Connor Court Publishing Blog

Free copy of How to Get Expelled From School

2011-12-07T02:27:00.000-08:00

Special Offer - For Teachers and Librarians

First 300 orders will receive a free copy (postage included) of How to Get Expelled From School.

Conditions:
- Fax your order on your school's letterhead or purchase order form to (03) 5303 0960
- Limit one copy per school
- Offer comes courtesy of The Galileo Movement.
- Limited to only 300 school orders.
- AUSTRALIA ONLY

Introducing the new journal: Connor Court Quarterly CCQ

2011-05-13T17:04:00.000-07:00

Introducing the Connor Court Quarterly (CCQ)

Connor Court Quarterly (CCQ) is a periodical, non-subscription magazine whose focus is on the history, culture and religion in the Western Tradition. By the term Western Tradition, we mean that distinctive mix of languages, formal institutions (especially universities), cultural practices and achievements, and philosophical and religious outlooks which had their genesis in ancient Greece and Rome, their gradual development in the history of Europe, and their subsequent transmission to the New World after the Age of Discovery.

Editorial Team
Dr Brian Coman (Editor) initially trained as a research scientist in the biological sciences but upon retirement returned to the Academy and gained a PhD in the humanities.

Roger Sworder started Latin at six and Greek at ten in English private schools. He has degrees from Oxford and the ANU and lectured in Bendigo for thirty six years. Professor Jim Franklin is Professor of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of New South Wales.

Associate Professor Greg Melleuish is an associate professor in the School of History and Politics at the University of Wollongong.

Dr Philippa Martyr has been a Visiting Scholar at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK and a Visiting Research Fellow at the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK.

Dr Susanna G. Rizzo is currently a lecturer in History at Campion College Australia.

Associate Professor Paul Collits is Research Director of the University of Southern Queensland's Economic Development and Enterprise Program at its Hervey Bay campus.

Dr Anthony Cappello holds a PhD in History, (Victoria University), MA (Arts) and a BTheo (Melbourne College of Divinity), as well as managing Connor Court Publishing.

Professor Richard Rymarz holds the Peter and Doris Kule Chair in Catholic Religious Education at St Joseph's College, University of Alberta and is a Visiting Research Professor at Australian Catholic University.

Dr Katharine Betts is adjunct Associate Professor of Sociology at the Swinburne University of Technology.

Support the Journal
CONTRIBUTE: Contributors wanted! Contact Brian Coman and please read the submission guidelines on the Connor Court Quarterly webpage.
ADVERTISE: The Connor Court Quarterly will publish 4 times a year and with each issue 12 pages will be allocated to advertising. For only $250 a page, you can adver-tise in any given issue. The journal will be treated like a book, giving it maximum exposure. With every ad, a rotating banner will also be included on the Connor Court Review web page for the duration of the quarter. Therefore, for only $250 an issue you can promote your organization within the pages of the journal as well as the journal’s webpage. There are only 12 full page ads per issue, so to secure your place, simply email sales@connorcourt.com
(All advertisements will be subject to the mission statement of the journal and CCQ has the right to reject any advertisement)
PURCHASE: CCQ is available as hard copy from the publisher and also as an E-book. In addition, individual arti-cles from CCQ can be purchased online. Abstracts of all major articles appearing in the ‘journal’ sec-tion of CCQ will be available free of charge at the CCQ website. Note that CCQ is not a subscription magazine but that each issue is sold separately.
PRICE: CCQ hard copy, post-free within Australia - $14.95, CCQ e-book, available online www.connorcourt.com/review - $9.95, Individual articles from journal section (online) $4 ea.

For more information visit the CCQ webpage:
Click Here.

Peter Jonson's Powerpoint Presentation of Great Crises of Capitalism

2011-05-02T21:09:00.000-07:00

Heros & villains of the great crises of capitalsim.slides

View more presentations from connorcourt

Photos from the Collingwood Tragic Dinner

2011-03-31T18:12:00.001-07:00

First Photo: Peter McKenna and Joffe Corfe.
Second Photo: Peter McKenna, Kevin Hall, Ken Sheldon and Tim Lane.
Third Photo: James Gilchrist with Joffe Corfe.

- Anthony Cappello

Collingwood/Carlton Dinner

2011-03-03T21:06:00.000-08:00

For the launch of Tortured Tales of a Collingwood Tragic by James Gilchrist, a stellar line-up of speakers will be speaking at a fund-raising dinner. Click here below to ensure your seat at this exciting evening.

Connor Court Review - Meet the Editorial Board

2011-02-24T18:56:00.000-08:00

Connor Court Publishing is beginning its new peer-reviewed journal- The Connor Court Quarterly. The Journal will be edited by Brian Coman. He will be joined on the editorial board by:

Greg Melleuish is an associate professor in the School of History and Politics at the University of Wollongong. He has written extensively in the area of Australian intellectual history including Cultural Liberalism in Australia (Cambridge University Press, 1995) and The Power of Ideas (Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2009). He is currently completing an intellectual portrait of James McAuley (Connor Court, forthcoming).

Anglican Catholic Church Conference, Coomera, Qld

2011-02-02T13:35:00.000-08:00

When representatives of the Anglican Catholic Church met on the Gold Coast at a very modern Saint Stephens College school in Coomera to further progress on reuniting with the Catholic Church one of Connor Courts popular author, Fr John Fleming, was there helping to smooth the road leading to Rome. Fr. Fleming’s efforts and intellect must have been appreciated because when Connor Court took up shop on the second day of the gathering his writings proved very popular.

A beaming Archbishop John Hepworth approached the Connor Court desk announcing that “history is being made”, and was clearly delighted at the way discussions were progressing. In keeping with the spirit of this gathering it was most appropriate that Archbishop Hepworth had contributed to a chapter of Father Fleming’s , Convinced By The Truth.

Connor Court looks forward to any future literary contributions from those in attendance at this historic gathering. Who knows perhaps, as with this venture, some of them may be collaborations?

- Victor Sirl

Wishing Everyone A Merry Christmas

2010-12-22T15:13:00.000-08:00

Each year we plan to send out Christmas cards thanking our supporters, customers and friends of Connor Court Publishing. And every year we seem to run out of time. This year is no exception. Our commitment to ensure that customers receive their books in time for Christmas has left little time for Christmas cards, however please consider this email as our Christmas card.

We at Connor Court Publishing would like to express our thank you to all our customers, supporters and friends who have been an apart of the 2010 Connor Court success story. We appreciate your on-going support and encourage you to continue to support our work. We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a rejuvenated 2011.

In 2011, Connor Court is committed to continue to publish quality titles, as well as commencing our Connor Court Quarterly, a peer-reviewed journal and magazine that will publish 4 issues a year (with Dr Brian Coman as editor).

Our printing and manufacturing continues to be done in Australia, making Connor Court a truly Australian company committed to the well being of our nation. And for the record the following titles were our top ten in 2010:

1. Test Everything – George Pell
2. Heaven and Earth – Ian Plimer
3. His Name is Mercy – Ken Barker
4. 100 Great Books of Liberty – John Roskam and Chris Berg
5. What if – edited by Peta Seaton
6. The Climate Caper – Garth Paltridge 7. Wednesday Warriors – James Gilchrist
8. A New Wine and Fresh Skins – Julian Porteous
9. Make a Difference – Guy Barnett
10. A Guide to Climate Change Lunacy – Mark Lawson

We will be open during the holidays, expect book orders placed during the week of the4th-12th January we will sent out on 14th January.

Once again, our thanks for your support and we hope to continue to supply you in 2011with provocative reading.

