Fahrenheit 451

ISIS Burns 8000 Rare Books and Manuscripts in Mosul

While the world was watching the Academy Awards ceremony, the people of Mosul were watching a different show. They were horrified to see ISIS members burn the Mosul public library. Among the many thousands of books it housed, more than 8,000 rare old books and manuscripts were burned.

On the same day the library was destroyed, ISIS abolished another old church in Mosul: the church of Mary the Virgin. The Mosul University Theater was burned as well, according to eyewitnesses. In al-Anbar province, Western Iraq, the ISIS campaign of burning books has managed to destroy 100,000 titles, according to local officials. Last December, ISIS burned Mosul University’s central library.

How very tolerant. Of course, these obviously weren't Muslims in the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, they were just some random people burning some random books which they happened to find lying around. Dumbo tells us so, therefore it must be true.

**Re-hinging to reality...** STANDBY...

Like all religious fanatics, these people will naturally seek out the lowest possible point on the intellectual spectrum. But there's a bright side to all of this: religious civil wars tend to decimate populations in the regions where they occur. The Thirty Years War wiped out roughly one third of the population of Europe and led directly to the Enlightenment. I think we can all agree that the world could do with 33% fewer Muslims in the Middle East.