The losses never kept him from trying, as he ran for governor five times, U.S. representative twice, and attorney general. Along with his views, Galbraith was known for his candor and character. He was someone who wasn’t beneath holding his own political sign on the side of the road, as most Lexington, KY denizens could see him at the Versailles Rd/Man O’ War intersection holding up his own signs personally. The next moment, he would be riding around in a hemp powered car with Willie Nelson.

If you’re looking for perfect examples of Galbraith’s character, take a look at these two YouTube videos. As someone who’s met the man personally, they provide a perfect reflection.

Oh, just in case you’re wondering, Willie Nelson endorsed him in the prior election.

I was completely floored today that I found out about his death, not through a news article or through a friend calling, but on Twitter. The Galbraith following was represented enough in Twitter today that it was a trending topic nationally for a good period of time. Here’s what many people had to say in remembrance.

Galbraith was the perfect example of “I might not agree with him, but I respect he doesn’t shy away from what he really believes”. Which can be summed up in this quote, “People say, ‘How can you be a practicing attorney and smoke marijuana?’ My response to that is: ‘Hey, if slavery were still legal, I’d be heading the underground railroad. If the Vietnam War were still going on, I’d be out in the streets demonstrating. If segregation were still intact, I’d be sitting at a lunch counter somewhere.”

R.I.P.

Here’s the videos in case you missed the show last night. I don’t think I could pick anyone better to sit next to the Turtleman than Eddie Murphy.

How did a man go from getting his teeth knocked out by a chainsaw, to sitting in the chair that’s had the likes of Ashton Kutcher, William Shatner, and Justin Bieber sitting in it? The answer is simple, YouTube. The video originated on a local show called: Kentucky Afield. Due to the sheer hilarity of a grown man mucking around in algae infested ponds, Turtleman became a hit.

The rest as they say is history. His Animal Planet show is “Call of the Wildman“, and premieres this Sunday, November 6th, at 10pm.

As current tech is the focus, it only makes sense that the iPad 2 gets into the mix. Ambassador Carey Cavanaugh, who is the Director of the school, who tells WebProNews,  ”The iPad 2 offers a bundle of capabilities that enhance its performance as an educational device.”

“The two that stand out most are video mirroring and the new dual cameras,” he says.  ”At the Patterson School, we have already been using iPads for presentations, but with the iPad2 improvements (and a $39 cable) all of our rooms with HD televisions are transformed into conference centers.”

“Last month we used iPads and Altec Lansing’s Octiv Stage in a 24-hour crisis simulation we held concerning a nuclear accident in North Korea,” he explains. ” In the scenario, students were divided into six teams (corresponding with the official Six Party Talks — US, China, Russia, Japan, South Korea, North Korea) and had to handle the political fallout that resulted from the radioactive fallout that occurred when a North Korean weapons development site malfunctioned.  The use of the two devices (iPad and Octiv Stage) was helpful in communicating, reading pdfs or maps as a group, and watching video reports regarding the crisis.”

“The University of Kentucky’s School of Journalism was a partner in this effort producing some excellent accounts of diplomatic and dangerous developments,” Cavanaugh tells us. “What was lacking and desired, however, was an ability to video chat within and between team delegations.  That function will now be simple with FaceTime and iPad 2′s new cameras.  The cameras, and the ability to do HD video recording, also open up an ability to have our students capture and convey some of their experiences serving in internships around the world to their fellow classmates.”

Apple is providing support throughout the 18-month trial period, and will assist with program development and strategy, train students, faculty and staff, and help get them access to developers when necessary.

“We are already weighing how best to organize this,” says Cavanaugh.  ”With students bound for Cambodia, Macedonia, Uganda and Latin America (they may be able to test whether the iPad’s operating and non-operating temperature ranges are valid).  I also believe these new capabilities will facilitate study groups in some interesting ways.  While the Patterson School does not support distance education and always prefers that students meet directly, we often have a few who are at a disadvantage in preparing for their final comprehensive examinations because they are away at US internships or jobs (in locations like Washington, DC or New York).  The iPad2 will now put them in the room.”

“I also believe the announced enhancements to AirPlay in iOS 4.3 will be helpful in the classroom,” he adds. “Finally, no one could ever complain about thinner, lighter, and faster — at the same cost.”

Apple is giving buyers of the first iPad a refund of a hundred dollars when they buy the iPad 2. It’s a little better than the solution offered in Conan O’Brien’s parody.

