Look, I didn't vote for our President in 2008. But I was wrong about him. He's got Moxie. He's Human. He's just as tough as his scary-as-hell wife. And, forced to a one-night stand with European-style statism, he got back on the regular bus before any of us really missed him, or got too hysterical. Nicely done. Magic, really.

I will vote for him in 2012. He's truly a transformational figure--and he grows in office every day.

MSNBC caption: "Obama fires fluffy missile, calls for education funding boost." (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

Charles J. H. Dickens (February 7, 1812 – June 9, 1870)

Lawyers--especially of the corporate variety--are far from the Fighters and Alpha People portrayed in Television Dramas and in the Media.

We're among the most Fearful and Insecure Creatures on Earth.

If you find this performance review idea preposterous, please ask yourself why. We first mentioned the title's idea in a 2006 post. It attracted attention--but many people thought we were kidding. We weren't.

Some lawyer-writers tried to even analyze it, which was strange, and kind of sad. Lawyers--after actors, junior high kids at that first dance, and aging beauty queens just discovering pharmaceutical speed--have to be the most insecure creatures on earth. They think in terms of scarcity--never in terms of plenty.

Someone else is about to get something that is theirs.

The personable, cheerful Vazquez Mota invited party members to help her beat the telegenic and handsome Pena Nieto, who is married to a glamorous telenovela star.

"We begin a new road," said Vazquez Mota. "A road to defeat the real adversary of Mexico, who embodies authoritarianism and the worst antidemocratic practices; who represents the way back to corruption and offers impunity as a conviction. The adversary is Pena Nieto and his party."

Vazquez Mota is considered the PRI's strongest challenger, though Mexican voters seem weary of the ruling National Action Party which has governed for 11 years. Delegates are betting that a woman candidate could boost party appeal.

"It injects a certain new note of uncertainty. There's never been a strong female presidential candidate for any other major party before," said Eric Olson, a senior associate at the Woodrow Wilson Center's Mexico Institute. "It adds that historical element and maybe some excitement."

AP Photo

Cultural ties matter in business because they lower transaction costs. Tribal loyalty fosters trust. Cultural affinity supercharges communication. Reading a contract is useful, but you also need to be able to read people.

Even as free trade and electronic communications bring the world closer together, kinship still counts. Indians in Silicon Valley team up with other Indians; Chinese-Americans do business with Taiwan and Shanghai.

One of the most vibrant cultural networks is also one of the oldest: the Sinosphere. China’s growing might is reinforced by its links with the overseas Chinese. Some 70m ethnic Chinese live outside mainland China. Some are descended from those who moved abroad during China’s imperial expansion from the 12th to the 15th centuries, settling in what are now Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia and Myanmar. More recently, many fled to escape the horrors of Maoism, or to seek a better life in America or another rich country. Together they connect China to every corner of the world.

Graphic: Brett Ryder/The Economist

South Africa failed in its bid to secure control of the African Union’s top decision-making body, setting back its plan for the continental organization to play a more forceful role in global politics.

South African Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma didn’t win enough support in [Monday's] election in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for head of the AU Commission. The incumbent, Jean Ping, who failed to secure two-thirds of the vote to win a second term, will remain in the position until the next AU summit in June, his spokesman, Noureddine Mezni, said.

It’s “embarrassing for South Africa that it has not been able to carry a majority,” Daniel Silke, an independent political analyst who has advised Telkom South Africa Ltd. (TKG) and Sanlam Ltd. (SLM), said in a phone interview from Cape Town. “It clearly shows South Africa will have to do some targeted lobbying in the run-up to any future elections.”

When I want to read a good book, I write one.

--Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)

The Tyrolean Mrs. Oliver can fix anything.

If you are truly service-driven for corporate clients, you live it, breathe it, get it. And all your employees do. It's not a ruse you lay on clients to get new work through the door because you need a new one-night stand to make ends meet, or because it sounds good (i.e., you and yours are could care less about clients, and are in fact the "Eddie Haskells" of client service; yet "client service" must be in your promotional materials and it's cool these days to make even specious noises about it). Instead, you know that "doing the work is marketing". For you, keeping good clients is a passion, preoccupation, a religion. It's not just for show.

Here's an idea for lawyers who are serious about service:

In many business litigations your firm has opportunities to isolate and bring to the client's attention "areas for improvement" highlighted in litigation. Your trial lawyers make mental notes about how lawsuits either arise or are made complicated and expensive by conditions, procedures or documents which need corrective action at the client's shop.

The Betty Boop, Niewezijds Kolk.

What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.

--Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says Canada's national interest makes the $5.5 billion pipeline [a non-American one now seriously being discussed in Canada] essential. He was "profoundly disappointed" that U.S. President Barack Obama rejected the Texas Keystone XL option but also spoke of the need to diversify Canada's oil industry. Ninety-seven percent of Canadian oil exports now go to the U.S.

"I think what's happened around the Keystone is a wake-up call, the degree to which we are dependent or possibly held hostage to decisions in the United States, and especially decisions that may be made for very bad political reasons," he told Canadian TV.

Alberta has the world's third-largest oil reserves after Saudi Arabia and Venezuela: more than 170 billion barrels. Daily production of 1.5 million barrels from the oil sands is expected to increase to 3.7 million in 2025, which the oil industry sees as a pressing reason to build the pipelines.

Meanwhile, China's growing economy is hungry for Canadian oil. Chinese state-owned companies have invested more than $16 billion in Canadian energy in the past two years, state-controlled Sinopec has a stake in the pipeline, and if it is built, Chinese investment in Alberta oil sands is sure to boom.