You can drive from Baltimore to DC and back without noticing that you have a flat tire?

Actually I have done precisely that, but it was a rear tire on a front-wheel drive. Only noticed a problem when listening to AM radio and hearing a "click-click-click" when going at low speeds. That was the nail in my tire hitting the road and shorting out the static building up from the tire rubbing.

Indian Constitution Article 21: "Protection of life and personal liberty. No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law."

Note that the phrase "due process" is not in the Indian Constitution. For more information on why it was replaced with "according to procedure", see this reference.

In what way? Is private enterprise disallowed? Do workers own the means of production?

There is a big difference between France which rates "Moderately Unfree" on the Index of Economic Freedom and say Denmark which ranks "Mostly Free".

In France there is far more labor regulation and price controls. France also puts far more regulation on mergers & acquisitions, especially foreign ones. France also maintains a large number of state owned enterprises with stakes in telecommunications, media, aerospace, automobile, and other industries.

Of course France is also nothing like Belarus with Soviet-era state ownership of land and government-controlled collective farming.

I am a citizen of a third world country myself (India)

India is a socialist country. It is much less socialist since the 1980's and the beginning of economic reform of the "permit raj", but it is still rated "Mostly Unfree" on the Index of Economic Freedom.

We will see if Mr. Modi can continue the free market reforms.

From the article, it sounds like CVUSD isn't an independent organization.

CVUSD is an independent organization. It put "Measure X" on the ballot in 2012 to raise $41 million for iPads. 66% voted "Yes".

CVUSD board members are elected, including Juanita Duarte, a three-term board member who is facing trial on charges of embezzlement, and Anna Lisa Vargas, a soft-spoken freshman board member who was targeted by a recall effort last year.

CVUSD is also laying off 147 workers including pre-school teachers to avoid bankruptcy.

Given iPads are like $400-500 each

A used iPad1 can be had for $100-$150.

Of course, I'd be more up for purchasing these if the particular school district did a randomized test of their effectiveness.

The majority of those on board were Chinese... Basically Russia's only ally in this whole mess. Things are about to get very interesting.

In the era before Sina Weibo, the Chinese Communist Party had no problem sacrificing Chinese people for political objectives. Keep in mind that the Chinese have their own potential breakaway areas, and are loath to agree that the global world should have any say in domestic affairs. We'll have to see whether that has changed with the Interwebzors...

Or in 2001 when the Ukraine military accidentally shot down a Russian airliner.

The "People's Republic of Austin" as it is derisively called here is the most "progressive" city in Texas

Yeah, the state income tax rate in Texas is 0.0%. Oh my, quite progressive.

In Silicon Valley, for earnings between $49,774.00 and $254,250, you'll pay 9.3% income tax, and highest earners pay 12.3%.

You can carry an unregistered, concealed firearm in Austin. You can't in San Jose, and you'll need to register your handgun there as well (so it can be confiscated later :)

In libertarian world negative externalities are paid by those who are stuck with them

See Free-Market Environmentalism.

In most of Europe, the "economically conservative but socially liberal" parties have economic policies to he left of the Democrats

Switzerland, Ireland, Estonia, and Denmark are now ranked more "Economically Free" than the US by the Heritage Index of Economic Freedom.

For example, government spending accounts for 33.8% of the economy of Switzerland, 40% for the US.

given the overwhelming historical association between "liber"tarian ideology and slavery

That is complete BS. The libertarian ideology and associated economic-centric thought has always been against slavery.

Indeed, the term "the dismal science" in reference to economics first occurs in Thomas Carlyle's 1849 tract entitled "Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question", where he found it was "dismal" in "find[ing] the secret of this Universe in 'supply and demand,' and reducing the duty of human governors to that of letting men alone." Instead, Carlyle felt that the "idle Black man in the West Indies" should be "compelled to work as he was fit, and to do the Maker's will who had constructed him." Carlyle's view was attacked by early libertarians such as John Stuart Mill (whose "On Liberty" addresses the nature and limits of the power that can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual.)

But the philosophical core of the region and the tech industry remains fundamentally progressive. That's why it remains the king despite decades of conservative "small government" states desperately trying and failing to replicate it on any remotely competitive scale.

San Jose became a tech hub because of Stanford (a private university) and Moffett Field (military spending on radio and later aerospace technology). It is unclear to me that "progressive" economic policies had much to do with it. If anything, the annoying level of government control over building (i.e. artificially inflated house prices) and horrific public schools of Silicon Valley are a huge negative (I would never work there without a pay rise to afford private school for my kids, for example), not to mention the high level of taxation on high income workers for California state income tax.

There are of course other tech hubs in the country, including Austin, TX (home of Dell), where "normal" workers can afford housing. And every major company that may have been founded or has headquarters in Silicon Valley tend to have operations in other parts of the US or the world.

Greed is a disease more deadly than heroin, hardening your heart and turning you into a right-wing monster, driven to amassing ever more power and lucre until you feel absolutely justified in bending society itself to your warped, dystopian world view. Rockefeller, Walton, Koch, Ellison, Zuckerberg; all the same fuckers.

On the other hand, using "hate of greed" as a political weapon actually kills tens of millions of people, Mao (Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution) , Pol Pot (Killing Fields), Stalin (Holodomor).

As opposed to bringing you cheaper oil (Rockefeller), cheaper retail products (Walton), better mechanisms for oil refining (Koch), better databases (Ellison), and better ways to staying in contact with your friends for free if you are willing to watch some ads (Zuckerberg).

Moreover, it should be remembered that it is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.

is that so special in the US?

It is more rare for someone to do 100 mph where he crashed.

The 10GBASE-T IEEE 802.3an standard supports 10Gbps Ethernet up to 100 meters over shielded CAT6 or 55m over unshielded CAT6 twisted pair.