Tweeting on the mock of the day, watching the time slip away

I trust you may have noticed, I finally installed my twitter ticker on the sidebar.

I mostly use my twitter account as a newswire. It's the fastest newswire on the internets now. News breaks there at least 20 minutes before it hits the traditional vendors. Unfortunately, it's also the most unreliable. As someone put it today, it's the best newswire for the first five minutes, and the worst for the next thirty. I call the latter, the hysteria factor.

But it's also a great social platform for direct communication. And I do have my days when I feel like haranguing big name tweeps. Those would often be the days when I don't post much here. Like today. I challenged the few big media tweeps I follow, and taunted random GOPers I don't follow, about the payroll tax bill standoff for hours this afternoon. And I encouraged the Dem leadership to stand firm and not pay the ransom this time. All of which may or may not help, but I find cathartic.

So, to make a long story longer, whatever its charms and flaws, I do check the tweetie regularly and often post good links that I'm reading but rarely end up blogging. Which is a really long way of saying, if I'm not posting, check the twitter ticker. There's likely to be something amusing there.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]