Kind Regards
Anthony Cappello and the team at Connor Court Publishing

Living Ethics Series

2010-09-28T18:14:00.000-07:00

Modotti Press, Connor Court's newest imprint - dedicated to religion, introduces a new series of books dedicated to moral and ethical issues. The series entitled Living Ethics Series will explore various important issues beginning with the 2008 instruction by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Dignitas Personae. In the book Dignitas Personae explained, Dr John Fleming provides both an account of Church teaching and why the Church teaches what she does in a way that is accessible to the interested layperson.

Modotti Press is hoping to publish another 6 titles in 2010/2011 on the Living Ethics Series, make this series a must have for anyone interested in moral and ethical issues. According to Dr Anthony Cappello of Connor Court Publishing: "with euthanasia becoming an issue in 2011, the Living Ethics Series will help to educate people on what are the implications on allowing euthanasia. Beginning with Dr Fleming's book on the Dignity of the human person, people can appreciate such important teachings and learn how to engage in debates on crucial life and death issues."
- Maria Giordano

A New Wine and Fresh Skins: Ecclesial Movements in the Church

2010-08-17T15:35:00.000-07:00

Dates and Venues for the book launches of Bishop Julian Porteous's new book A NEW WINE & FRESH SKINS have been set with Bishop Porteous visiting, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth. Book in early and find out why the Movements may be the future of the Catholic Church.

Melbourne:
Tuesday, 7 September, 4.30pm
Australian Catholic University campus, 115 Victoria Parade, Fitzroy
Launched by Steve Lawrence, Director, Identity & Mission, Australian Catholic University, Melbourne

Sydney:
Tuesday, September 14, 7.30pm
Mustard Seed Bookshop, 3 Keating St. Lidcombe
Launched by Bishop Anthony Fisher, Bishop of Parramatta

Brisbane:
Friday, September 24, 7.30pm
Ignite Conference, Mueller Performing Arts Centre, Redcliffe, Brisbane
Launched by Shayne Bennett, Moderator of Emmanuel Community, Brisbane.

For more information, please contact Anthony Cappello on the email anthony(@)connorcourt.com

Vale Brother Michael (Ian) McMurray CCS

2010-08-08T23:38:00.000-07:00

Back in the early days of Connor Court Publishing, I wrote to the editor of Contact Magazine about reviewing some of our titles. What followed was a conversation and a friendship with Br Michael McMurray. Since the first meeting, Br Michael has been a strong supporter of Connor Court Publishing, and a good friend. Only days before his death, Br Michael was trying to work out which Connor Court title to review next.
Br Michael was a tireless worker, a committed Catholic, and a humble man. We were delighted back in 2006 to have published his book The Beatitudes. He will be missed and our last conversation on the phone will be remembered. A generous friend who will join "the saints in the new and eternal Jerusalem".
Br Michael Ian McMurray 23 July 1941 - 2 August 2010.
- Anthony Cappello

Connor Court Issues Submission Guidelines

2010-07-27T19:22:00.000-07:00

Due to the success of Connor Court Publishing in the past few years, the number of submissions from people wanting to have their manuscript published by Connor Court has escalated. According to Connor Court's publisher, Anthony Cappello: "we want to encourage people to submit their manuscript, but we are overwhelmed by the number of submissions." In order to streamline the operation and to make sure people submitting manuscripts do get a proper look in, some guidelines have now been posted on the webpage. According to Anthony Cappello "if we think there is a market, we will give it a go, and we are game enough to publish first-time authors" but he also added "we can't publish everything, and we don't have the time nor the resources. But also we want to maintain a standard".
The guidelines are found on the Connor Court website or by clicking here.
- Maria Giordano

Dinner with Ian Plimer and Mark Lawson

2010-07-14T20:15:00.000-07:00

Dinner in Melbourne with Ian Plimer and Mark Lawson
$70.00
DINNER WITH IAN PLIMER AND MARK LAWSON on
CLIMATE CHANGE LUNACY

Ian Plimer, author of Heaven and Earth.

Mark Lawson, writer for the Australian Financial Review and author of Climate Change Lunacy.

At the Portland Hotel, 127 Russell St, Melbourne.

$70 includes a two course dinner and drinks!

16th August at 6.30pm

Numbers are limited, so book early.

Click here to book online

Climate Change Lunacy is Coming

2010-07-04T17:39:00.000-07:00

A GUIDE TO CLIMATE WARMING LUNACY – BAD FORECASTING, TERRIBLE SOLUTIONS
As the major political parties shape up for an historic election, a new book to be published by Connor Court shows that the greenhouse policy initiatives to be debated in election are a waste of money, whether the science is right or not.
The book by Mark Lawson, a senior journalist on the Australian Financial Review and former science writer, takes a layperson’s tour through the science. But it also looks at the economic costs and benefits of cutting emissions, as well as the proposals for carbon trading schemes, international efforts to limit emissions and alternative energy projects.

The book’s conclusion from this tour is that efforts to cut emissions are a waste of time and money. The economic case for cutting emissions relies on morals, not on economics, and the major proposed means of cutting emissions, carbon trading and wind energy, have never been shown to be effective. To top it all off, an enforceable international agreement with strict limits on emissions is nothing more than a green fantasy. If any of the dire temperature projections issued by the IPCC are to be taken seriously then mitigation – preparing for rising seas and higher temperatures – is the only solution. For their own reasons the government and the green movement has never shown any interest in that approach.

But can we rely on the temperature projections? As the book also shows, despite many public statements by distinguished scientists, those much vaunted projections are a commercial forecasting exercise, not a scientific one at all. As a starting point the projections of the amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere involves economics just as much as science, and there is evidence that those projections have been badly mishandled.

The main result of the global warming debate is to divert attention from the real climate issues, such as problems with land use and over fishing.
Book Release date: July 26th

2010-05-17T19:00:00.000-07:00

2010-04-14T15:30:00.000-07:00

Mark Lopez Dinner

2010-02-03T16:44:00.000-08:00

DINNER WITH DR MARK LOPEZ (AUTHOR OF THE LITTLE BLACK SCHOOLBOOK)

who will speak on ‘WHY I WROTE THE LITTLE BLACK SCHOOLBOOK’

FOLLOWED BY QUESTIONS AND DISCUSSION CHAIRED BY MICHAEL WARBY

2 course traditional Irish dinner with tea and coffee.
Drinks available at bar prices.

First Floor, The Celtic Club,
316-320 Queen Street, Melbourne
Wednesday 24th February, 6pm

Cost: $44 per person ($80 per couple)

Dr Mark Lopez gained his PhD at Monash University in 1997. He is the author of The Origins of Multiculturalism in Australian Politics: 1945-1975. He currently runs a private tutoring business called Competitive Advantage.

Michael Warby is a principal of Multisensory Education, trading as Medieval Education. He has worked in the public sector, the non-government sector and now the smallbusiness sector and has taught thousands of students in a few hundred schools.

Lord Monckton in Brisbane

2010-01-31T17:27:00.000-08:00

Connor Court Publishing was present at the functions in Brisbane and Noosa, with the Brisbane office looking after book sales.

Here are some pictures
1. Lord Monckton's signature.
2. It was a sell out in Noosa, here is a picture of those who couldn't get in!
3. Lord Monckton signing copies of Garth Paltridge's THE CLIMATE CAPER.
4. Ian Plimer signing his book.

-- Victor Sirl

This Soldier's Fortune - Reviewed in the Daylesford Advocate

2010-01-30T22:54:00.000-08:00

Achieving the heights of capability
26 Jan, 2010 10:50 AM
By Donna Kelly

I LAUNCHED a book on Sunday.

I felt very honoured - it was a first for me and, as someone who writes 300 word articles for a living, I am always in awe of authors.

Zygmunt Tratkiewicz has been a Daylesford resident for many years. He is well known at the bowling club and a keen handyman and gardener.

