Fox News left SIRIUS after their agreement ended at the end of 2005 and now they're coming back. Under their new agreement, Fox News and Fox News Talk will be back in the SIRIUS lineup starting on March 14th. SIRIUS President of Entertainment and Sports, Scott Greenstein, said the new deal meets SIRIUS' goal of being in the best interest of the stockholders and listeners of SIRIUS.

How about it: did you miss Fox News or didn't you even realize they were gone?

According to Steve Rubel the New York Times has launched a couple of new podcasts. One will be a daily recap of the day's biggest stories and the other - and this seems like kind of an odd choice - is a music review show. Steve doesn't seem to have all his facts straight, though. Or at least he hasn't checked for an update. In his post he says the shows are available only through iTunes but if you check the podcast page on the Times website you'll see a button to add the show to My Yahoo or just grab the generic RSS feed.  Anyway, if you're interested check them out.

[graphic via Rubel as well]

The Weblogs, Inc. network features over 100 independent, unfiltered bloggers producing over 1,000 blog posts a week across over 75 industry-leading blogs. Each week we ask our bloggers to choose their top posts, which we bring to you in one easy-to-read weekly post. You’ll find links to the hottest posts from the past week after the jump including an Engadget Blinged-out Gadget Contest, the worst TV news of the week and information on the possible death of Tom Hanks. Enjoy!

They could be if XM reads what Banc of America Securities has to say. Based on financial analysis of XM, this major finance company feels that XM can begin to sell the Roady2 receiver for a $50 retail price, without a rebate or giveaway. Recently XM has maintained numerous offers to subsidize their receivers, including one such deal to provide a second receiver at no charge when one is purchased.

It's not unheard of for a content provider to subsidize hardware in order to build a subscriber base. In fact, it's done all the time and not just in the satellite radio space. Satellite television, personal video recording companies, cellular phone carriers and even audio book providers have done this for years. Does this mean that XM has hit critical mass and can continue to build the monthly subscription base on content and other promotions?

Even more intriguing is that Banc of America feels XM is better positioned over SIRIUS in 2006. Let's see if SIRIUS responds to either the story to any action by XM to stop subsidizing their equipment.

Area 51 is an irreverent, silly, self-indulgent, 20-25 minutes worth of low-budget radio theater that's an absolute hoot.

The show resolves around short skits that live in the nefarious netherworld between Firesign Theater-like hip, ba-boom ba-bing and let's-see-how-many-people-we-can-piss-off, ideologically tinged performance art.

Make no mistake about it: politically the show is out of left field, but is more humorous than a lot of humor from that side of the aisle.

Take for example Show #20-Crossing the Lines. Here's what wound up in the crosshairs:

Ethnic stereotyping on television, such as the Native American medicine man who teaches hung-up suburbanites to Ghost Dance;

Will and Grace held up as an authentic example of gay life;

The "fact" that by the 22nd century, sexual intercourse will no longer be required for reproduction;

An all-too-true reference to the fact that Ghandi, Dr. King, Jesus Christ and former Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone all died beforeteir time -"but most despots die of old age";

What it feels like to be at a party and watch older person buying the beer with the assumption that he will come across as an authentically cool person - and wind up with a party babe;

Whoa, dewwdd. I can think of some parties where I've been that "old person."

Which shows that to love this Podcast, ya gotta be able to laugh at yourself.

Apple apparently pulled the trigger ahead of schedule, but you can't put one past Droxy! We noticed immediately that the new version of iTunes has the built-in podcasting support that Steve Jobs presented last month as our Engadget sister site reported.. Now you can subscribe to your favorite 'casts directly through Apple.

Like most good podcatchers, you can configure iTunes to pull your podcasts at various intervals (daily, hourly, and manually). You can set how many episodes iTunes will pull and store as well. There's a listing of the top podcasts highlighted on the main page. Nice to see: Peter Rojas currently at number four on the list! There are numerous categories to browse and even a "Publish Your Podcast" function that allows you to provide your podcast RSS feed. No word yet on any charges for podcasts which have historically been free up to now.

At Gnomedex last week, Microsoft representatives provided a peek at both Internet Explorer 7 and the new Longhorn operating system. It appears that Microsoft finally plans to embrace RSS or Really Simple Syndication. So why do you care? Simple: RSS is the mechanism that podcasts are syndicated and subscribed to. The enclosure tag in the RSS specification is what a podcaster uses to provide their audio program to subscribers.

Recently, Steve Jobs announced that iTunes would support podcasting, which really means that iTunes supports RSS. iTunes will become a "mega-directory" of podcasts as it will read the RSS feeds of podcasts around the globe. Microsoft isn't known for leading new techologies lately; instead, they are content to see which techologies are going mainstream and which are not. It's clear that RSS adoption is growing by leaps and bounds, both with podcasting and general web content. With the recent announcement of RSS adoption in the next versions of Microsoft's browser and music service, you have to wonder if podcasting in MSN Music is next.

As host of liberal talk network Air America's Rachel Maddow Show, Rachel Maddow uses heavy doses of irony and a bit of comedy on the day's news and absurdities.

In Maddow's world, most Republicans these days are power-mad, manipulative and not above hyperbole to distort the truth to ease the path for policies that wring more American blood out of Iraq and more bucks for their profit-obsessed, private sector lackeys.

As her frequent on-air call-to-listen goes, "every day we ... stick a sharp stick in the soft white underbelly of the right wing scheme machine." And to hear it these days, the "right-wing scheme machine" is going about discrediting all who attach any sigificance to a series of British memos that some say proves the current Bush administration used selective information to rig the course  for war well in advance of when it was launched.

Maddow's podcast features the meatiest segments from each of her morning broadcasts. If you think like she does, and want confirmation that you are not the only one, then Rachel Maddow's podcast is one to check out.

Note: This report is being cross posted from the personal blog of Jason McCabe Calacanis who is blogging his 'loose notes' from the D Conference.

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Mel Karmazin’s talk at the D Conference (http://d.wsj.com) started with a funny promotional video that included Howard Stern saying “I knew Mel when he had an afro” followed by some very, very funny photos of a young Karmazin rocking out the ‘fro and a big old mustache. Funny, everyone laughed.

Mel talked about signing Adam Curry to do podcasts, but it was clear that he didn’t see podcasting as a competitor or a major market. Mel added later on that people might read blogs and listen to podcasts but that Desperate Housewives was still huge.

Mel did a little history lesson in which he talked about how he and Viacom didn’t waste hundreds of millions of dollars on a huge Internet play during the bubble. He talked about how he instead bartered excess ad inventory in 30 companies.

When he heard about the AOL/TW deal he said he looked at his wife and said “oh shit here we go again…”

On Friday afternoon, I dropped $69.99 on a car adapter kit for my XM Delphi Skyfi2. A couple hours later, and I was on an 1,181 mile roadtrip across the country to Minneapolis, Minnesota. I kept track of what I listened to on my trip (and what I thought about it), and here's the first part, from Philadelphia to Minneapolis. The return trip will be documented on Thursday.