The Lowest Bastards Are Book Burners

Because they promote ignorance. And ignorance leads to all other evils and ills.

Iraqi libraries ransacked by Islamic State group in Mosul

When Islamic State group militants invaded the Central Library of Mosul earlier this month, they were on a mission to destroy a familiar enemy: other people’s ideas.

Residents say the extremists smashed the locks that had protected the biggest repository of learning in the northern Iraq town, and loaded around 2,000 books — including children’s stories, poetry, philosophy and tomes on sports, health, culture and science — into six pickup trucks. They left only Islamic texts.

The rest?

“These books promote infidelity and call for disobeying Allah. So they will be burned,” a bearded militant in traditional Afghani two-piece clothing told residents, according to one man living nearby who spoke to The Associated Press.

We need a worldwide program to digitize every damn library.

Last night in Russia, the INION library burned down.

It’s hard to say “books never die” when libraries house one-of-a-kind rare items that have never been digitized.

Same-day update, additional: Saving History: Lessons From The People Of Timbuktu