He is 94 years old - and has been married to his English sweetheart, Gladys, for 62 years.

But it is not how he spends his retirement or his family _ there are two daughters and many more grandchildren and great-grandchildren - that fill the pages of This Soldier's Fortune.

It is his remarkable journey through World War II, from the very opening shots in his native Poland, to harsh prisoner of war camps, betrayal by so-called friends, survival against the odds, victory and a final bloody closing battle. But sadly no return to his now communist homeland for many years to come.

In his introduction Mr Tratkiewicz says: "most people will never come to understand or achieve the heights of which they are capable, or what they can and will do when they see no other option".

They are "heights" he is continually confronted with, from enduring 10 days of solitary confinement to being forced to battle a Nazi armed with a rifle and bayonet and then run for his life - over barbed wire fences and through unknown hostile lands.

Mr Tratkiewicz also came across decent German soldiers who almost certainly saved his life with their actions, and good farmers who were willing to offer him nourishing food and comfortable lodgings.

The book also gives Australians like myself, armed with a very rudimentary understanding of the European battles, a much-needed history lesson, without a hint of the dryness of the classroom.

Mr Tratkiewicz lived this history and despite his age, and the gap of 65 years this year since the war ended, he has a razor sharp memory.

As he told me at the launch, "there are some things you never forget" and as his eyes welled in memory, I realised I was talking to a man whose emotions have only grown stronger as the years have passed.

This Soldier's Journey is an amazing story and a great read, and I must admit as I turned the pages, I wondered if today's generation of Wii Fit enthusiasts would have the ability, let alone the courage, to echo the efforts of a man conscripted from his simple farming life at just 23 years of age.

Of course, my real hope is that we never have to rise to the challenge, but I still wonder.

I was lucky enough to receive a free copy of Mr Tratkiewicz's book but, if you're interested, it's available at the Daylesford Newsagency or from Ballan publishers Connor Court at connorcourt.com

The cost is $22.95.

HOT NEW TITLE COMING IN MARCH

2010-01-24T22:07:00.001-08:00

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS TITLE.

Connor Court's Top Ten for 2009

2009-12-31T20:18:00.001-08:00

Number 1 - Ian Plimer's Heaven and Earth (6 print-runs, 40,000 copies in Australia alone). Editions also published in New Zealand, United States, the United Kingdom and Spain. Language editions coming out in Arabic, Chinese, Spanish and Korean.
Number 2 - The Climate Caper by Garth Paltridge (3 print runs)
Number 3 - After the Heart of God by Bishop Julian Porteous.
Number 4 - The Little Black School Book, Volume 2 by Mark Lopez
Number 5 - The Gift of Confession (abridged version) by Fr Michael de Stoop
Number 6 - The Little Black School Book, Volume 1 by Mark Lopez
Number 7 - Australia's Education Revolution by Kevin Donnelly
Number 8 - Women of Hope by Linda Baraciolli
Number 9 - Theology of the Body Made Simple by Fr Tony Percy
Number 10 - Hot Tips for Cool Parents by Catherine Warnock

Kevin Donnelly to speak at a dinner in Melbourne

2009-12-20T14:03:00.001-08:00

DINNER WITH KEVIN DONNELLY (AUTHOR OF AUSTRALIA’S EDUCATION REVOLUTION)
who will speak on
"HOW KEVIN RUDD WON AND LOST THE EDUCATION WARS"
- 2 course traditional Irish dinner with tea and coffee. (Drinks available at bar prices.)
First Floor, The Celtic Club, 316-320 Queen Street, Melbourne.
Wednesday January 27, 6pm
Cost- $44 per person ($80 for a couple)

Dr Kevin Donnelly is Director of Education Standards Institute (ESI) and one of Australia’s leading education commentators and authors. Kevin taught for 18 years in secondary schools, writes regularly for Australia’s print media, including The Australian and The Courier Mail, and appears on radio and TV.

Kevin Donnelly’s book is available for sale at the Dinner.