We reached out to Ambassador Carey Cavanaugh, who is the Director of the school, who told us a bit about the initiative and the apps they’ll be using. 

"While the iPad as a device is great, there is no doubt that what will be key for us is the vast range of applications that exist today or are currently in development," he tells WebProNews. "Students will be using Pages and Keynote from the beginning for basic report and presentation tasks and we now have them assessing a wide variety of free apps to see which will be most helpful for handling pdfs, notetaking, etc.  They will report on their assessments of the utility of these apps on the blog site that is now up and running (iPatt.uky.edu).  

"In the area of productivity, they are going to utilize PocketInformant HD and the whole range of applications that Omni has developed for iPad (OmniFocus, OmniGraffle, OmniGraphSketcher)," he continues. "These are amazing applications (I assume you heard there will be a 2.0 version of Pocket Informant in about a month which should make it even better). Graffle and GraphSketcher are invaluable for report preparation — the diagramming and graphing abilities are amazingly refined and fit well the requirements of our students.  Students are also already using Things and Agendas."

"Two apps with direct relevance to the program that all of them will be using are PressReader and Teleprompt+," he says. "PressReader gives the students access to more than 1,700 daily papers on their iPad and we have already explored how to use this app to enhance classroom instruction and the program overall. In the classroom, this will be tied to sharpening student’s analytic skills." 

"Many of our graduates head for diplomatic assignments with the Foreign Service or analytical positions in the intelligence community," Cavanaugh explains. "They must be able to quickly take current information and generate cogent policy analyses to support top leaders (Secretary of State, DCI, President, or CEOs for that matter). PressReader will enable us to have students examine recent media coverage in a foreign country (from current newspapers across the political spectrum) and produce an assessment of where and how the US might engage on a particular issue."

"This is a typical assignment at an American Embassy overseas, but one that would be impossible to do at a university without access to so wide a range of the foreign press," he says. "Most of our students have already spent time abroad so this also means that we can have a students in the same class do such an assignment — say examine the political and popular reaction to the recent upheaval in Tunisia — with one using French language press, another the German, and a third Saudi Arabian (all the while maintaining and improving their foreign language skills).  With PressReader, this can truly be done globally.  While the best university library might let you explore dated press from France or Italy, PressReader will provide today’s news from places as vital as the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, China),, but also more remote corners like Iceland, Korea and Argentina.  It will also help students prepare for overseas internships.  This summer, for example, we have a student headed to Cambodia to do humanitarian work and another to serve as an intern at the US Embassy in Macedonia.  Both with use this app and subscription service to prepare for those assignments.  Finally, for foreign students, we believe this being able to keep up with the news from their country and perhaps feel a little less detached from home.  Already last week, one of our Chinese students noticed that she now can read (in Chinese of course) the newspaper that she read every day before coming to the United States."

"Teleprompt+ is an app that literally converts the iPad into a teleprompter," he says. "We believe this will help our students sharpen their public speaking abilities and, once again, be better able to support principals (President, CEOs) when they are supporting major events.  What we have found already in testing is that the app is having an impact on the smoothness and cadence of oral presentations, as well as a greater ability to control time.  Time in the diplomatic and corporate world is key.  We already instruct our students in how to make "elevator speeches. "  We actually put the students on elevators to do it, giving them 18 floors to make their pitch — a luxury given that the State Department and CIA have only seven floors, the Pentagon five, and the White House for all practical purposes two (the 18 floor ride, with interruptions as it keeps stopping, is actually provides about the same amount of time you would have to brief a Senator on  the underground train from the Senate Hart Building to the Capitol).  We also believe it may help them write more effectively and succinctly, but we can report more on that later."

The school is the first professional one to undertake a full degree cycle iPad initiative like this, and why this is only a trial, it seems pretty clear that the school is confident in the approach. While Cavanaugh reached out to Apple to get this thing going, Apple does have a whole Education unit, which encourages schools to "extend their classrooms" with Apple products. It will be interesting to see if Google reaches out to schools to encourage similar career-driven use of Android tablets as more come to market. That company is already getting schools to "go Google" with Google Apps.   

"The focus of the Patterson School is Diplomacy and International Commerce so this demands a fairly wide set of skills for our graduates," Cavanaugh tells us.  "All of our students need to have exceptional communication skills — oral and written — and a strong comfort level with not just international politics, but also economics and statistics.  Indeed, most of our students take courses in economic statecraft, economic modeling, or agricultural economics.   We have just begun to explore which apps will best support those areas of study."

