Today, June 30, marks the centennial of the Tunguska event, the only instance in recorded history of a very large object striking the Earth. By sheer good luck it struck in a mostly uninhabited region of Siberia, at a spot so remote that it was 19 years before scientists were able to study it firsthand.

Barack Obama has made it clear that he is running against the policies of “Bush/ McCain” and has tried to tie the latter firmly to the former in a number of contexts in hopes that Bush’s unpopularity will rub off on the Republican nominee. McCain, meanwhile, is trying to associate Obama with Jimmy Carter. Apparently, the hope here is that Obama will be tarred by Democratic failures past.

In case you’ve missed this . . .

Here’s a wonderful tale and animation, from the second season of This American Life on Showtime, about the power of memory, the vividness of stories, and how all can get jumbled in that mystery called marriage. The animation is by famed graphic artist Chris Ware.

Click here to begin the broadcast.

Information, Please! was one of the most popular, and literate, shows on American radio, airing from 1938-1948 and running briefly as a TV show in the early 1950s. Its format was novel: instead of quizzing contestants from the general public, listeners submitted questions to quiz the experts, and if they stumped the resident eggheads, they won money and (for many years) a set of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Its master of ceremonies was the warm and witty Clifton Fadiman, literary editor of the New Yorker magazine and a longtime member of Britannica’s Board of Editors.

The Britannica Blog is proud to highlight one of these broadcasts each Friday. So, “Wake Up!”—as the show’s announcer would say at the start of each broadcast. “It’s Time to Stump the Experts!”

Brian Dennis, a Marine fighter pilot stationed in Anbar province in Iraq, took immediately to the 60-pound German shepherd– border collie mix he found one day while on patrol. The dog had been stabbed with a screwdriver or an awl and had had his ears cut off, the latter apparently in the belief that doing so would make Nubs, as Dennis dubbed him, more alert.

Dennis had Nubs treated for his injuries and then had to leave him behind when he was reassigned to a base 70 miles away. Nubs set off after Dennis and somehow found him. His tour of duty in Iraq over, Dennis spent $3,500 to send Nubs to Miramar Marine Corps Air Station in California, where the two are now living.

Barack Obama has done what all candidates do: he has begun the general election with an ad that introduces himself, with what is called a “character ad.” We learn what sort of public figure the candidate is, and through a discussion of this, are also told what sorts of policy actions we can expect from that candidate.

I finally forced myself to sit down and read the Institute of Education Science’s interim report on Reading First, a billion dollar a year program. If you pull it down from the web you’ll see why I had to force myself. It is written in almost incomprehensible language, which may explain why so few reporters seemed to understand that it does not prove, as so many articles have said, that Reading First has had no effect on reading.

I don’t respond to poll questions. Occasionally someone will call on the telephone, introduce him- or herself as associated with some organization I never heard of – and often saying the name of it so quickly that I can’t quite make it out – and then announce that I’m about to be asked questions about […]

In the cities of Scotland there exists a deep respect for science, as well as for members of science, art, and literary academies. In the yard at Glasgow cathedral and in the Necropolis above it, hundreds of monuments demonstrate an appreciation for the most eminent Glaswegians of the Victorian era, which included a number of physicians and scientists.

Every electoral cycle, it seems, comes the call for a restoration of “family values,” whatever they might be. This cycle is no different, and even though the golden era of the family is a myth, it is catnip to at least some voters.

Read on …