Call (03) 90059167 for a booking or email - bookings@connorcourt.com

Jim Carlton on Lessons from the Global Financial Crisis

2009-12-20T13:55:00.000-08:00

Speech for the launch of Richard Morgan’s book
‘Lessons From the Global Financial Crisis. The relevance of Adam Smith on morality and free markets’ by Jim Carlton.
In the early 1990s Dr. (now Professor) Michael Pusey wrote a book entitled ‘Economic Rationalism in Canberra’, which, according to Professor Pusey’s website, “showed how Canberra had been taken over by ‘economic rationalists,’ and warned of the economic and social costs of free market economic reform.” Around the same time, Robert Manne, the then editor of Quadrant, mounted a series of attacks on the economic reforms initiated by the Hawke and Keating Governments, and passed through the parliament with the support of the Coalition parties.
Although I was in opposition at the time, I am pleased to be associated with the support of those reforms, which had been promoted by the so called “Dries” during the period of the Fraser Government, but received little support both from the then government or from the then Labor opposition, as the ruling groups of both sides of politics were committed to the “Australian Settlement”, the combination of industrial protection and centralized wage fixation that guided public policy from the time of Deakin to its dismantling, initially by Hawke and Keating, and continued by the Howard Government.
It is amazing that an economic framework based on fundamentally flawed principles, although put forward with the best of intentions, should have lasted for some 80 years. In a classical example of judicial activism, Justice Henry Bourne Higgins of the Federal Conciliation and Arbitration Court, in 1907, decided that the law should determine “a fair and reasonable wage”, sufficient to support workers as “civilized beings” in a standard of living appropriate to a “civilized community”. Where the money was to come from was of no concern to His Honour, described by P. G. McCarthy as a person with “courtly manners and a scholarly mind with ultra radicalism, almost priggish high principles and quixotic independence – he had a deep compassion for the under privileged”.
Those of us who share his deep compassion for the underprivileged have a duty to be concerned about the practical means of doing something about it. It is interesting to speculate on whether, if Higgins had emigrated to India rather than Australia, working class Indians would all be enjoying a “fair and reasonable wage”.
Moving on from Dr. Pusey and Justice Higgins, we turn to a more recent essayist, who, referring to the Global Financial Crisis, stated that “The current crisis is the culmination of a 30-year domination of economic policy by a free market ideology that has been variously called neo-liberalism, economic liberalism, economic fundamentalism, Thatcherism or the Washington Consensus”. This essayist goes on to say, “The time has come, off the back of this economic crisis, to proclaim that the great neo-liberal experiment of the past 30 years has failed, that the emperor has no clothes.”
Professor Pusey must surely be dismayed that his ground breaking characterization of these policies as “economic rationalism” has been replaced by the new epithet of “neo-liberalism”. However, just as it is difficult to determine how Justice Higgins’s fair and reasonable wage can be conjured up without determining how it will be provided, it is difficult to reconcile these observations on the depredations of neo-liberalism with the extraordinary economic successes in Australia over the last quarter century, during which time we have seen Australia avoid three international economic recessions, enjoy a significant improvement in real wages, and generate the means to provide a social security system that has seen the least well-off of our citizens improve their relative financial position.
Now what, you will ask, has all this to do with Richard Morgan’s book, entitled “Lessons from the Global Financial Crisis. The relevance of Adam Smith on morality and free markets”? In summary I can say this book is the most effective antidote I have seen in a long time to the inanity being peddled by those with a deep mistrust of the marketplace, usually coupled with a naïve confidence in the capacity of governments to produce results in areas outside their sphere of competence.
Paul Kelly in his recent book of nearly 700 pages also provides an antidote, and I certainly recommend it, but Richard Morgan in a mere one hundred pages of larger type and wider spacing gives you all the evidence you need to see through the tendentious arguments, the straw man constructions of the anti-market brigade.
The usual form of attack is to define free markets as laissez faire, anything goes forms of economic activity. As anyone who actually bothers to familiarize themselves with what Adam Smith actually said, and as Richard Morgan demonstrates, on no account does Smith advocate laissez faire. To quote Richard Morgan on page 47, “For Smith, a ‘well governed’ society provides for free competitive markets, law and order and infrastructure. If these elements are not in place, he warns, living standards will decline and indeed in extreme cases ‘go backwards.’
The use of the phrase “free competitive markets” is instructive. When we use the shorthand “free markets” we do leave ourselves open to willful or ignorant misinterpretation. Markets are not, in fact free, in the sense we mean it, if they are not regulated to ensure competition. Enemies of the market economy also seize on the word “deregulation” to suggest a descent into laissez faire. During the monumental fight we had in the 1980s in favour of deregulation, what we were fighting for was not the absence of regulation, but the removal of regulation that favoured special interests, characteristic of the rent-seeking paradise of the Australian Settlement. Similarly we need to examine closely any proposals to deal with climate change to gauge their propensity to encourage rent-seeking.
Another aspect of the Morgan book that appeals to me is that he has drawn from both Smith’s great works, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, and Wealth of Nations, to stress the underlying morality, and dare I say it, the deep compassion for the underprivileged, inherent in Smith’s writings. Unlike Justice Higgins, however, Smith has worked out how to improve the lot of the underprivileged. I refer you to page 21 of the Morgan book, the chapter headed “How Living Standards Are Improved”.
It is worth noting here that the Freiburg School of Economics, led by Walter Eucken, used the term “Social Market Economy” to embody both the economic and moral concepts put forward by Smith. They termed their approach “Ordo-liberalism”, and it formed the basis of the so called “German Miracle” overseen by Ludwig Erhard, Economics Minister in the Adenauer government.
I am indebted to Professor Wolfgang Kasper for drawing my attention to the work of the Freiburg School many years ago, and it was highly influential in the thinking of the Liberal ‘Dries’ in the late seventies and early eighties.
In his truly wonderful book entitled “Prosperity Through Competition”, Erhard describes exactly how he applied the Smithian principles as refined by Eucken and the Ordoliberals to effect the economic recovery and remarkable success of the German post war economy. In his preface to the English edition of 1958 he insists that this success was not due to a “secret science”, but an attempt “to apply in practice the principles of modern national economics…. with a view to overcoming the age-old antithesis of an unbridled liberalism and a soulless State control, to finding a sound middle way between out-and-out freedom and totalitarianism”.
Erhard’s book is replete with his battles against special interest groups both in business and in the trade unions seeking preference against the interests of the consumer. It was heartening to read of the success of his efforts from the immediate post war period up to his departure as Chancellor in 1966, many years before we in Australia reached an age of enlightenment in the eighties. In his book Erhard expresses his concerns about the future of Europe as it moved to integration. Would it move in the direction of the social market economy, or would special interests play too large a part, thus obstructing the freedom and prosperity he had proved was possible? Sadly, the picture is rather dismal, with European collectivism contrasting, for example, with post-Thatcher Britain.
So let’s return to Richard Morgan’s book. It is without doubt a work of meticulous scholarship, distilling the essence of two massive works into a lucid, concise and readable handbook, an indispensible guide to Adam Smith’s timeless exposition of the underlying utility and morality of the competitive market economy. Not only does it summarize Smith’s arguments, but also provides quotations directly supporting the summaries. I was also impressed by the ingenious diagram illustrating the nature and causes of the wealth of nations.
I would like to congratulate Richard Morgan on the outcome of his labours, and also express my gratitude to Anthony Cappello of Connor Court Publishing for making it available to the public. It is a privilege to have taken part in its launch.

New Book on the Global Financial Crisis....

2009-11-22T20:17:00.000-08:00

LESSONS FROM THE GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS: THE RELEVANCE OF ADAM SMITH ON MORALITY AND FREE MARKETS by Richard M. Morgan

Paperback, 105 pages, isbn 9781921421303

Retail Price $19.95

With a Preface from Ian M. McDonald, University of Melbourne.

Adam Smith was an advocate of the free market, however his first work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, was on ethics and was widely acclaimed at the time. Commentators have tended to review this work as separate to his work on political economy. However the global financial crisis has shown the relevance of morality and the free market. Whilst The Wealth of Nations is concerned with political economy, Smith’s pointed attacks on exploitation and greed reflect the ethics outlined in his
first work.

Smith’s critics ignore the constructive role he proposed for government, which included ensuring the provision of education and protection of society by regulating the banking system. He stressed however that government regulations be kept to
a minimum.

Since The Wealth of Nations, the per capita income in the UK has risen 16 times and the most successful countries have been those pursuing free market policies. Adam Smith’s work is extremely relevant to understanding the global financial crisis and to setting appropriate policies for the future.

“A timely and very readable monograph that reminds us of what Adam Smith really said about free markets.”
– Professor R. R. Officer

“Lucid, concise, yet comprehensive - an indispensable guide to Adam Smith’s timeless exposition of the underlying morality of the competitive market economy.”
– Hon Jim Carlton AO

“In light of the 2008 financial crisis, this book reminds us of how relevant Smith’s thought remains as a pathway to the future that avoids the errors of the recent past.”
– Samuel Gregg, Director of Research, Acton Institute

“In this important and elegant work Richard Morgan explains the continuing relevance of Adam Smith and why it was governments, not Smith, that caused the global financial crisis.”
– John Roskam, Director of the Institute of Public Affairs

“Adam Smith’s insights are just as relevant today and this book is an excellent review of his works. It is easy to read and is enlightening.”
– John Dahlsen, Company Director

Richard Morgan is Chairman of BPC Holdings Pty Limited, a private company with interests in Australian agri-business and venture capital. He had a career in industry and was most recently General Manager of the Fertilizer Division of WMC Limited, Deputy Chairman of WMC Fertilizer Limited and Chairman of Hi Fert Pty Limited.

He has served as a Director and Treasurer of the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. He was a Council Member and National Treasurer of the Australian Institute of Agriculture Science and Technology and was made a Fellow of the Institute for his contribution to the Australian Fertilizer Industry. He served as Council Member of Geelong Grammar School and the Australia Institute of International Affairs Victorian Branch. He has also been past National Chairman of the Australian Red Cross Society and a member of The Australian Red Cross Blood Service Board. He has degrees in Agricultural Science and Commerce and has been a tutor of Economics at The Faculty of Economics and Commerce, The University of Melbourne.

Kevin Donnelly's new book launched by Malcolm Turnbull

2009-11-10T13:41:00.000-08:00

Kevin Donnelly's new book Australia’s Education Revolution: How Kevin Rudd won and lost the education wars is getting plenty of press. Last night on Lateline Kevin Donnelly's launch was featured (although brief).

An opinion piece appeared in The Age yesterday, click here to read the article.

And of course, last Friday, the book was launched by Malcolm Turnbull at the Malvern Library. I was tempted to hand him a copy of our other publication, Heaven and Earth.

Kevin Donnelly's new book Australia’s Education Revolution also has its own facebook group.

- Anthony Cappello

Fr James Murray, RIP.

2009-09-29T15:40:00.000-07:00

(Taken from Cath News)

James Stirling Murray, Anglican priest, teacher and a religious editor for The Australian, died yesterday in Sydney. He was 82.

Born in Ireland in 1927, his father a Scots engineer and his mother a talented singer, Fr Murray grew up in Melbourne, attended Scotch College, and Trinity College at the University of Melbourne, The Australian reported.

The newspaper said he showed a talent for pranks that would never desert him.

