395 years ago on this date in 1517, Martin Luther posted the 95 Theses on the door of the Wittenberg Palace church, marking the start of the Protestant Reformation in Germany.

October 31 ...

In 1517 Martin Luther posted the 95 Theses on the door of the Wittenberg Palace church, marking the start of the Protestant Reformation in Germany. In 1795 English poet John Keats was born in London. In 1864 Nevada became the 36th state. In 1941 the US Navy destroyer Reuben James was torpedoed by a German U-boat off Iceland with the loss of 115 lives, even though the US had not yet entered World War II. In 1955 Britain's Princess Margaret ended weeks of speculation by announcing she would not marry Royal Air Force Captain Peter Townsend. In 1968 President Johnson ordered a halt to all US bombing of North Vietnam, saying he hoped for fruitful peace negotiations. In 1980 Reza Pahlavi, eldest son of the late shah of Iran, proclaimed himself the rightful successor to the Peacock Throne. In 1984 Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by two Sikh security guards. In 2000 American astronaut Bill Shepherd and two Russian cosmonauts rocketed into orbit aboard a Soyuz rocket on a quest to become the first residents of the international space station.

October 30 ...

In 1735 the second president of the United States, John Adams, was born in Braintree, MA. In 1938 the radio play The War of the Worlds, starring Orson Welles, aired on CBS. (The live drama, which employed fake news reports, panicked some listeners who thought its portrayal of a Martian invasion was true.) In 1945 the US government announced the end of shoe rationing. In 1953 Gen. George C. Marshall was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Dr. Albert Schweitzer received the Peace Prize for 1952. In 1961 the Soviet Union tested a hydrogen bomb with a force estimated at 58 megatons; also on this day, the Soviet Party Congress unanimously approved a resolution ordering the removal of Josef Stalin's body from Lenin's tomb. In 1975 the New York Daily News ran the headline "Ford to City: Drop Dead" a day after President Ford said he would veto any proposed federal bailout of New York City. In 1995 Federalists prevailed over separatists in Quebec in a secession referendum by a vote of 50.6 percent to 49.4 percent. In 2004 the decapitated body of a Japanese backpacker (Shosei Koda) was found wrapped in an American flag in northwestern Baghdad; the militant group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi later claimed responsibility.

October 29 ...

In 1682 the founder of Pennsylvania, William Penn, landed at what is now Chester, PA. In 1901 President McKinley's assassin, Leon Czolgosz, was electrocuted. In 1923 the Republic of Turkey was proclaimed. In 1929 on Black Tuesday, prices collapsed amid panic selling and thousands of investors were wiped out as America's Great Depression began. In 1947 former first lady Frances Cleveland Preston died in Baltimore at age 83. In 1956 during the Suez Canal crisis, Israel launched an invasion of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. In 1966 the National Organization for Women was founded. In 1969 the precursor to the Internet was created when the first computer-to-computer link was established on the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET). In 1979 on the 50th anniversary of the great stock market crash, anti-nuclear protesters tried but failed to shut down the New York Stock Exchange. In 1998 Sen. John Glenn, at age 77, went back into space aboard the shuttle Discovery. In 2004 in a videotaped statement broadcast on al Jazeera, Osama bin Laden directly admitted for the first time that he'd ordered the Sept. 11 attacks and told America "the best way to avoid another Manhattan" was to stop threatening Muslims' security; also on this day, European Union leaders signed the EU's first constitution.

October 28 ...

In 1636 Harvard College was founded in Massachusetts. In 1793 Eli Whitney applied for a patent for his cotton gin (the patent was granted the following March). In 1886 the Statue of Liberty, a gift from the people of France, was dedicated in New York Harbor by President Cleveland. In 1919 Congress enacted the Volstead Act, which provided for enforcement of Prohibition, over President Wilson's veto. In 1922 Benito Mussolini and his Fascist Party took control of the Italian government. In 1936 President Roosevelt rededicated the Statue of Liberty on its 50th anniversary. In 1940 Italy invaded Greece during World War II. In 1958 the Roman Catholic patriarch of Venice, Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, was elected Pope; he took the name John XXIII. In 1962 Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev informed the US that he had ordered the dismantling of Soviet missile bases in Cuba. In 1980 President Carter and Republican presidential nominee Ronald Reagan faced off in a nationally broadcast, 90-minute debate in Cleveland.

225 years ago on this date in 1787, the first of the Federalist Papers, a series of essays calling for ratification of the United States Constitution, was published in a New York newspaper.

October 27 ...