As the school has both Apple and developers at its disposal, the possibilities would seem to be nearly endless.

The school’s website says, "This initiative will be ‘soup to nuts,’ encompassing student recruitment, admissions, seminars, graduation, and everything in between. We aim to completely integrate the iPad into our program, transforming the student learning experience, enhancing overall school operations, and preparing graduates to advance diplomacy and international business in the digital age."

The initiative began from some inspiration that came from a screening at the school of the HBO documentary "For Neda", which focused on the Iranian woman who was shot during a protest, and whose death was captured in images, which went viral online as a result of modern technology. 

Ambassador Carey Cavanaugh, who is the Director of the school, wrote in a blog post, "Unfortunately, digital tools and skills are anything but standard diplomatic fare.  Throughout my 22-year Foreign Service career I was appalled at the State Department’s slow adoption of new technology…"

"As Apple’s latest creation captured the world’s imagination, I began to weigh how the iPad might be used to enhance teaching international affairs at the masters degree level," he wrote. "In particular, could using the device help provide a cohort of future leaders who would enter the public, private, and non-profit sectors equipped with the expertise needed to advance what Secretary Clinton has deemed “21st Century Statecraft?”  I also thought that graduates who had sharpened their technological skills using iPads might create a kind of demand pull as they enter the workforce and lobby that they must continue using the device to maintain their productivity.  Learning with iPads might help address both shortcomings: ensure graduates enter international careers equipped with the knowledge and tech skills that are increasingly an essential component of their tool kit; and help pave the way for greater acceptance of such mobile devices in official government settings."

Cavanaugh decided to contact Apple, who ended up sending its Southeast Area Director for Education into town to discuss his ideas. This turned into the school becoming the first professional one to have all its students, faculty, and staff using an iPad for a complete degree cycle, and a trial that Cavanaugh hopes will become a blueprint for other schools to follow. 

Dr. Robert Farley, an assistant professor at the school, specializing in national security and intelligence, says he’s looking forward to answering questions like: Does the iPad significantly enhance productivity, is the iPad uniquely useful in the classroom, or in the associated extra-curricular activities of the school, how does the iPad affect the classroom setting itself, and does it help tear down the wall between student and instructor that the laptop has created?

Apple is providing support throughout the 18-month trial period, and will assist with program development and strategy, train students, faculty and staff, and help get them access to developers when necessary. 

WebProNews spoke to the Poker Players Alliance about Kentucky’s latest move. "We are in the process of full review of this new action, however, at first blush we seriously questions its merits," said John Pappas, executive director of the Poker Players Alliance.

"The one thing that we can be sure of is that a continued assault on poker and attempts to restrict the rights of Commonwealth residents to play online poker is a clear waste of state government’s scarce resources."

Specifically the lawsuit names as defendants the Ireland-based Pocket Kings LTD., which operates the popular Full Tilt Poker website, and unknown entities that operate a number of other online gambling sites.

The 14-page filing by the Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet Secretary J. Michael Brown invokes state statute 454.210 and calls for Pocket Kings to refund Kentucky "the amount of money lost between March 25, 2005 and September 25, 2009 by persons located within the borders of Kentucky." Under the law the suit seeks to recover three times the amounts lost by Kentuckians who gambled online.

"The Full Tilt Defendants have done, or have caused to be done, tortuous acts in the Commonwealth for which the Commonwealth has a substantial and compelling interest in exercising personal jurisdiction," the complaint continues.

This is the second suit filed by Gov. Steve Beshear’s administration against online gambling sites. The first involved Kentucky’s attempt to seize 141 international online gambling domains.  That case is still ongoing.
 

WebProNews spoke to the Poker Players Alliance about Kentucky’s latest move. "We are in the process of full review of this new action, however, at first blush we seriously questions its merits," said John Pappas, executive director of the Poker Players Alliance.

"The one thing that we can be sure of is that a continued assault on poker and attempts to restrict the rights of Commonwealth residents to play online poker is a clear waste of state government’s scarce resources."

Specifically the lawsuit names as defendants the Ireland-based Pocket Kings LTD., which operates the popular Full Tilt Poker website, and unknown entities that operate a number of other online gambling sites.