As a priest Father Murray served the tough working class suburb of Broadmeadows and did a stretch as chaplain in Pentridge Prison. In politics, he leant to the Left.

He defended what he saw as the integrity of Anglican tradition and opposed women priests. He was ecumenical in spirit, on friendly terms with Islam, Judaism, Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. At Christ Church St Laurence, in Sydney, he was famous for his eloquent, sometimes explosive, sermons.

The report outlines anecdotes from his life, as one who did kindnesses on the quiet and could give "as good as he got."

If correspondence displeased him, he would send it back with the endorsement: "Your letter is unacceptable to me". In the basilicas of Rome he would boost his modest stature by standing on a pew and bellow, "Silencio!" at flocks of chattering, camera snapping tourists.

Fr Murray's books include The Mask of Time, an Indonesian travelogue; Larrikins: 19th Century Outrage; Would You Believe? Dialogues on Faith and Doubt; The Paradise Tree: An Eccentric Childhood Remembered; and The Judas Tree: Reflections on a Turbulent Young Life, published in April this year.
Read from the Australian.

Christopher Pearson writes about the Climate Caper in the Australian

2009-09-12T06:00:00.000-07:00

Global warming hotheads freeze out science's sceptics

Christopher Pearson | September 12, 2009
Article from: The Australian

GARTH Paltridge was a chief research scientist with the CSIRO's division of atmospheric research before becoming the director of the Institute of Antarctic and Southern Ocean Studies and chief executive of the Antarctic Co-operative Research Centre.

His latest sceptical contribution to the debate on the dangers of carbon dioxide is a book, endearingly titled The Climate Caper.

Paltridge gives a crisp summary of the physics and economics of climate change, but I want to focus here on his account of the new green religion. "Perhaps the most interesting question in all this business is how it can be that the scientific community has become so over-the-top in support of its own propaganda about the seriousness and certainty of upcoming drastic climate change. Scientists after all are supposed to be unbiased in their assessment of a problem and are expected to tell it as it is. Over the centuries they have built up the capital of their reputation on just that supposition. And for the last couple of decades they have put that capital very publicly on the line in support of a cause which, to say the least, is overhung by an enormous amount of doubt. So how is it that the rest of the scientific community, uncomfortable as it is with both the science of global warming and the way its politics is being played, continues to let the reputation of science in general be put at considerable risk because of the way the dangers of climate change are being vastly oversold?"

Part of the answer lies in the way institutions find ways to silence their employees. Paltridge himself was involved in setting up the Antarctic research centre in the early 90s with the CSIRO. As he recalls: "I made the error at the time of mentioning in a media interview -- reported extensively in The Australian on a slow Easter Sunday -- that there were still lots of doubts about the disaster potential of global warming. Suffice it to say that within a couple of days it was made clear to me from the highest levels of CSIRO that, should I make such public comments again, then it would pull out of the process of forming the new centre." The CSIRO, it turned out, was in the process of trying to extract many millions of dollars for further climate research at the time.

Almost the only scientists at liberty to speak their minds are retirees, such as William Kininmonth and Paltridge himself. He gives an example, Brian Tucker, a former chief of CSIRO's Atmospheric Research Division. Tucker was "a specialist in numerical climate modelling and therefore knew better than most where the bodies are buried in the climate change game. He kept remarkably quiet about his worries on the matter. Then he retired, and for four or five years thereafter was the bane of the global warming establishment because of his very public stance against many of its sacred cows." Eventually he was marginalised by being described as "one of the usual suspects, who was now out of date and in any event was probably on the payroll of industry".

Another eye-opener is the story of how a committee of the Australian Academy of Science was dissuaded from its plans to respond to the Garnaut Report. Paltridge says: "While the committee was aware of all the 'ifs' and 'buts' of 100-year prediction of rainfall, it was aware too of the delicacy of saying so in an Academy response. But if indeed there is something of the order of a 50-50 chance that the forecasts supplied to Garnaut were nonsense, then it seems reasonable that the fact should be made known in plain English ..." Academy members met Garnaut and "rumour has it that sometime during the meeting Professor Garnaut became very sympathetic to the need for vast new resources to address the need for basic research ... In the end it seems that the idea of a response to the Garnaut Report was dropped altogether."

Eventually the academy came out with a statement of priorities for climate research, which contained a brief reference to the fact that the rainfall projections Garnaut relied on were problematical, but most of the public were none the wiser.

Paltridge says that behind the climate change debate there are two basic truths seldom articulated. "The first is that the scientists pushing the seriousness of global warming are perfectly well aware of the great uncertainty attached to their cause. The difficulty for them is to ensure that the lip service paid to uncertainty is enough to convince governments of the need to continue research funding, but is not enough to cast real doubt on the case for action. The paths of public comment and official advice on the matter have to be trodden very carefully. The second basic truth is that there is a belief among scientific 'global warmers' that they are an under-funded minority among a sea of wicked sceptics who are extensively funded by industry and close to Satan. The difficulty for them is to maintain a belief in their own minority status while insisting in public that the sceptics, at least among the ranks of the scientifically literate, are very few."

The Royal Society did its own reputation a disservice by sending a letter to Exxon-Mobil oil corporation declaring an anathema on dissident climate research. It said: "To be still producing information that misleads people about climate change is unhelpful. The next IPCC report should give the people the final push they need to take action and we can't have people trying to undermine it."

Paltridge says: "The staggering thing is that the society, which in other circumstances would be the first to defend the cause of free inquiry ... seemed not to be able to hear what it was saying."

He takes a gloomy view of the likelihood that the political class will soon come to its senses. "One suspects that a fair amount of the shrillness of the climate message derives from a fear that something will happen to prick the scientific balloon so carefully inflated and overstretched over the last few decades. But the IPCC doesn't really need to worry. The difficulty for the sceptics is that credible argument against accepted wisdom requires, as did the development of the accepted wisdom itself, large-scale resources which can only be supplied by the research institutions. Without those resources, the sceptic is only an amateur who can quite easily be confined to outer darkness."

In the last chapter, Paltridge lists some hidden agendas. "There are those who, like president (Jacques) Chirac of France, look with favour on the possibility of an international de-carbonisation regime because it would be the first step towards global government. There are those who, like the socialists before them, see international action as a means to force a redistribution of wealth both within and between individual nations. There are those who, like the powerbrokers of the European Union, look upon such action as a basis for legitimacy. There are those who, like bureaucrats the world over, regard the whole business mainly as a path to the sort of power which, until now, has been wielded only by the major religions. More generally, there are those who, like the politically correct everywhere, are driven by a need for public expression of their own virtue."
Story

First history of the Knights of the Southern Cross in New South Wales offers wide horizons

2009-09-08T19:43:00.000-07:00

A DIFFERENT KIND OF “HISTORY”

