Of Twitter, Tax Evading Nominees, and a Tea Party

I was following #tcot on Twitter last night (if you're confused, see below) and an interesting thing happened. There was a great deal of discussion over the appointments of Daschle and Gaithner and their unpaid income tax, and the pork in the stimulus. And suddenly, with the spirit of the Tea Party of 1773 and at the digitized speed of the 21st century, a little revolution broke out:

On a date to be determined a bunch of Twitterers (follow me!) are planning to make a statement regarding the tax issues of 0bama's pick for Treasury Secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, and Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tom Daschle, both of whom made moves to rectify unpaid taxes only when they were chosen for their new jobs.

Under Operation Twitter Tea Party, Conservatives, Liberals and anyone else concerned about transparency and accountability in our government officials will be sending a voided check to the Internal Revenue Service . . .

We will send a loud and clear message to Washington that US Citizens expect integrity and transparency in our government officials!

On Pablo Mac's blog you will find link to Twitter Tea Party Facebook Group and Facebook Event (I'm not sure what a Facebook Event is, but they tell me this one's beginning to snowball) and an image of a faux check in the amount of five thousand dollars "and not a penny more," to make the symbolic point. They're not suggesting tax evasion - just ordinary citizens, fed up and ticked off, and speaking up. All of this happened in the space of about an hour and a half, by the way. The digital age is extraordinary, no?

About Twitter and hashtags:
For those who are as I was about month ago, when I didn't know a #tcot from a cotton ball, I will explain as best can. Twitter is a social networking or "micro-blogging" service that is the online equivalent of London's Hyde Park Speakers' Corner, except that the messages must be 140 characters or less. There are millions using the service. As you might imagine, the wit produced by that brevity depends on the "tweeter", so a certain amount of filtering is essential. This is accomplished by the use of "hashtags" used in a Twitter search. (If you join, you'll find this essential link nonsensically located at the bottom of the home page, in fine print. Beats me why.)

The hashtag "#tcot" that I mentioned earlier is "top conservatives on Twitter", and is viewable without joining. It is a very busy stream of conservative links, news items, thoughts and conversations, and is one great tool for getting information. (The affiliated website is here.) If you're from Illinois, you might want to check out #icot and #ildirt. Just one disclaimer: this stuff is highly addictive. You've been warned.

Enjoy the revolution!

(Afterthoughts: If you visited Twitter Search, you may have noticed a list of "trending topics" in the right sidebar. I'm not sure what Twitter's definition of "trending" is, but apparently it doesn't mean "most popular". You can find a list of the hottest hashtags (ordered by popularity) here.)