This is some rudimentary code to create an http connection to the twitter firehose.

gistfile1.clj

(ns twitjure
  (:use clojure.core)
  (:use clojure.contrib.http.connection)
  (:use clojure.contrib.base64)
  (:use clojure.contrib.duck-streams))

(defn get-stream []
  (let [conn #^java.net.HttpURLConnection
        (http-connection "http://stream.twitter.com/1/statuses/sample.json")]
    (.setDoInput conn true)
    (.setRequestProperty conn
                         "Authorization"
                        (str "Basic " (encode-str
                                       "USER:PASS")))
    (.getInputStream conn)))