Baxter’s work shatters the notion that a history of an order of Catholic laymen is merely the recounting of dates, events and personalities through a narrow and respectful spectrum that avoids controversy or offence at all costs so as to produce a feel-good reaction in its sponsors.
Instead he adopts the position of an uncensored, candid tell-it-like-it-is teller of tales that provides the reasons why the Knights were established in the face of bigotry and their struggle for acceptance by the Church, and Australian society. For those who are ignorant of the crucial role Irish Catholicism played in the foundation of Australia, its legends, its outlaws, trade unions, Labor Party and a voice for workers in Parliament Reach for the Stars is a valuable resource. New generations of Catholics in multi-cultural Australia where the demographic is undergoing a sea-change will find the answers to many of their questions.
Baxter begins his tale not in Australia, but in the sordid and cruel atmosphere of her elder sister, Ireland, and the impact it had on the fortress mentality of the pubescent Church in Australia until it stood erect, strong, manly and unafraid for the 1928 International Eucharistic Congress that saw the Blessed Sacrament sail by ferry across the Harbor and paraded through city streets with a Knights’ guard of honour, The Bowler Hat Brigade.
He says that if Australians honour 1901 as the Year of Federation then Catholics should revere 1928 as the time of coming of age of the Australian Church. The Knights were in the front line as they drove into the shadows their fanatical oppressors who had threatened bloodshed if the Blessed Sacrament was paraded through London streets ten years previously.
The book, despite its depiction of venomous anti-Catholicism in Ireland and Australia, avoids the errors of anti-Protestantism and pays tribute to Protestant fighters for freedom in both countries. However, it lays the blame for the No Catholics Need Apply job discrimination in 1919 squarely at the feet of those who exercised Power and Control in reaction to the defeat of military conscription in two referendums in the bloodbath of World War I.
It depicts the unlikely partnership between Joseph Lynch, a mild-mannered school inspector and Patrick Minahan, a florid Labor politician and wealthy shoe manufacturer that led to the formation of the Knights of the Southern Cross, first in Sydney and then in all States.
The book traces the long struggle to obtain justice for Catholic schools and the removal of unfair taxes, and the competition between Freemasons and Catholics not only for jobs, but for commercial contracts.
On a wider scope, Reach for the Stars, provides the world backdrop in the deadliest of all centuries, the 20th, and the struggle of Christian civilization in a world threatened by extinction. Closer to home, the book deals with some fratricidal conflicts with followers of The Movement of B.A. Santamaria and the political consequences. The financial disasters that beset the Knights and cost them their headquarters are also described.
The book looks at opportunities for new roles for the Knights in bringing together the diversity of lay Catholics in expressions of the Faith through entrepreneurship. It throws down the gauntlet to the Knights to enhance their commitment to social justice, particularly for those who care for children with serious mental and physical frailties. It calls for new blood to reinvigorate the 90-year-old Order of laymen in the Third Millennium with its disappointing start of more wars and economic collapse and people driven from their homes.
The general tone of the book is congenial and optimistic. However, Reach for the Stars, warns that unlike their forebears ninety years ago, today’s Knights do not face visible enemies, but vague yet real threats from rationalist and materialistic forces, and from “the Catholic White Ant”, to which Baxter devotes a short chapter. Young Catholics curious about the past will find the book rewarding.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Cliff Baxter B.Ed., author, journalist, broadcaster and adult educator, a native of New South Wales, is a graduate of the University of Technology, Sydney and won the UTS Mechanics Institute Medal in 2003.

Ian Plimer's book creating a storm in the US.

2009-08-25T03:17:00.000-07:00

Ian Plimer is doing the radio rounds on US talkback radio and the book Heaven + Earth is causing a stir, reaching number 14 last week on Amazon best sellers list. Here are some of the feedback and comments taken from Taylor Trade the US publisher of Heaven + Earth.

Reviews for
Heaven and Earth: Global Warming: The Missing Science
"...[A]rguably no one is more responsible for the shift in opinion than University of Adelaide geologist Ian Plimer, whose new book Heaven and Earth: Global Warming, the Missing Science is an authoritative scientific refutation of the claims of human-caused global warming."—RealClearPolitics.com

"...[A] wonderfully comprehensive and fearless book... If there are any willing to hear some truly inconvenient truths on the stampeding advocacy of global warming, Mr. Plimer's book is a collection of some of the sternest."—The Globe and Mail

"Only a geological perspective can provide a proper view of climate change. Professor Plimer's book does a masterful job of demonstrating that Nature rules the climate, not human activity."—S. Fred Singer, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia

"...the best book on science and scientists I have ever read."—Andrew Alexander, The Daily Mail (UK)

"...a brilliantly argued book... Heaven and Earth is an evidence-based attack on conformity and orthodoxy, including my own, and a reminder to respect informed dissent and beware of ideology subverting evidence."—Paul Sheehan, Sydney Morning Herald

"... a damning critique of the 'evidence' underpinning man-made global warming."—Kimberley A. Strassel, Wall Street Journal

"This is a very powerful, clear, understandable and extremely useful book . . . [Plimer] convincingly criticizes the UN, the IPCC, U.K. and U.S. politicians, as well as Hollywood show business celebrities. He strictly distinguishes science from environmental activism, politics, and opportunism."—Vaclav Klaus, President, The European Union

THe last comment was also used in the Australian edition.

- Anthony Cappello.

Little Black School Book - In the Weekend Australian

2009-08-24T05:10:00.000-07:00

How to tell teachers what they like to hear

OPINION: Christopher Pearson
August 22, 2009
Article from: The Australian

IN 2008 Mark Lopez appalled Australia's teachers unions and endeared himself to a great many students with volume one of The Little Black Schoolbook.

It's a guide on how to write essays guaranteed to appeal to politically correct teachers, with helpful hints on how to ingratiate yourself with them.

Connor Court Publishing has just produced volume two, which concentrates on how to excel in secondary and tertiary exams, a bargain at $29.95.

While Lopez thinks some degree of merit is essential for success in exams, he stresses that students don't always succeed by merit alone. "Sometimes merit can even compromise high grades, due to the impact of an examiner's bias, or when a clever student has exceeded the knowledge of his teacher who is too ignorant, incompetent or narrow-minded to recognise and reward this degree of accomplishment." It follows that: "The key to positive assessment in assignments and exams is to determine what your educators think they want (officially), as well as what they need (psychologically) and then appear to provide the former while actually providing both, with covert emphasis on the latter."

He also urges pessimism over the professionalism of most examiners, except in maths and science subjects. "If you are pursuing high grades it is more advantageous to assume that you will not be assessed fairly or rationally and take the appropriate precautions. The trick is to assume the worst and do what is necessary to succeed with the worst examiners. Consequently, your work will be able to succeed with any examiner rather than be precariously dependent on competent treatment for a just reward."

It's also helpful to remember that most examiners aren't interested in signs of original thought and grade exam papers on Pavlovian auto-pilot. "If you want to improve your chances of receiving the highest grades, stick to producing material that closest resembles what your examiners are behaviourally conditioned to rewarding and avoid what they are behaviourally conditioned to penalising. Remember, any creativity and originality that deviates from the familiar stereotype entails risk."

Lopez is particularly persuasive when analysing the exploitable vanities of teachers and the fantasies they entertain about themselves as frustrated writers, artists or politicians. "The notion of the fantasy self helps explain why a text like Frank McCourt's bestselling autobiography Angela's Ashes, which is an entertaining book of modest literary or historical value, could be hurriedly added to the set texts for study in many year 12 classrooms so soon after its publication. It is a collection of sometimes amusing anecdotes that tell the story of one man's triumph over adversity as he rose from extreme poverty in Ireland to 'make it' by becoming, of all things, a high school English teacher in the United States."

He's right in explaining how a second-rate book suddenly got on to the syllabus and there are other lessons to be learned.

The book "is extremely validating for teachers, telling them they are OK and that their life is on track, but there is an even more enticing dimension to the McCourt legend. After a long career, McCourt then wrote Angela's Ashes, thereby proving that during those long years of teaching he did have a bestselling book in him after all. He made the fantasy a reality. While tutoring students, I noticed how the teachers who taught this text tended to idolise McCourt or, more precisely, they idolised what McCourt represented, and in doing so they revealed much about themselves." At Lopez's urging, one of the pupils he was coaching went to hear McCourt speak while he was on a world tour promoting the sequel.

"When my student let his teacher know of his plans, she was delighted, although she expressed her regret that she too would like to attend but had other commitments. At McCourt's lecture, my student made copious notes, and then he typed them up and presented them to his teacher as a gift. She was overjoyed. She hung on every word as my student recounted to her how the evening went. My student received an A-plus for his essay, although I suspect that this grade had already been decided by the teacher before my student put pen to paper."

