The Battle of Ilerda

In 49 B.C. Julius Caesar besieged five legions of the Pompeian faction in the town of Ilerda, a major stronghold in Hispania Tarraconesis.  Ilerda was familiar with military action, being on a major branch of teh Ebro river.  Both Hannibal and his father Hamilcar had passed that way leading armies in the two centuries preceding.

The Roman Civil War was a nasty, winner-take-all affair.  The Republic had grown so big, so fast, that republican virtues were overwhelmed by the vast amounts of money to be made by military conquest.  And so the fracture.

Winston Churchill once said, "History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it."  And so with Caesar.  His Gallic Wars was a sensation in Rome, and it is possible that the most famous words ever written in Latin are Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres.

He continued writing throughout much of his remaining military career.  Most of what we know of the battle of Ilerda comes from his commentaries.  As such, you need to take it with a very large grain of salt: Caesar wrote at length of his clemency towards the opposing commanders Lucius Afranius and Marcus Petreius, although they seem to have died several years after the battle.

Then things settled down for a long time in Ilerda.  The Moorish conquest and subsequent reconquesta mostly bypassed the region.  One of Europe's early Universities was founded there in the thirteenth century, just as the Little Ice Age was about to decimate the European population.  Then more quiet.

Until now:

A judge ordered the removal of 45 wind turbines on the grounds that planning laws were violated. There was no “general municipal plan” establishing a “reserva del suelo” – i.e. the land was not legally declared appropriate for the erection of wind turbines.

Note to Progressives: Live by SWPL, die by SWPL.  You like "renewable" "green" power.  You like ancient landscapes of Romanesque churches with undespoiled views.

Pick one.

Oops, you also like technocratic legalistic rule by an untouchable elite.  The untouchable elite just told you to tear down that "renewable" "green" power, because your technocratic elite are a bunch of incompetent nincompoops, who can't even work the rules they set up to control the rest of us.

Who's a Sad Panda?

You know, some days, getting out of bed in the morning is a pleasure. Oh, and Progressives?  You expect us to let you run things when you screw up basic things like this?  Please sit down in the back of the room and shut up.  Grown-ups are talking here.

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