A post inspired by a relatively recent visit to the dentist to get some cavities fixed. Shudder. And, yes, I knew these things before, but the correlation is fun and soothing to my dentist-fearing soul.

1. Improvement comes from pain. It may be physical pain or emotional pain or spiritual pain, but when it is over – after you have been through the refiner’s fire – you are closer than you were before to wisdom and charity and perfection.

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OK, I’ll admit up front that this post has precious little connection to LDS matters. But hear me out.

Have either the Democrats or the Republicans learned nothing from the last few years? Back in 94 and then slowly over the following years Democrats lost strong control of the legislative branches of government. A lot of that was due to a perception of elitism, corruption, and out of control spending and growth of government. There was a real perception that they sought power for power’s sake. Then Republicans got in power and quickly did exactly the same thing Democrats did. Corruption, expansion of government, and earmarks “bribing” their constituents. They were justifiably thrown out.

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As some of you may remember, I took my 6 PhD comprehensive exams last December and passed five. I retook the sixth in June, and must take it for the last time on Fri. December 8th. If the department follows the rules strictly, this exam must be passed on this attempt, or else I’m out of the program.

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[This post was written by Elizabeth Pack Mansfield, my wife.]

Up till now my online blogging comments have all been through my husband John; however, he asked me to write about an experience I had in teaching seminary this week. As a background, I grew up in a family in which Mormon apologetics was constantly being discussed. In a town said to have the most PhDs per capita, my father was the one in the ward and stake that the missionaries would bring their difficult investigators to.

As an adult I have had some ongoing interest in the subject both in personal research and discussions with non-members. I have often wondered why the answers to common anti-Mormon attacks were not more publicly discussed at church and why missionaries in the MTC were given no training in responding to these attacks. (Frequently missionaries in my Munich Germany mission would give wrong answers to these questions, providing the person with an answer based on false information or false doctrine.)

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Has been very, very weak so far. Despite still being on of the best shows on TV.

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…keep on associating the party with anti-immigrant nativism. Thankfully, the president has always supported reasonable immigration reform, and so has California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, one of the biggest Republican winners in the debacle of 2006.

Take a look at these points in this Michael Medved column:

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Regular visitors to M* will have noticed lately that we were out of service for several days last week. In addition, there was a time that we considered shutting down the site for several reasons. Since then, we have gotten some additional technical support and another permablogger. We will be attempting to move to a new server. So, service may continue to be spotty.

Here is the bottom line: we are trying to keep M* going. We are optimistic we will be able to for the next few months. Keep on signing on to see how things progress.

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Tuesday, the Democrats take Congress. Wednesday, Donald Rumsfeld resigns. And Millennial Star goes dark. We say we’re too busy to keep the site up. Really, we’re avoiding subpoenas from Mrs. Pelosi.

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Thinking about becoming a U.S. citizen? The application for naturalization has basically normal questions. One, however, caught my eye. In the section to determine if the applicant is “of good moral characterâ€, the question is asked, “Have you ever persecuted (either directly or indirectly) any person because of race, religion, national origin, membership in a particular social group or political opinion?â€

According to the application instructions this and the other questions in the section (mostly about taxes and plans to overthrow the government) will be used “to determine your eligibility for citizenship.â€

So how bad of an anti-Mormon do you have to be before you can’t be a U.S. citizen?

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Famed LDS author and Democrat Orson Scott Card writes that Tuesday’s election only has one issue: the war on terror. I couldn’t help but think of the Ender’s Game books as I read Card’s analysis. (Did you know that some middle schools, military schools and high schools have Ender’s Game as required reading?)

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