henry) Obering is misleading the Congress and the American public and the troops as to the capability of our systems. If we were to have a realistic test this year, next year, it would fail. It would fail catastrophically. And they know that, which is why they don't test that way."

> Part Three, still coming, explores the sea-based component of the missile defense system.

> Part Four, also still coming, is the expansion of the system globally, especially to

Europe.

> Part Five, also still coming, portrays the future of this system, with new weaponry. Among those mentioned are an airborne laser that could destroy hostile missiles, a missile that could deploy multiple "kill vehicles" to deter a fleet of attacking missiles and a super-fast interceptor.

Other headlines of interest to Alaskans:

> Valley growers describe their season, what produce to expect now (Frontiersman)

> Gold Rush lady of the night gets a tombstone for her grave (Dermot Cole, Fairbanks Daily News-Miner)

> Gay-lesbian titles donated to the Wasilla Library (Frontiersman)

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