I promised myself I'd largely stay out of the FISA fight, I really did. I promised myself that I'd largely stay out of it except for commenting in a couple places.

And yet I can't not any more. Not after logging on and seeing yet another couple of melodramatic diaries topping the recomended list.

I apologize in advance because I am no longer going to mince my words, or even attempt to be mindful of other's feelings. Attack me for my thoughts if you must, call me names if you must but the fact is that a lot of people here are acting like Chicken Little and not only is it not helpful but it's destructive.

So for those that are reading this for the first time, a brief catch up. This is going to be about my own personal experiences with Buddhism, for those a little unsure about Buddhism I've already written 2 brief primers, one about the history of the man known as the Buddha (here) and another about the core Buddhist teachings (here).

As I have said in the previous dairies, there is plenty more about Buddhism and the Buddha that I'm not covering and I encourage those interested to look up authors like Pema Chodron, The Dali Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh among many others.

Yesterday I discussed the history of the man known as Siddharth Gautauma who would later in life be known as the Buddha (see here)

Now the history of the Buddha of course stretches well past his awakening and it is a rich and interesting one and I would highly reccomend people read about it. But for purposes of space I'm going to largely ignore that part of the Buddha's life; not because it's not important but because his life as the Buddha can best be summerized by his teachings.

As a precursor to those fellow Buddhists and to those curious I'm will only discuss what I view are the essential, central teachings of Buddhism (which includes the fundmental defintion of how you define yourself as a Buddhist, the 4 noble truths, the eight fold path). This is another concession to space.

I realize there are other teachings, but as it is discussing every possible teaching of Buddhism with it's many variant sects would take several books and so I chose as best I could.

I don't really as a rule do personal diaries, but I'm so sick of the hand wringing, teeth gashing, second guessing and over all wailing about FISA, Clark and Obama.

So here I am writing something different, even personal in the perhaps vain hope that it will get people to talk and write about something new.

Having thought about the complexity and volume of the issue, I am going to break up this discussion about Buddhism into a couple parts

So follow me below the fold and learn about Buddhism and me.

edit: Orginally the plan was to write all about me and Buddhism at once but that was not pratical and I didn't want to assume everyone knows the history and teachings of Buddhism.

Thus the first part here is just the history, tomorrow (or rather that's my goal) I will go into the teachings and then on Thursday will be my experiences as by then I'll hopefully have laid enough background to talk about Buddhism without confusing people or telling them to go else where to read about it

To start let me just say that the recent dairies here seem to be verging on obcession with FISA and Obama's role in it.

Which most times wouldn't be a bad thing, except here Obama's vote and the passing of the bill hasn't even happened yet.

And that is the point at which I really don't get the lengths people have gone to.

I've been reading what alot of people are saying about Sen Clinton lately and I'm struck by just how vengeful people seem to be.

But I have to confess, I think people are taking it completely too far.

Before the comments start, I am not a Clinton supporter, I voted for Obama in Missouri's primairy, have donated and hell I even tried canvasing on my own for him in the middle of rural Missouri.

But all that said I really think people are engaging in the exact behavior that should be avoided

I'd like to show a story with my fellow kossacks, it's a personal story and I know it's completely hearsay but I also think it in a nutshell shows not only why Sen Clinton is losing this contest but shouldn't be the nominee.

What I'd like to talk about with my fellow kossacks is my family and specifically my dad.

There's been alot of talking going on about how the Democrats are hurting themselves, how McCain is laughing at the Democrats, how the GOP is just eating this up as they sit back and enjoy the chaos.

Maybe to an extent they are, but at the same time maybe they aren't. One thing I noticed about the GOP polls tonight, something that so far hasn't been remarked on is the possible trouble John McCain is still having unifying his party. More after the jump