Tornado Alley (PROG)

[DesertDrifter]

the initiatives on the CA ballot certainly are a jumble. Even with the information supplied to me here, i thought i had it covered, but forgot my crib sheet. Suddenly i was confronted with multiple initiatives about mostly the same thing, schools and money, some lawerly attempts at squeezing more money for the insurance companies, and the most puzzling one to me, the GMO thing.

First off, i really don't like genetic engineering in regards to pesticide resistance and with airtight patents that prevent one from using one's own seeds after growing them. Nix on that.
But the term "genetically modified" needs to be more narrowly defined for me to buy fully into it.
I do not do gene splicing to alter my plants in my breeding experiments, but i have used colchocine to cause mutations so that i can select the favorable traits that occur.
It too, is genetic modification.
Artificial selection such as how mutations were captured to create Dalmations and Chihuahuas is also GMO.

Maybe if it was called gene splicing modifications i could buy it. But then i am reminded of the gene spliced into strawberries to increase resistance to frost... Or maybe i am just over-thinking it... if i think of it as the "Monsanto sucks" initiative, i then have no qualms of pulling the lever against it.