He urges his readers to make a study of their teachers' vanities and pieties, with a view to pandering to them systematically. "If you share your teacher's beliefs, it is in your interests to let your teacher know." If not, "it is reassuring to know that the easiest people to deceive are those who want to be deceived, or, more precisely, there are those who so desperately want to believe something positive and efficacious about themselves that they welcome a false reinforcement of this belief more readily than the truth. Let them think what it pleases them to think, and reap the rewards."

No wonder that volume one had the teachers unions up in arms. His contempt for them knows no bounds. "Especially with the more politically minded of teachers, a few choice words expressing political solidarity (such as the environmentalist slogan, 'Think global, act local') will go a long way in your favour by suggesting that you are like-minded and on side, giving your teacher the heart-warming and fulfilling impression that they have indeed made a difference. These fantasy selves are precious to individuals. If challenged they can be ferociously protected, but when humoured this is usually enthusiastically appreciated."

Lopez says that teachers can be divided into the chattering classes and the whispering classes, the latter being closet conservatives. "Students can benefit from this ideological divide. If you suspect that your educator is a member of the whispering classes, they may be even more appreciative of students who show an ideological affinity with them than the politically correct educators can be."

There is a timeless, Machiavellian quality to much of this bleak little book's advice. On the strictly limited advantage of being in the right, it notes: "When dealing with those in authority over you, like a teacher, if you win an argument it usually only makes the situation worse because the teacher is at liberty to later uncompromisingly reassert their authority or take their revenge at the first opportunity when they assess your work. Consequently, you need to apologise even if the teacher was in the wrong. This is not a capitulation. It is a strategy. In fact, this strategy works better if you are apologising and the teacher knows deep down that he was at fault."

Older readers with the benefit of a first-class education may find it difficult to credit that most teachers are as unprofessional and politicised as Lopez paints them. However, having tutored several honorary nieces and nephews through school and university, I don't think he's unduly cynical. One of my protegees in her third year as an undergraduate recently confessed that she goes out of her way to cite references to "mankind" just so she can insert (sic) and affirm her feminist credentials. In Australian history essays, she always alludes to white settlement with inverted commas and never reverts to AD in citing dates when her markers expect the PC term Current Era. Another asked for help checking the punctuation of an honours thesis that won him a university medal, but insisted on a dozen deliberate howlers with apostrophes so as not to risk intimidating his markers with too perfect a text. Alas, I humoured him.

Let me end by quoting two sage pieces of advice on the handling of educators' egos. Lopez thinks that from a psychological point of view, "teachers must be able to assume ownership of your success". Again, as many manipulative people discover the hard way, "if it is clever to be able to outsmart someone, it can be even cleverer to resist the temptation to let them know that you have outsmarted them."

HOT TIPS FOR AWESOME PARENTS BLOG!

2009-08-04T16:37:00.000-07:00

Cath Warnock author of the forthcoming Connor Court Publishing title:
Hot Tips for Cool Parents: The key to raising awesome kids, has just started her blog! This will keep readers up-to-date on her book, her talking engagements and most of all, her views and reviews! Click here to read her blog!

- Anthony Cappello

Who is in the Connor Court Editorial Board

2009-08-02T19:08:00.000-07:00

Anthony Cappello, Connor Court Publishing.
Associate Professor James Franklin - UNSW, Sydney.
John Roskam - IPA, Melbourne.
Tess Livingstone - Queensland.
Marita Winters - Catholic Inquiry Centre, Sydney.
Dr. Simone Battiston - Swinburne University.
Dr. Aniello Iannuzzi - NSW, AMA. (pictured on the right)
Hugh McGinlay - Rainbow Books / Mosaic Resources

Garth Paltridge on the Climate Caper

2009-07-31T21:38:00.001-07:00

Hot new title for everyday parents!

2009-07-13T15:41:00.001-07:00

Connor Court Publishing is please to announce the forthcoming title: Hot Tips for Cool Parents. According to Connor Court publisher Anthony Cappello, "this title goes to the heart of what we like about our philosophy on publishing. Its grass-roots, rural Victoria and based on life experience". while Ann Sexton, past Victorian State President and National Board Member of the Australian Breastfeeding Association praises Hot Tip for Cool Parents as follows: "Cath’s book provides a light hearted, easy to read and very practical approach to the life altering role of parenting. The strong focus of Hot Tips for Cool Parents on the importance of positive role modelling for young people sits well with the current research trends and fully supports those of us who work closely with young people and their parents."
Launches are being planned in Benalla, Wangaratta and at the Readings Bookstore in Carlton with Kerry Cue, established and well respected writer.
- Maria Giordano

Bishop Porteous on ABC's JJJ program

2009-07-10T23:16:00.000-07:00

Yes, out of all places, the ABC (shock horror) showed Bishop Porteous and several priests.

Click here to watch:

It is these type of priests that Bishop Porteous writes about in his new book: After the Heart of God.

Plimer's book reviewed in the Daily Mail, (UK)

2009-07-07T23:26:00.001-07:00

The following article appears in the Daily Mail in the UK,

ANDREW ALEXANDER: Hysteria is the real threat, not global warming

With Tony Blair launching his own plan to save the world (groans), and the G8 leaders also unveiling their thoughts about global warming, this is a big week for environmental fanaticism.

Click here for the full article

08 July 2009

www.dailymail.co.uk

From the Moorabool Leader

2009-07-07T17:42:00.000-07:00

History of shire in new fiction for kids
lifestyle
Arts & Entertainment
07 Jul 09

by Amy Walker

A BALLAN publisher has talked a prolific Australian writer into localising a children’s book for Moorabool Shire.

Connor Court publisher Anthony Cappello has published a Moorabool-inspired version of James Tierney’s Squiggles and Squinter.

Mr Cappello said the book was set in 1875, with action taking place near Bacchus Marsh, Ballan, Gordon, Greendale and Mt Egerton.

“When he (James Tierney) approached me about his bushranging book, I declined as we do not publish fiction,” Mr Cappello said.

“However, with interest in using the book in schools in NSW and with Moorabool’s strong bushranging tradition, I asked him if we could rewrite the book to make our shire its setting. This he did, including landmarks such as Blackwood, Moorabool, and Moonlite’s trail.

“He even named the two families in the book as the Ballans and the Greendales.

“By making Squiggles and Squinter localised we are teaching children some of the rich history of the shire.”

The first three readers to email the correct answer to the following question will win a copy of the book along with Meg, Mog and Miss Molly by Ballan teacher Yvonne Horsfield. The question is where was Ned Kelly hanged? Email your answers to walkerad@ leadernewspapers.com.au.

Photo taken from the Moorabool Leader

Vale Frank Devine

2009-07-04T01:53:00.000-07:00

Frank Devine was a great friend of Connor Court. Always offering his support, always willing to do a review of our titles and always offering his advice. He will be missed. To the very end he was offering his help with Fr James Murray's book The Judas Tree. We posted his copy of The Judas Tree only a few weeks ago with a big thank you. For all the team at Connor Court, thank you for the witness of your life and for your steadfast religious beliefs - solid to the very end. May you rest in peace.

The following is taken from the Australian.

July 03, 2009
Article from: The Australian

VETERAN newspaper columnist and editor Frank Devine has died after a long illness. He was 77 years old.
Frank Devine

Frank Devine: A conviction journalist whose religious faith was central to his life.

Today he was described as the “laughing cavalier of Australian journalism,” by friend and former NSW opposition leader Peter Coleman on the website of The Australian newspaper, where Mr Devine was a former columnist and editor.

