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b'Another of our mini-episodes, this is actually a followup to a previous episode. Jad and I get into a small discussion about mercenary groups, their history, and how the United States has been increasingly relying upon such groups in the Middle East. We discuss Academi (formerly known as Blackwater) and the role they play in the modern battlefield.\\n\\nAbout half-way through the episode we find ourselves in a tangential discussion of the acclaimed HBO series, Game of Thrones. Of course, we always find ways to connect the gaps.\\n\\nIf you\'re a big TV fan, let me be the first to tell you that this episode contains a few spoliers!\\n\\nMaterial from Podcast\\nMusic\\n\\nGame of Thrones Main Title by Ramin Djawadi\\n\\n\\n\\n\\nTranscript of Podcast\\n\\nKevin: Hello, and welcome to another episode of our ongoing weekly discussion. This week we\'ve done something a little different. Typically, Jad and I engage in a one to two hour discussion on various topics, and then edit those down to the material we call a podcast. Usually we wind up with extra material that doesn\'t really have a place, and so it\'s just tossed to the side. But this week, we\'ve decided to keep some of those table scraps. After a short and seemingly tangential discussion on mercenaries, we straight even further then got into a brief discussion on the hit HBO series, "Game of Thrones". If you\'ve not seen the show, it\'s an amazing production based on the series, "A Song of Fire and Ice". \\n\\nHaving seen it, I would highly recommend the show. Although I\'ve never read the books, Jad is actually reading them for the second time now. If you\'ve never met him before, he\'s one of the nicest and most patient people you\'re likely to encounter - essentially my polar opposite in that regard - and at the moment is actually reading the books to his wife, Elisa, just so they can watch the show together. \\n\\nJad: I\'m actually - I\'m reading with Elisa, I\'m reading them again to her because she refuses to watch things until she reads the books, but there are certain things where I\'m like, "okay, I really want to watch this so I\'m reading you the book." \\n\\nKevin: If you\'ve neither read the books nor watched the television show, there are a few spoilers in this episode - I repeat, some of the story will be revealed to you. I do provide another warning before those spoilers, but you have been warned. Until then, here\'s a short discussion on mercenary groups.\\n\\nProbably a whole different topic that we could get into at some point, but I think that\'s what\'s really interesting about all these private groups that have come about you know, like The Black Waters, which - I forget what they changed their name to - but that group you know, where you basically have private mercenaries that the government is essentially just hiring professional mercenaries at these unbelievable rates to go in and do their business for them because now, you basically remove the entire government system from the equation, and yet the government is still very much in control of those systems. \\n\\nFrom a government point of view - and from the most evil of mindsets - it\'s quite brilliant actually. For us, it\'s one of the most terrifying things I can think of, actually, that this is all of a sudden permissible and encouraged, no less. \\n\\nJad: Right. \\n\\nKevin: I don\'t know what we should do with that though. \\n\\nJad: Yeah. The Mises[?] Institute has a whole bunch of stuff on mercenary groups. It\'s really fascinating because they\'re very ambivalent about the stuff. These are historians that have read stuff that I haven\'t read, so I don\'t know how to evaluate it exactly, but they\'re talking about like, the treaty of West [?], up to the first World War, so like 16 - whatever it is - 48 or something - there\'s this period of time where like you know, villages are burned and cities are burned, and it\'s just like this - like the 100 years war and all that sort of era of religious conflict,'