AppleScript to add a podcast 

I had dinner on Sunday night with an old friend, Andrew Grumet, who now works at PodShow. I met Andrew when we were both in Cambridge, MA. He was one of the people who showed up at Berkman when we started the bloggers group that meets every Thursday night (and still does as far as I know).

Andrew went on to lead the development of iPodder, which became Juice, the open source podcatcher written in Python that Adam Curry started. I told him about my efforts to create an AppleScript that would copy an MP3 to a (possibly new) playlist in iTunes. Andrew pointed me to the code they developed for Juice.

I had a few minutes to try it out today, it took a little clumsy tweaking and fiddling to get it to work (I don't really "get" AppleScript), but it works! I just copied a new episode of Face The Nation to my New Podcasts playlist in iTunes.

Here's the code.

Screen shot.

Onward!

MP3s of candidate conference calls? 

They talk about them all the time on the news shows, every day the major Presidential candidates have conference calls with reporters.

It seems much of the real action in the campaign happens here, but we (voters, taxpayers, citizens) have no access.

I listened to an MP3 of one of the calls, with the chief strategist and communications director of the Clinton campaign. It was fascinating, gave me a picture of how the press and the candidates relate that I had never seen before.

Now I want more -- I want it all!

I've been asking around, where can I get MP3s of all the conference calls, the day they happen, in full, not spun through the reporters, and so far have come up with nothing. So I'm bringing this issue to as many people as I can think of who might either know how I can get them, or apply pressure to one or more news organizations to make them public.

I'd of course like to see them made available as an RSS 2.0 feed with enclosures, so it will be accessible to everyone with a podcast client. I would help create this, even host the feed if necessary.

Anyone at a major media organization would have access to this content. I'm pretty sure it's all on the record. Any help would be much appreciated.