Today’s Links: March 19, 2012

OPINION

EMILY BAZELON: “Dharun Ravi Found Guilty”
“Because Tyler Clementi took his own life a few days after Ravi glimpsed him on the webcam—and the day after Ravi set up another ‘viewing party,’ which led Clementi to ask for a new roommate—this story was initially misunderstood as a parable about the outing of a closeted gay freshman. In fact, Tyler Clementi had come out to his parents before starting at Rutgers in the fall of 2010, and we still don’t know why he killed himself. ”

RICHARD EPSTEIN: “Unshackle the FDA From Rules That Kill Innovation”
“The Obama Administration often proclaims that it works overtime to strengthen the competitive position of U.S. industry. If it’s sincere about this claim, it should be working to lower the time and cost that it takes pharmaceutical companies to bring new medicines to market, estimated to be over a decade at a cost of $1.3 billion per drug.”

JORDAN WEISSMAN: “The Future of College: The Biggest Classes Are the Most Expensive”
“For a long time now, states have been telling their public colleges to do more with less. Legislators have slashed higher education budgets with abandon as enrollment has grown.  […] Santa Monica has come up with a smart, yet frustrating, solution. This week, the school announced that it would begin offering more expensive versions of its most popular courses during the summer in order to accommodate students who can’t take them during the school year. The classes will be offered at cost, since the college is providing them without any subsidy from the state. The price works out to $180 a credit — not a huge sum, but still five-times what students pay now.”

NEWS

TRANSPORTATION – UK Government to Consider Privatizing Roads
“Cameron will say in a speech that there is an urgent need to fix a ‘decades-long degradation’ of the country’s infrastructure, and that the government needs to look at ‘innovative’ ways of funding road improvements.”

SYRIA – “I Am the Real Dictator,” Declares Asma al-Assad
“Despite the ambitions she expressed for liberalising Syria before the uprising, Mrs Assad, 36, displays no misgivings about the regime’s bloody crackdown, which has accounted for most of the estimated 8,000 lives lost.”

LAW ENFORCEMENT – Police Handcuff NBC Chicago Photojournalist
“The officer who handcuffed them is recorded on camera warning members of the media that their First Amendment rights could be terminated. ‘Your First Amendment rights can be terminated if you’re creating a scene or whatever,’ the officer said.”