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Bertha Henson 8 May 2026 "I wouldm't even mind a lecture on what should be in the law and what can be up to executive discretion or put as 'regulations' - if the G is inclined to give it. Or the AGC. Or the opposition. Or any lawyer." Following an internal review, the government found that certain agencies of the Ministry of National Development (HDB, URA, NParks, BCA) have collected certain fees for decades which have not been anchored in legislation. Parliament passed a legislation to retroactively validate these collections.  The government took a "rule-by-law" (legality) argument that the fees were charged in good faith, services were genuinely provided, costs were genuinely incurred, and the issue was more one of legal formality or technical basis rather than wrongful enrichment. The opposition Workers' Party took the "rule-of-law" argument that if the fees lacked legislative authority, then on what basis were Singaporeans compe...

"Corrupt Legislation" (1896) is a mural by Elihu Vedder located in the Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building lobby in Washington, D.C. It is a symbolic, allegorical depiction of corruption in government. How many signs can you see? It's not Lady Justice holding the scale but an ambiguous, morally compromised figure. The scale is only one half - justice is not balanced. A rich figure places money on the scale. A youth asking for work or help - the ordinary guy ignored by a corrupt system. At it's core the mural is a critique of how law can be captured by power and money. In my previous post on the hooks vs laws relating to the Bloomberg defamation trial  I made the point some people form their opinion from fragmented information flows where short, striking details travel further than full explanations ever can. Folks perhaps cannot comprehend the complexities, or too lazy to check and verify, succumb to cognitive bias and believe the constructed narra...

On Mayday something shifted -- quietly, but potentially decisively. The United Arab Emirates exits the orbit of Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. This is not just going to be an oil story. It is the beginning of a deeper transition from energy geopolitics to financial geopolitics. This is not about oil power. It’s about financial power. Something fundamental is about to shift and there isn't much conversation about it. The Structural Tension Inside OPEC For years, the UAE has been sitting on a contradiction. It has invested billions into upstream capacity. It has one of the largest untapped production buffers in the world. Yet its output is constrained by quota discipline led by Saudi Arabia. That tension matters. OPEC’s model is simple: restrict supply, support prices. But for a country like the UAE, that model increasingly looks like a tax on its own investments. UAE has production capacity of 4.8 million bpd, but production is capped by OPEC quota at 3...

The term "missing the wood for the trees", means being too focused on small details to understand the larger, important situation. It describes losing perspective by getting bogged down in minor aspects, forgetting the overall goal or purpose. In the ongoing public attention around the Bloomberg-related dispute, most Singaporeans are not debating defamation law, evidentiary standards, or journalistic responsibility. They are not debating the case, but getting stuck on the hooks. Missing the wood for the trees is analytical error within the system. Getting stuck on hooks is narrative substitution of the system. If someone has misread detailed evidence, you can point them to better evidence, or logic. If someone has internalised a narrative built on hooks, you're not just correcting "facts" -- you're challenging a story that already makes sense to them. Once a person is stuck on hooks, he sidelines the rules of the game altogether. Once hooks take hol...

This is a follow-up to my earlier post "Is Singapore disadvantaged by the FTA with the US?" In his criticism of the US-SG FTA, Foong Swee Foong says it is simply ".. the transfer of parts between the two countries, the so-called supply chain, taking advantage of the zero tariffs and ease of custom procedures." He sees no value-adding, just parts moving around. During the 1990's Seagate Singapore was the biggest disk drive producer in the world. In Seagate’s hard disk drive (HDD) manufacturing ecosystem, production is distributed across a multi-tiered supply chain involving contract manufacturers and specialised service vendors. Component fabrication begins at contract manufacturing facilities, where primary structural parts are produced using processes such as metal casting, forming, or die casting, depending on the component specification. These semi-finished components are then routed to specialised subcontracted service providers for secondary proces...

Trump does not know what he is doing. He went to war with Iran with no plans. Everyone knows how the Zionists control the White House. Bibi Netanyahu forced, persuaded, or deceived (take your pick) Trump to attack Iran. NATO countries refused Trump's request to join in the fight. Iran surprised everyone with their resilence and brilliant counter-attacks in an asymmetric war with cheap drones and missiles, draining US and Israel financially. With their hold over the Hormuz Strait, Iran has the US cornered into a forever war that American public and Congress have no stomach for. Trump is now stuck and begging for a way out. You have obviously been bombarded with this kind of "news". It demonstrates which side has won the propaganda war. This is just background, not the core of what I wish to write about. However, in passing, I will answer rhetorics with rhetorics. The idea the US entered the war with no plans is a refusal to understand the scale of achievements rela...