The 14-page filing by the Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet Secretary J. Michael Brown invokes state statute 454.210 and calls for Pocket Kings to refund Kentucky "the amount of money lost between March 25, 2005 and September 25, 2009 by persons located within the borders of Kentucky." Under the law the suit seeks to recover three times the amounts lost by Kentuckians who gambled online.

"The Full Tilt Defendants have done, or have caused to be done, tortuous acts in the Commonwealth for which the Commonwealth has a substantial and compelling interest in exercising personal jurisdiction," the complaint continues.

This is the second suit filed by Gov. Steve Beshear’s administration against online gambling sites. The first involved Kentucky’s attempt to seize 141 international online gambling domains.  That case is still ongoing.
 

WebProNews spoke to the Poker Players Alliance about Kentucky’s latest move. "We are in the process of full review of this new action, however, at first blush we seriously questions its merits," said John Pappas, executive director of the Poker Players Alliance.

"The one thing that we can be sure of is that a continued assault on poker and attempts to restrict the rights of Commonwealth residents to play online poker is a clear waste of state government’s scarce resources."

Specifically the lawsuit names as defendants the Ireland-based Pocket Kings LTD., which operates the popular Full Tilt Poker website, and unknown entities that operate a number of other online gambling sites.

The 14-page filing by the Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet Secretary J. Michael Brown invokes state statute 454.210 and calls for Pocket Kings to refund Kentucky "the amount of money lost between March 25, 2005 and September 25, 2009 by persons located within the borders of Kentucky." Under the law the suit seeks to recover three times the amounts lost by Kentuckians who gambled online.

"The Full Tilt Defendants have done, or have caused to be done, tortuous acts in the Commonwealth for which the Commonwealth has a substantial and compelling interest in exercising personal jurisdiction," the complaint continues.

This is the second suit filed by Gov. Steve Beshear’s administration against online gambling sites. The first involved Kentucky’s attempt to seize 141 international online gambling domains.  That case is still ongoing.
 

WebProNews spoke to the Poker Players Alliance about Kentucky’s latest move. "We are in the process of full review of this new action, however, at first blush we seriously questions its merits," said John Pappas, executive director of the Poker Players Alliance.

"The one thing that we can be sure of is that a continued assault on poker and attempts to restrict the rights of Commonwealth residents to play online poker is a clear waste of state government’s scarce resources."

Specifically the lawsuit names as defendants the Ireland-based Pocket Kings LTD., which operates the popular Full Tilt Poker website, and unknown entities that operate a number of other online gambling sites.

The 14-page filing by the Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet Secretary J. Michael Brown invokes state statute 454.210 and calls for Pocket Kings to refund Kentucky "the amount of money lost between March 25, 2005 and September 25, 2009 by persons located within the borders of Kentucky." Under the law the suit seeks to recover three times the amounts lost by Kentuckians who gambled online.

"The Full Tilt Defendants have done, or have caused to be done, tortuous acts in the Commonwealth for which the Commonwealth has a substantial and compelling interest in exercising personal jurisdiction," the complaint continues.

This is the second suit filed by Gov. Steve Beshear’s administration against online gambling sites. The first involved Kentucky’s attempt to seize 141 international online gambling domains.  That case is still ongoing.
 

The ruling by the Court is not final, but the decision is being viewed as a temporary setback by the affected parties.

Joe Brennan Jr.
IMEGA’s chairman

"In the written decision, the Court clearly indicates they agree with our arguments, and are inviting us to refile, so that the technicality of the standing issue can be resolved," said Joe Brennan, Interactive Media Entertainment & Gaming Association (iMEGA) chairman.

"It’s unfortunate, but I can’t imagine that Kentucky’s lawyers will celebrate a ruling that says ‘bring us an owner, so we can rule in your favor’".

iMEGA and the other affected parties, Interactive Gaming Concil and Sportsbook.com, have up to 20 days to file a motion for reconsideration. In the ruling, the Kentucky Supreme Court indicated that no additional briefs or oral arguments were necessary for them to consider the case, and that a petition could be made to the Appeals Court to move the case immediately back to the state Supreme Court.

"All along, it seemed the Court wanted to go our way, and this decision today indicates that is still the case," Brennan said.

"The Court is telling us that all that is necessary is for one domain owner to come forward, and we likely win."

Brennan indicated iMEGA would immediately work with other parties to resolve the Court’s issue, and would quickly file a motion to satisfy the Court.

"We obviously would have preferred a complete, clean victory today, but reading the decision, it seems this is a technicality that is only delaying the inevitable," Brennan sai