Sixty delegates at a two-day annual meeting of the Claims Conference in New York voted unanimously to approach the Austrian government with three requests: to acknowledge that it had a role in the Holocaust; to make payments to survivors even before a final accounting report is completed, and to make some sort of restitution for property taken from Jews during World War II.
Fast forward two hours, I'm seated on a last minute purchase Delta flight to Bogota watching the passenger two rows ahead of me refuse to turn off his cell phone despite repeated requests, refuse to acknowledge his duties in the exit row seat despite repeated requests, and all with the scent of alcohol obviously on his breath.
The rest of the petitions involve "licensing and regulating online poker," a clemency request for Leonard Peltier, a petition to allow the industrial production of hemp (I sense a theme, here), a request to formally acknowledge the existence of extra-terrestrials who are "engaging the human race," and... yes... a third petition about marijuana legalization (okay, guys, message received).
"We request the State Department to acknowledge that the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would have significant consequences for climate change.
The vote to authorize sending troops, which Turkish officials say gives them up to a year to take action, was, in essence, a blunt request for the United States to acknowledge Turkey's status as an important ally in a troubled and complex region.
By law, recipients of national security requests are not allowed to acknowledge their existence.
The WikiLeaks main website and a sub-site devoted to the diplomatic documents were unavailable from the US and Europe yesterday, as Amazon servers refused to acknowledge requests for data.
When I'm the recipient of an e-mail message, I'm uncomfortable when a sender, seeking reassurance of safe delivery, presents me with a pop-up box requesting that I click to acknowledge its receipt.
Whether something went wrong at the salon or you just don't like the cut you requested, it's hard to acknowledge that the long hair you just had is now gone.
You could also use them for a quick internal poll or to acknowledge a request where typing "yes" would've felt like too much work.
