Thursday has been one of those days.

* The stock market tanked Thursday morning based on the newest perception of a stumbling global economy.

*Thursday afternoon Mayor Villaraigosa did what the City Council would not and ordered the layoffs of 1,000 city employees to help balance the city’s budget. (Naturally, the layoffs will pretty much apply only to the poor schlubs who are not represented by a union.)

*And also, Thursday, Scott Brown was sworn in as U.S. Senator meaning, according to the AP’s Laurie Kellman (and run in, among other places, the Washington Post) that “Obama and the Democrats, who still enjoy big majorities in both the House and Senate, can do virtually nothing between now and the November elections without the GOP’s say-so. ” (You know what, AP & WaPo? Screw you. If you can’t say something more insightful than that stale toast, just STFU.)

So…..ahem, now that it’s Thusday evening, I recommend we all take a brief mental health break. Let us all pause and think about….. whales, Nice, big, intelligent whales— leviathans. Actually one whale in particular, a baby who has been hanging around the Malibu Pier for the last few days. (And, yes, I know that whales kill penguins and all that. So don’t leave a comment informing me of this fact. Call me Ishmael. At least whales don’t have lobbyists.)

As of this afternoon, it seems that the little gray whale, who was providing photo ops for anyone who could manage to make the drive to see the seemingly friendly (or at the very least, curious) creature, has wandered off back into the deep blue (in a swimmy kind of way).. But he (she?)—everyone’s been calling the beast Willie—left behind many snapshots like the one below taken by the concessionaires at Malibu Pier.

Okay, now back to the regularly-scheduled dour and fractious stuff we call news.

PS: One more thing: in addition, on Thursday it was reported that a group of 18 scientists from Australia, France and New Zealand are steaming by boat toward Antarctica to challenge—philosophically, not physically—the Japanese scientists who have weaseled around the 1986 international whaling ban and manage to kill around 1000 whales a year in the name of research. The 18 consortium researchers aim to disprove the supposed necessity of whale hunting in the name of science. “We don’t have to kill whales to learn about them,” said one of the Australians.

Indeed. Go scientists. Go whales.

Photo—-and whale updates—by Malibu Pier.