Last month, Japan said that even if the United Nations were to agree to ban international trade in endangered Atlantic bluefin tuna, it would ignore the agreement. “It’s a pity,” Japanese negotiator Masanori Miyahira said, “but it’s a matter of principle.”

Miyahira doesn’t have to worry. The U.N. Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (which goes by the much less cumbersome “Cites”) on Thursday voted overwhelmingly to reject the ban. Only the United States, Norway, and Kenya strongly supported the measure. Other nations, including those in the European Union, favored various softer measures.

Japan is by far the biggest customer for the species, which is often used for sushi: The country consumes about 80 percent of the annual catch.

Japan argues that Cites, despite its quite specific name and its crystal-clear mission, is the wrong one to regulate bluefin protection. The proper regulator, it says, is the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas. Groups seeking restrictions on fishing bluefin say that body favors industrial fishing operations. They have nicknamed it “The International Conspiracy To Catch all Tuna.“

Stocks of bluefin have fallen by 75 percent due to overfishing.

The Associated Press bluntly stated in its report on the vote that “economic interest at this meeting appeared to be trumping conservation.”

He focuses on three questions:

The macroeconomics of Chinese currency intervention, the fallacies of elasticity pessimism, and the political economy issue of how to deal with Chinese intransigence.

Capital Export, Elasticity Pessimism, and the Renminbi (Wonkish)

Agree or disagree?

As a result, when I go to events I try to avoid wearing a suit if I can. But sometimes not wearing a suit just feels really out of place. When you show up to a room of people in suits wearing a t-shirt and jeans, people don’t think you’re taking a brave stand on principle; they just think you’re unkempt.

Yet these things do change. In the 1950s, college kids went to class in suits and addressed their professors as sir. The 1960s changed all that. Today, at most colleges, wearing a suit to class would be the weird thing to do.

This seems like a traditional collective action problem. If one person doesn’t wear a suit, they seem weird, but if everyone doesn’t wear a suit, they’re all fine. But the idea of doing political organizing around not wearing a suit just seems bizarre. It’s hard to know who to organize — each event has a different group of people — and even if you could find the people and they agreed with you, asking folks to join a no-suit pact just seems weird.

So suits are emblematic of this strange kind of politico-cultural issue — a political question that’s not amenable to a political solution. And yet, from the 1960s, we know that these battles can be won. Does anyone know how?

“Tennessee, you are worthless!” wrote someone on Find the Shake, a real-time, user-generated tracker of McDonald’s (MCD) Shamrock Shakes. This was a response to a fellow Tennessean who had complained: “I LIVE IN A VAST SHAMROCK SHAKE-LESS WASTELAND.”

Luckier are the folks in and around remote Greenville, Ill. “Rte 127 right off of I-70,” advised a burping, green-lipped person there.

The site fills a need because McDonald’s now offers the once-ubiquitous shakes only at select locations. Peter Hartlaub of the San Francisco Chronicle says Find the Shake is “poorly designed.” Quite so. It’s also true that following the advice of a random person online is rarely a good idea. So if you’re thinking of heading to the Greenville Mickey D’s (say, from Tennessee), it’s probably a good idea to call ahead.

Given that he’s writing for a San Francisco paper, Hartlaub couldn’t help but inject some P.C. into his account. “Thank you McDonald’s,” he wrote, “for not running the marginally xenophobic commercials that we used to get in the 1980s … where everyone was talking like the Lucky Charms leprechaun, wearing cheap green hats, dancing badly and saying the word “blarney.”

Yes. Because the time has come to put a final end to marginal xenophobia, particularly when it’s aimed at the downtrodden Irish-American community.

You didn’t want to know this, but Hartlaub also gives us the stark nutritional facts on Shamrock Shakes: The 16-ounce version has 550 calories and 13 grams of fat. “But the shakes also have 13 grams of protein, which sounds sort of healthy,” he writes. “Take that, health police!”

A potential catastrophe for the U.S. sugar market was averted on Tuesday, thanks to a federal judge’s refusal to ban this year’s harvest of genetically modified sugar beets. GMO beets make up 95 percent of the crop, and sugar beets provide half the nation’s sugar.

But U.S. District Judge Jeffrey S. White in San Francisco said he still might ban future GMO crops. A hearing is scheduled for July. Several environmental groups and organic beet farmers are seeking the ban because they say the modified crops, designed by Monsanto to resist Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, cross-pollinate with organic beets. But they requested the ban too late, White said—two years after filing their lawsuit against the USDA. That lawsuit alleges that proper environmental studies were not conducted before the GMO beets were OK’d for planting. Monsanto joined the government in fighting the lawsuit. 

“An injunction that would ban the planting and processing of genetically engineered sugar beets in 2010 would have a large detrimental impact on the U.S. domestic sugar supply and price,” White said in his ruling. Since the actual harm to organic beets by cross-pollination is mostly theoretical, and considering that most farmers have already invested millions in this year’s GMO crop, White almost had to rule the way he did, despite the fact that he seems to be on the side of the organic farmers and environmental groups.

