Gizmodo pointed out these USB and FireWire podcasting kits from Alesis.
The package gets you a (hopefully not sucky) microphone with desktop stand, headphones, a carrying case, podcast production software, Cubase LE recording and editing software, and a digital mixer that plugs directly into the computer via USB or FireWire (duh). The US$400 USB version does two channels of 16bit/44.1 KHz audio while the US$600 FireWire model cranks eight channels of 24bit/48KHz sound.