Starting a podcast

I'm sure this question has been asked, and I apologize for that, but I'm looking to start a podcast. I want to jump right in but have a limited budget. What's the best equipment, editing software, hosting, for someone just wanting a down and dirty podcast?

Hello. This is the organizer of the podcast meetup John Rhodes. We don't have a meetup scheduled yet, but as soon as I do I'd recommend you go, because there is usually all sorts of people who will help you start your podcast. For my audio I use a small M-Audio preamplifier and either my 100-150 dollar condenser mic, or my 100-150 dollar dynamic mic. For editing the audio I use Sony Sound Forge in its cheaper version which costs around 45 dollars. It's an older version so it only has two audio "Channels". The newer version has many more "Channels" The reason why I put "Channels" in parentheses, is because Sony software has a different definition for audio channels, but for all tenses and purposes they are channels of audio. Like you can have background music, and somebody talking, as two channels, much like stereo.
P.S. Sony Sound Forge I don't think has a MAC version. If you are a MAC person use Garage Band.

Why wait for a meetup? Lay it out right here on the board. A lot of us have recording equipment and even some content, but now what do we do with it?
If you put it on iTunes, are you automatically on podcast alley? How do you tie yourself to Digg? How do you make your podcast available to Zune users? Who is the best content host? how do you record a conference call?
I record with Audacity and the only way I can find to overlay sounds into the middle of my recording is to import the sounds in and pad the front of the track with a bunch of silence to make the sound start 325 seconds in (or however far I want it to start) to the track. Is there a better way to do that?