I have a friend who I went to school with who is gay. There was a group of about five or six of us who were really close friends. We all suspected he was gay but it just wasn't an issue and it never came up in conversation or anything. When we finished school his family moved abroad for a couple of years but then things went a bit wrong for them and they moved back. It was great to see him again.

After about a month of him being back we'd seen each other a few times and I got a phone call from him. He sounded a little weird, like something was up and he said 'I've got something to tell you.'

I said straight away 'are you gay?'

There was a huge pause and he eventually said 'Er, yes. You're the third person to say that.'

I told him we'd suspected it for a long time. It never came up in the same way that you wouldn't turn round to one of us and say 'hey, you like girls, right?' It was an all boys school so there weren't girls around all the time to force the issue. None of us were mega cool and although a few had girlfriends every now and then none of them were particularly serious so most of the time when we hung out it was just the guys anyway.

Even so we'd all got a reasonable gaydar on us and knew he liked boys. I'd be very surprised if a family didn't realise their kid/brother/sister was gay.

Only one of our friends had any issue with him being gay, the rest of us just got on with things as normal as nothing had changed for us, we already knew. It was good to be able to talk to him about it though, or more for him to be able to talk to us. By this time most of us were in relationships and it's been really interesting seeing his relationship with his boyfriend flourish over time as my relationship with my now wife has done.

I saw the whole thing as a sign that I'd found some pretty good friends. No judging, no awkwardness, no nothing. Good guys.

Oh, apart from the one who did have a problem. Funnily enough there was only one religious person amongst our group of friends too...

Oh, man that was disturbing.
..and if this doesn't convince you that it isn't easy to dig yourself out after an avalanche.. remember that in episode S02E16 "Out in the cold", MacGyver was buried in an avalanche, and couldn't get himself out. Good thing Pete is such a good friend and wouldn't let the rescue team stop looking until Mac was able to fashion a blow gun from his ski pole, and a signal parachute from his bandana and a zipper pull.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yG3Iapth75I

I bet you the after game drinking party that goes on has them all as good friends.

And if they were less cute and provided decent nutrition, we'd eat them, so what?

Fighting starvation is not a great indicator of anything, you might eat another human or yourself if you were in a situation that warranted it. I don't think I need to defend against the circle of life, we're the very last species that can frown on another animal for eating something smaller than it.

Enjoying and giving affection is not an exclusive condition, you don't have to *always* and *only* love your one owner constantly. That'd just be annoying.

I believe in research, it suggests cats are quite affectionate to their owners, it is simply not displayed in ways that humans typically understand. Experiments done by people who actually want to understand cat behaviour and not just contrast it to that of a dog, find that cat expression is rather complicated and subtle. It requires long and repeated observation, cats are not suited to these 10minute experiments.

It's an ongoing study, some if it is really quite new, you can look it up or you can continue not caring, I'm not particularly fussed. Thankfully I don't need validation to enjoy the relationship I have with my cat, I don't think it wants only me and I don't have a problem with that, I do think she feels we're rather good friends. That's something I'm happy with.

Yay! I know this guy. He's the neighbor of a good friend of mine. Just as amusing in real life.

I'm sure I'm going to elicit the ire from the sift for saying this but, for all of Beck's usual nuttiness, I actually think he's correct in this instance: we actually do not need an FDA to tell us what "organic" does or does not mean. At this point, the FDA has co-opted the label "organic" such that it doesn't mean anything anymore. In fact, the FDA now prohibits the use of the term "organic" unless it meets their lobby-prone restrictions (thereby driving up the costs). Even the (private!) Berkeley Ecology Center* (which keeps track of these kinds of issues and whose Farmer's Market Manager is actually a good friend of mine) agrees that the government-owned "organic" labeling system means little to nothing anymore.

So, as Beck is suggesting here, having private institutions that you trust can (and in many instances already do) provide you with the information that you'd want/need to get organic food at affordable prices.

For example, the Non-GMO Project (again, a Private organization) that lists and labels GMO-free foods are doing a great job, much better than the FDA care to or even could.

*The Berkeley Ecology Center are a private (!) "ecological think tank" and do not actively publish, but they will give you as much documentation as you'd like, if you request them, of any references, legislation, regulations, etc. and where to find them. If you need documentation, check out their public archive found here.
I'd say that their existence alone helps support Beck's argument here. The Ecology Center can tell you anything you'd want to know from the FDA (and much more that the FDA -- or even the EPA -- wouldn't want you to know) or they can tell you where to go to find out. They don't yet have the resources to conduct studies on their own, so at this point they are more like an "environmental 411" to point you in the right direction to do your own research.

In my opinion, having thousands of these centers throughout the country can do a much better job of tracking these issues than the centralized agencies could ever do.

It always bothered me that Kenobi's description of him in Star Wars as "He was the best star pilot in the galaxy, and a cunning warrior. And he was a good friend" didn't jive with what we got in the new prequels.

God, Alec Guinness was amazing in that movie.

The guy being picked up off the ground at Phan Rang AB is Sgt Nunnley. 352nd TFS. He & I were good friends and I was there and took some pics of it. He said it was a blast---pulling about 5 g's when first yanked off the ground.

As a good friend of mine is fond of saying - "Euphemism leads to optimism."

Also, I think friendly fire is a pretty old phrase, WW2 era I think. Prior to that, friendly fire was probably very uncommon due to weapons and tactics.

But you might have a good friend who offers-up your self-immolation to masses of sophomoric douche bags who have nothing better to do than point, laugh, and project their own insecurities upon those deemed unworthy, and that would spoil their groove!

When i was a kid. My family became really good friends with a family that had just moved to the US from Germany. In 76 the Father bought his wife a 1976 Celica Liftback GT, Brand new. It was the last car she ever owned. He offered to buy her several cars over the years she refused. Immaculately cared for that car. I honestly had never seen one taken care of as well as this one was. A few years ago she died and I went to the funeral. Her husband had died a few years earlier. While her kids were cleaning out the old house. They found it under a car cover in the garage. Pretty much being the only car guy they knew. They called me to come look at it. It looked exactly like the day it was driven off the showroom floor. Bright red, No dents, dings, No color fade outside or inside. A little over 46k on the odometer. It started and ran like new. I honestly had never seen a car that old in that good of condition outside of car collection or show. I was honestly amazed. No clue if they ever sold it. I would not have but you never really know what some people will do.

A good friend would play as the 2nd actor in your short videos containing two characters.

"My good friends at Pepsi Max have hooked us up with this can cam - " <click stop> -_-

Chongqing is a fascinating city. We have some good friends who stayed with some family for a few months as students who are from there and they are all very aware of the corruption of their government and are certainly not afraid of dissent.

I believe the announcer is Harry Carpenter. He ended up good friends with Ali.