By Steve Clemons

For a few days, I have been doing some exploratory work on a book and needed to take a few days break from TWN to clear my mind. I am off to Rome, Italy today.

(This picture from November 2004 depicts then UK Ambassador to Iran Sir Richard Dalton and Iran’s then top nuclear negotiator Hasan Howhani) During my recent trip to London where I spoke at a forum organized by intellectual wunderkind G.

I know this is not a political or foreign policy matter — but news has just broken that Michael Jackson has died of heart attack (according to current reports) at the age of 50. No matter the controversies, I grew up on many of his songs.

A couple of things to bring to the attentions of friends of TWN. At 4:30 pm EST today, I’ll be talking about Iran on the Michelangelo Signorile Show. Yesterday, I had an interesting and substantive short discussion with To the Point‘s Warren Olney.

(Washington Note publisher Steve Clemons, Obama political guru David Axelrod, and Al Jazeera’s Mysa Khalaf) Yesterday evening, I chaired a dinner featuring Austan Goolsbee, the charismatic economic guru of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and a key adviser to the President in the White House.

Mousavi. No. . .Ahmadinejad. No. Mousavi. . .No. . .

The Washington Note has just received word that in a short while, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will announce that two Iranian diplomats stationed in the Iran Embassy to the United Kingdom will be expelled.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy I appeared on Rachel Maddow’s NBC show tonight discussing my recent blog post, “The Four Iran Scenarios and ‘Basiji Hunting.

Significant differences of opinion today – but a civil discussion nonetheless at this New America Foundation/American Strategy Program forum on the Iran Elections.

I will be appearing on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show tonight about 9:15 pm EST discussing with Rachel some of the things that protesters in Iran are doing to put the feared and violent basij security forces on edge and how some groups are organizing a capacity of domestic insurgency inside Iran.