In 1505 the Grand Duke of Moscow, Ivan III (also known as "Ivan the Great"), died; he was succeeded by his son, Vasily III. (Vasily's son, Ivan IV, later became the first czar of Russia, "Ivan the Terrible.") In 1787 the first of the Federalist Papers, a series of essays calling for ratification of the United States Constitution, was published in a New York newspaper. The series of 85 essays, written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, were published under the pen name "Publius." In 1858 the 26th president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, was born in New York City. In 1880 Theodore Roosevelt married Alice Lee. In 1904 the first rapid transit subway, the IRT, was inaugurated in New York City. In 1938 Du Pont announced a name for its new synthetic yarn: "nylon." In 1947 You Bet Your Life, starring Groucho Marx, premiered on ABC Radio. (It later became a television show on NBC.) In 1967 Expo '67 closed in Montreal, Canada. In 1978 Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin were named winners of the Nobel Peace Prize for their progress toward achieving a Middle East accord. In 1986 the New York Mets won the World Series, coming from behind to defeat the Boston Red Sox at Shea Stadium, 8-5, in Game 7. In 2004 the Boston Red Sox won their first World Series since 1918, sweeping the St. Louis Cardinals by winning Game 4, 3-0.

October 26 ...

In 1774 the First Continental Congress adjourned in Philadelphia. In 1825 the Erie Canal opened in upstate New York, connecting Lake Erie and the Hudson River. In 1881 the "Gunfight at the OK Corral" took place in Tombstone, AZ, as Wyatt Earp, his two brothers, and "Doc" Holliday confronted Ike Clanton's gang. Three members of Clanton's gang were killed; Earp's brothers were wounded. In 1905 Norway gained independence from Sweden. In 1951 Winston Churchill became prime minister of Great Britain for the second time. In 1958 Pan American Airways flew its first Boeing 707 jetliner from New York to Paris in eight hours and 41 minutes. In 1967 the Shah of Iran crowned himself and his queen after 26 years on the Peacock Throne. In 1972 national security adviser Henry Kissinger declared, "Peace is at hand" in Vietnam. In 1975 Anwar Sadat became the first Egyptian president to pay an official visit to the US. In 1977 the experimental space shuttle Enterprise glided to a bumpy but successful landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California. In 1979 South Korean President Park Chung-hee was shot to death by Kim Jae-kyu, the head of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency. In 1994 Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of Israel and Prime Minister Abdel Salam Majali of Jordan signed a peace treaty during a ceremony at the Israeli-Jordanian border attended by President Clinton. In 1995 the US House passed, 227-203, a Republican balanced-budget bill aimed at shrinking the federal government, cutting taxes and returning power to the states. In 2004 the final vote count in the Afghan presidential election gave a sounding victory to interim leader Hamid Karzai.

October 25 ...

In 1400 author Geoffrey Chaucer died in London. In 1415 England won the Battle of Agincourt (in northern France) over France during the Hundred Years' War. Almost 6000 Frenchmen were killed while fewer than 400 were lost by the English. In 1760 Britain's King George III succeeded his late grandfather, George II. In 1854 the "Charge of the Light Brigade" took place during the Crimean War as an English brigade of more than 600 men, facing hopeless odds, charged the Russian army during the Battle of Balaclava and suffered heavy losses. In 1881 Pablo Picasso was born in Malaga, Spain. In 1918 the Canadian steamship Princess Sophia foundered off the coast of Alaska; nearly 400 people perished. In 1929 former Interior Secretary Albert B. Fall was convicted of accepting a $100,000 bribe in connection with the Elk Hills Naval Oil Reserve in California, in the Harding Administration scandal known as "Teapot Dome." In 1936 Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini signed a treaty creating the Rome-Berlin Axis. In 1962 US ambassador Adlai E. Stevenson presented photographic evidence of Soviet missile bases in Cuba to the UN Security Council. In 1971 the UN General Assembly voted to admit mainland China and expel Taiwan. In 1983 a US-led force invaded Grenada at the order of President Reagan, who said the action was needed to protect US citizens there. In 2000 divers found and removed the first bodies from the wreckage of the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk, which sank in the Barents Sea on Aug. 12, 2000, with the loss of all 118 sailors aboard. In 2004 the US Supreme Court announced that Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist had thyroid cancer.

When one describes a political victory in these terms, one, um, might have a problem....

Andrew Sullivan:

I remember musing earlier this year - and this is not Captain Hindsight speaking - that Obama's problem might be motivating his base after the ecstasy of 2008. A sense that Romney could actually win - a period when Romney was ahead in the polls - might actually help Obama fight complacency. Here's hoping it does.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the embodiment of a corrupt and scummy political ideology.

