Fate's Fickle Finger Spares Vince Shlomi

• In response to American calls for a halt to settlement-building on the West Bank, Israel generously offers to halt construction for three to six months, except for those structures already in progress. And if they don't get a peace settlement in that period of time then the whole thing's off. Compromise! [ New York Times ]

• Bernard Madoff faces sentencing this morning in New York. How many thousands of years will he serve in the digestive organs of a sand-beast, as preordained in the opening minutes ofReturn of the Jedi? [ Guardian ]

• British embassy employees arrested in Iran on Wednesday have been released. [ CNN ]

• The president of Honduras was escorted out of the country by military troops and nobody really knows what's going on. A Google ad at the bottom of this report asks the vital question, "Want to Live in Honduras?" [ BBC News ]

• Everybody you ever liked on television died this weekend: beloved OxiClean pitchman Billy Mays, 50s sitcom star Gale Storm, and impersonator Fred Travalena, "the man of a thousandfacesvoices." [And Now a Break from Your Regularly Scheduled Blanket Coverage of Michael Jackson]

• Also in celebrity news: Apple CEO Steve Jobs may have had an easier time securing a new liver due to his bottomless wealth. [ Bloomberg ]