​By now you've surely noticed the death rays in our atmosphere that resulted in unseasonably warm temperatures as the city finished digesting its Thanksgiving meal. The New York Times has just reported that today, November 28, 2011, is the warmest November 28 on record since 1896, tied with 1990. This means you can walk around New York like it's an autumn movie set, what with the blustery winds and colored trees, without the shivering and runny noses that fall usually brings.

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Ready for her close-up.

​Finally, the Bronx Zoo's Reptile House is open again. This means we can all get some face time with the newly-named Mia, who is the most famous and important cobra ever to have lived. And you'd better believe the Zoo is milking it: the sign on her enclosure now reads "Meet Mia - The Famous Bronx Zoo Cobra," and there is a little placard explaining her exciting escape to a nearby part of the same building she's always been in. Are you rushing to the Reptile House yet?

[via Gothamist]

[@_rosiegray]

​West Nile -- it almost sounds like something that should be on VH1's I Love the '90s -- but it's still among us and it can be dreadful, especially for those on either side of the age spectrum. The disease, first found in the U.S. in 1999, is at its highest levels in New York since 2000. There have been 13 confirmed human cases so far this season, and the risk extends until October.More >>

At just 3 months, a pit bull puppy's life very nearly ended on a deserted block at the edge of Gowanus. On Easter, his former owner tossed him from the car like so much unwanted garbage and left. The puppy was extremely malnourished, dehydrated, and suffering from mange, a parasite-induced skin disease, when Alex Darsey, a bartender at Park Slope's Southpaw, found him moments after the car had sped away. The only other witness shied away from even touching what was clearly a diseased animal, but Darsey knew there could be no looking past the pup. He picked him up, named him Walter, and saved his life.

Now Walter has a whole new family in the Southpaw staff and his own blog -- HelpSaveWalter.blogspot.com -- that's blowing up. We caught up with Darsey to get the story.

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Yes, we can!

​By now we're sure you've heard that redhead of the moment and man of the people Conan O'Brien has found himself a new employer, and a new eight-figure salary, compliments of TBS. Come November, he'll be back on the small screen.

Which just goes to show that you can surmount just about anything, if you try really hard and accrue a cozy coterie of, say, more than 986,800 loyal Facebook fans. (By the way, what you all did for Betty White, well, let's just say we haven't felt that warm and snuggly since animal control rescued the raccoons in our chimney when we were just wee 'uns.)

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​It took years -- including 18 months in prison -- before disgraced Olympic runner Marion Jones returned to sports as a member of the WNBA's Tulsa Shock. But Tiger Woods may be on a faster track: He's hired former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer -- who also worked with semi-disgraced ballplayer Mark McGwire -- to help with his comeback, says the New York Post. And their sources say Woods will appear at the Arnold Palmer Invitational on March 25 in Orlando.

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​Formerly one of the world's most respected athletes, now disgraced, asking America to forgive... Well, no, not really. Marion Jones, the sprinter stripped of her Olympic medals for doping and jailed for lying to prosecutors about it, is joining a WNBA team, the Tulsa Shock. And though, like Tiger Woods, she was extremely contrite at her moment of downfall, Jones seems very eager to put her past behind her. "The word redemption is not in my vocabulary," she told the press.

She did have to work out with the team before the announcement was made, but now the Tulsa management is enthusiastic, laying on the people-make-mistakes and glad-to-have-her-with-us palaver in equal measure. (Jones, 34, played on the UNC college team in the early 90s; She's been out of prison for a year and a half.)

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​Last year's special election to replace John McHugh in New York's Congressional delegation was one of our all-time favorites: The Republicans went with a moderate, enraged right-wingers put up a tea-party conservative, and the Republican quit and told people to vote for the Democrat, who won, wresting the seat from Republican control for the first time since the drying of the Flood.

The race had a brief un-concession by the conservative, accusations of sabotage by his supporters, and other memorable lunacies.

Now the conservative candidate, Doug Hoffman, tells us he's going to bring the laughter back.

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Hiram Monserrate is campaigning hard for the seat his colleagues threw him out of, and as we said before, you have to like his chances. He's found a strategy he seems comfortable with: Promoting hatred of homosexuals.

The once and future state senator has accepted the support of Reverend Ricardo Reyes of the El Elyon Christian Church in Corona, who claims to represent 612 churches, says the Queens Village Times. The Rev's primary concern: gay marriage. "I have seen a generation sunk down by the gay community," said Reyes. "...we are sending our children to practice something against the Bible." Monserrate voted against the doomed gay marriage bill in the New York senate while he was still there; his primary Democratic opponent in the March 16 special election, Jose Peralta, voted for the bill in the assembly.

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​So far the contenders for the special election to fill the state senate seat of Hiram Monserrate -- who was kicked out by a senate vote on February 9th -- are Republican Judge Robert Beltrani and Democrats Jose Peralta and Monserrate himself.

The Queens Democrats endorsed Peralta even before Monserrate's ouster, and wouldn't like to see Monserrate returned, but the disgraced senator has won in his district before, and it's not impossible that he could do it again. He's got a campaign office, and has reportedly collected nearly 6,000 petition signatures to get on the ballot on his own "Yes We Can" independent line. (Update: In our comments section, a reader suggests Monserrate's petitioners haven't exactly been clear to signatories about what they were signing.)

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