October 24 ...

In 1537 Jane Seymour, the third wife of England's King Henry VIII, died 12 days after giving birth to Prince Edward, later King Edward VI. In 1861 the first transcontinental telegraph message was sent as Justice Stephen J. Field of California transmitted a telegram to President Lincoln. In 1931 the George Washington Bridge, connecting New York and New Jersey, opened to traffic. In 1939 nylon stockings were sold publicly for the first time, in Wilmington, DE. In 1940 the 40-hour work week went into effect under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. In 1945 the United Nations officially came into existence as its charter took effect. In 1962 the US blockade of Cuba during the missile crisis officially began under a proclamation signed by President Kennedy. In 1980 the merchant freighter SS Poet departed Philadelphia bound for Port Said, Egypt, with a crew of 34 and a cargo of grain; it disappeared en route. In 2001 NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft successfully entered orbit around Mars. In 2002 Army veteran John Allen Muhammad and teenager Lee Boyd Malvo were arrested in connection with the Washington-area sniper attacks.

From Democratic Underground: (via Instapundit)

Let's say that you have the ability to print your currency using your computer printer, and every merchant accepted your printouts as a valid exchange for goods and services. You need to pick up your dry cleaning? You printout a $20 bill and your cleaners hand over your garments without question. Same would be true for your mortgage, groceries, car note, etc. Your creditors even accept your printouts as payment on your debts.

Given this, how can you ever be broke? Answer, you cannot be broke. The U.S. government is not in debt simply because it can create currency to pay off the debt, and our creditors gladly accept our currency as payment on our debts. You see, the world needs our dollars because the world needs oil, and in order to buy oil, you need dollars, which means that the world needs to stockpile dollars, and that means that the U.S. can print all of the money that it wants without incurring massive hikes in interest rates to attract lenders.

October 23 ...

In 1861 President Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus in Washington, DC, for all military-related cases; Lincoln had suspended habeas corpus in Maryland and parts of midwestern states, including southern Indiana, the previous April. The next year, Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus in the entire country. In 1863 Congress passed the Habeas Corpus Act, formally suspending the writ of habeas corpus in the US. In 1864 forces led by Union Gen. Samuel R. Curtis defeated Confederate Gen. Stirling Price's army in Missouri. In 1915 25,000 women marched in New York City, demanding the right to vote. In 1929 the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged, starting the stock-market crash that began the Great Depression. In 1942 Britain launched a major offensive against Axis forces at El Alamein in Egypt. In 1944 the World War II Battle of Leyte Gulf began. In 1946 the United Nations General Assembly convened in New York for the first time, at an auditorium in Flushing Meadow. In 1956 an anti-Stalinist revolt that was subsequently crushed by Soviet troops began in Hungary. In 1973 President Nixon agreed to turn over White House tape recordings requested by the Watergate special prosecutor to Judge John J. Sirica. In 1980 the resignation of Soviet Premier Alexei N. Kosygin was announced. In 1983 241 US Marines and sailors in Lebanon were killed in a suicide truck-bombing at Beirut International Airport; a near-simultaneous attack on French forces killed 58 paratroopers. Both attacks were carried out by radical Islamist terrorist group Hezbollah, which was sponsored by Iran and Syria. In 1987 the US Senate rejected, 58-42, the Supreme Court nomination of Robert H. Bork. In 1998 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Chairman Yasser Arafat reach a "land-for-peace" agreement. In 2004 gunmen ambushed a group of US-trained Iraqi soldiers on a road east of Baghdad; around 50 of the soldiers, who were unarmed, were killed execution-style.

Robert Samuelson:

... Obamacare's relentless march to full-fledged introduction in 2014 demonstrates that, for all its good intentions, it will make the health care system more confusing (see above), costly and contentious. It won't control health spending -- the system's main problem -- and will weaken job creation.
...

The argument about Obamacare is often framed as a moral issue. It's the caring and compassionate against the cruel and heartless. That's the rhetoric; the reality is different. Many of us who oppose Obamacare don't do so because we enjoy seeing people suffer. We believe that, in an ideal world, everyone would have insurance. But we also think that Obamacare has huge drawbacks that outweigh its plausible benefits.

It creates powerful pressures against companies hiring full-time workers -- precisely the wrong approach after the worst economic slump since the Depression. There will be more bewildering regulations, more regulatory uncertainties, more unintended side effects and more disappointments. A costly and opaque system will become more so.