The harm to organic farmers, however, is real enough. If their crops are sullied by cross-pollination, as several crops already have been, they could lose their edge in the market, for which they (and their customers) pay a premium. There’s plenty of controversy over whether GMO crops are really harmful in any way. But plenty of people believe they are.

In September, White ruled that the USDA and other agencies must complete impact studies of GMO beets before they can be permanently approved. 

May flowers always line your path and sunshine light your day.
May songbirds serenade you every step along the way.
May a rainbow run beside you in a sky that’s always blue.
And may happiness fill your heart each day your whole life through.

And let’s end on a light note: When Irish Eyes Are Shining (turn volume down first – lyrics here). More songs here.

Past posts on this day … one more here. Enjoy the day.

Posted by: Laurel Delaney (heritage here), The Global Small Business Blog

At the NASBITE CGBP (logo pictured) site you will find information regarding how to become a NASBITE Certified Global Business Professional, the background to the project, training resources, test overview, and a practice exam. There is also a forum in which you may ask questions and share your thoughts regarding the NASBITE CGBP credential.

Regular registration closes March 31.

Take action here.

A Salon article on how many “hipsters” are using food stamps to buy a lot of foodie-friendly products (arugula, of course, is the default reference) nicely illustrates the intellectual conundrums that poverty and government welfare present, especially when it comes to food.

Most basically, what is poverty? The article doesn’t go into much detail about the backgrounds or personal finances of its twentysomething urbanites, but it’s clear that none of them would be on food stamps unless they felt they had to be. Still, they are presented as coming from “educated,” and thus presumably economically comfortable, families.

But the central problem isn’t the fact that they’re on food stamps, it’s the stuff they’re buying with them: Japanese eggplant, mint chutney, raw honey, fresh-squeezed juices, “soy meat alternatives,” and gourmet ice cream. And it’s the stores from which they procure their food: Whole Foods (WFMI), Rainbow Grocery in San Francisco, and the Wedge in Minneapolis.

This “marks an interesting shift from the classic critique that the program subsidizes diets laden with soda pop and junk food,” says Salon writer Jennifer Bleyer on Pinched, the site’s recession blog. “But from that perspective, food stamp-using foodies might be applauded for demonstrating that one can, indeed, eat healthy and make delicious home-cooked meals on a tight budget.”

As always, the answer lies somewhere between the two extremes. Whether they are unemployed single mothers or young singles with pink Chuck Taylors and experimental facial hair, the best thing food-stamp recipients can do to both avoid criticism and live more healthfully is to avoid both the gourmet mint chutney and the Funyons. And it helps to wait until you’re back on your feet before you shop at Whole Foods. You can get plenty of inexpensive, healthful foods at your Safeway (SWY) or Kroger (KR).

Or, dare I say it, at Wal-Mart (WMT). You can always say you’re doing it ironically. 

What do you get when you hire consultants? You get a four-year-long campaign to convince beer drinkers of your product’s “drinkability.” A campaign that failed miserably, because, as the marketing executives at Anheuser-Busch (BUD) should have asked: Shouldn’t we assume drinkability, and work from there?

But they didn’t ask that; rather, they slavishly followed Cambridge Group’s advice to make “drinkability” the focus of A-B’s campaign for Bud Light, which according to Advertising Age is “considered a major factor in Bud Light posting the first full-year sales decline in its history.”

What’s interesting about Ad Age’s examination of the now-abandoned campaign is that the reporter, Jeremy Mullman, doesn’t even really address what was wrong with it. He just assumes as an obvious fact that if you have to market your liquid beverage as “drinkable,” you’re already behind.

Rather, Mullman takes on the question of whether consultants should even be involved in creating marketing campaigns, and if they are, how much power they should have. As I’ve seen close-up in several of the news media organizations I’ve worked for, overreliance on consultants (and focus groups) is the bane of any creative business. It happens because in-house managers (or editors) want to cover their asses. Hiring a consultant is a good way to outsource responsibility. If things go wrong, you can blame the consultant–hey, you followed the report!. But if they go right, you still look good–you hired the consultant!

Ad Age says fear-driven marketing executives, “skating on ever-thinner ice, are trying to bring a more scientific approach to a discipline traditionally heavily reliant on gut calls.” But science goes only so far in a business that relies on human connection. Gut calls can be risky, but business relies on risk for success. More importantly, gut calls are human. Consultants’ reports aren’t.

Consultants and focus groups can be helpful for things like analyzing demographics and forecasting trends. But when it comes time to actually communicate with people, you have to leave the science behind. People don’t respond to meaningless marketing jargon like “drinkability,” they respond to genuine communication. If “drinkability” is supposed to mean “tastes good” (is it? I’m still not sure), then find an effective way to tell beer drinkers that your beer tastes good. Miller Lite did that, and even managed to add a second concept, and “Tastes Great, Less Filling” became one of the most effective ad campaigns in history. Human communication, using simple language.