Podcasts from THE MAN

We've all heard the hype about how podcasting puts the power of broadcasting into the hands of anybody with a computer and an internet connection, but did you know that this freedom applies to The Man as well? That's right, the White House has a whole slew of podcasts available, from Dubya's weekly radio address, to interminable symposia from the Office of National Drug Control. Even The Pentagon, NASA, and the Air Force have their own podcasts! (Alas, no podcast from the NSA. Yet.) The beauty of all this is that all publicly released government material is in the public domain, so this is a remixer's dream. The time is right for a re-podcast of Dubya's weekly radio address - just subscribe to the weekly radio address, remix it and then re-podcast it. It would be perfectly legal, due to the government's audio belonging to the public domain. I drunkenly mentioned this idea to The Professor at the WFMU Holiday party, and he tried to flush my head down the toilet.

Now if only the government could adopt some audio production standards in its podcasts, remixers would have some better working material! I mean, why does Dubya only get 64 kbps in his podcast (twice as much as Rummy and Cheney's chintzy 32kbps allotment) but the drug office is awarded a full 128 kbps?! Where's the justice in that? Wake up and smell the bitrate, people! And can't someone in the whitehouse find a nice quiet room somewhere to record these things in so you don't have to hear the federal ventilation system whirring away in the background?

Here's some samples from the federal government's roster of podcasts:

Sample Podcasts (MP3s):

President's Weekly Radio Address: Sample 1  |  Sample 2

Pentagon Channel: Dick Cheney Podcast  |  Donald Rumsfeld Podcast  |  Rucksacks and Rations

Office of National Drug Control: Podcast 1

(Thanks, Listener Ken in Denver!)

Comments

[norelpref]

This makes it difficult to make good on my New Year's resolution to cease and desist my Shrub-remixing addiction. But I can certainly take Cheney and Rumsfeld for a spin, without breaking my res. Always a loophole, so to speak!

[Evan]

Did one of the drug guy... just a dumb quickie. Available at http://www.rksound.com/podcast10.mp3