He had also been editor of the Chicago Sun-Times and the New York Post, a senior editor at the American edition of Reader's Digest and editor-in-chief of the Australian Reader's Digest.

He worked as a foreign correspondent in New York, London and Tokyo.

“His laughter, often noisy, was always infectious,” Mr Coleman said.

“He was a sports fanatic (he had a bookcase full of dog-eared Wisdens), a film buff (his favourite film was The Godfather), and a stylish writer with a love for words.”

Mr Devine was born in Blenheim, New Zealand on December 17, 1931.

He began his career as a journalist at the age of 17 on the New Zealand publication The Marlborough Express.

In 1953 he started work at The West Australian, where he met his wife Jacqueline. They married in 1959.

Mr Devine is survived by his wife and his three daughters Miranda, Alexandra and Rosalind.

MEET PLIMER IN PERTH

2009-07-02T15:32:00.000-07:00

Ian Plimer, the author of this year's most talked-about book Heaven and Earth, will be signing copies of his book in-store at lunch time on Friday 10 July.

Easily the most talked-about book of 2009, Heaven and Earth has brought the debate on the science of climate change to a new level.

Ian Plimer contends that current changes in climate, sea level and ice are within the range of natural variability and that they have always been driven by the Sun, the Earth’s orbit and plate tectonics. He asserts that there is no evidence from geology, archaeology, history or astronomy to support the hypothesis that humans can, in fact, change the Earth’s climate. At its most provocative, Heaven and Earth criticises the UN and the IPCC, and argues that anthropogenic climate change constitutes “a new ignorance that fills the yawning spiritual gap in Western society.”

Heaven and Earth presents an alternative view of the science and politics of climate change. You'll want to read this engaging book to decide whether it is simply a ‘convenient’ view or one to be taken as seriously as the literature it seeks to refute.

Ian Plimer is Professor of Mining Geology at The University of Adelaide and Emeritus Professor of Earth Sciences at The University of Melbourne where he was Professor and Head (1991-2005). He was previously Professor and Head of Geology at The University of Newcastle (1985-1991). His previous book, A Short History of Planet Earth, won the Eureka Prize.

Event Details:
Description:

Lunch time in-store book signing
Date:

Friday 10 July, 2009
Time:

11:30AM - 1:00PM
Venue:

Boffins Bookshop

806 Hay Street, Perth

Now in its fifth print-run, Heaven and Earth is essential reading for anyone even remotely interested in the climate change debate. Easily the most contentious book of 2009, it has raised the temperature of the debate, stirring up emotively expressed opinion wherever it is discussed.

Make sure you are at Boffins at lunch time on Friday 10 July to get your copy, meet the man responsible for it and see what all the fuss is about.

Can't make it?
We will be happy to have a copy signed for you. Simply pre-purchase and provide us with details of how you would like your copy personalised and we'll take care of the rest. To pre-purchase, you can visit us at the shop, email us, call us on 9321 5755, or purchase online by clicking here.

FROM THE CATHOLIC WEEKLY

2009-06-28T18:15:00.001-07:00

Young have a ‘stronger sense of priestly identity’

By Damir Govorcin

28 June, 2009

A sea-change is occurring in the Church with a new generation of young people

re-discovering the deeply Catholic dimension of their faith, says Bishop Julian Porteous,

auxiliary Bishop of Sydney.

“World Youth Day is a product that reflects it and nourishes it,” he said.

“I don’t think it’s just World Youth Day itself, but World Youth Day very much opened people’s eyes to what is actually happening in the Church.”

Bishop Porteous says the next generation of priests is going to have a “different orientation” towards the priesthood then previous generations.

“And sometimes older priests find that difficult to grasp,” he said. “I think younger priests have a stronger sense of priestly identity.

“They have a greater appreciation of things like the devotional life of the Church.

“They often have a clear sense of the teaching of the Church and want to be advocates of the teaching in particular of controversial issues.

“They are strongly convinced of and want to promote the Church’s teaching on various moral issues at the present moment.

“Younger priests have a deep discovery of their Catholic faith and particularly the traditions of the faith, and these are the things they want to share and transmit in their priestly ministry.”

In his new book, After the Heart of God, Bishop Porteous examines what sort of priest is needed for the third millennium.

Drawing on his 34 years as a priest and seven years as rector of the Good Shepherd Seminary, Homebush, he discusses the issue in the light of dramatic changes in the cultural and ecclesial landscape in the past 50 years.

The book also looks at the identity, spirituality and pastoral orientation of priests, especially diocesan priests.

After the Heart of God was launched by the Archbishop of Sydney, George Cardinal Pell, at St Mary’s Cathedral on June 24. [It will also be launched by Fr John Flader at the Catholic Centre, Lidcombe, on July 15.]

Bishop Porteous said: “I wrote the book as a result of my seven years as rector of the Good Shepherd Seminary, and one of the questions that were always in my mind was what sort of priest is needed for the Church and society of today.

“Writing the book gave me a chance to reflect on my 30 plus years as a priest, my experiences and what I saw as a great change that had taken place in the society and also the Church in that period of time.

“It also gave me the opportunity to reflect on how best priests can go about their priestly ministry today.”

He added: “I did have in mind priests firstly when I was writing the book because I thought it was important to write something more specifically directed to the Australian situation. I thought it was important to have an Australian priest write about the experience of being a priest in Australia.”

Among the many issues examined in the book, Bishop Porteous looks at the living situation of priests.

“Are the living conditions, the circumstances that priests find themselves in now in parishes really the best and what can we do about them? I think that’s really an

important question,” he said.

“For example, when I was first ordained I was in a parish with the parish priest.

“We had a live-in house-keeper; there were formal meals where other priests would be invited.

“There was a greater structure to the way of life of the priest, where as now a lot of structure has disappeared.”

Bishop Porteous added: “Another question that’s important that I discuss in a range of ways is the identity of the priest.

“Lay people are taking more and more roles in parishes – that’s a very good and necessary thing – but it does raise questions of what’s the specific role of the priest and what’s the role of the lay person?

“One of the key things is for priests to deepen the sense of their own identity – who they are as priests.

“And also to be more appreciative of what people need most from priests.

“I think the most distinctive thing priests have to offer people is to assist them in their relationship with God.

“A priest needs to be a man of God, a man of faith, his celebration of the liturgy needs to be as such that it really helps people be drawn closer to God, be spiritually nourished through their liturgical celebrations.

“The priest does need to be a pastor after the heart of Christ.”
Top of Page

FROM THE BALLARAT COURIER

2009-06-28T17:41:00.001-07:00

Ballan publisher in heaven after coup

BALLAN publisher Connor Court had a publishing coup securing Ian Plimer's Heaven and Earth, a book which argues against the science that suggests humans are influencing climate change.

The mining geologist's book is now in its fifth reprint and Professor Plimer has enjoyed the debate it has caused.

The Courier recently traded emails with the man behind Connor Court, Anthony Cappello.

- How did you end up with the publishing rights to Heaven and Earth?

Ian Plimer sent me an email. Knowing the man and his previous publishing successes, I was mad to refuse. At the end of the day, its about sales and Plimer sells. The book made it to number one on Bookdata.

- Connor Court promotes itself as a "publisher dedicated to culture, justice and religion" and has published many books which discuss Christianity and in particular, Catholicism. If you had the opportunity, would you publish a book such as Professor Plimer's 1994 anti-creationist work, Telling Lies for God?

Yes, because the book isn't anti-Christian. I think Plimer challenged the science of the creationists, just like he is challenging the science of the climate warmers. Both are scientific debates. I enjoyed reading Telling lies for God and didn't find it offensive to Christianity or Catholicism.

- Would you ever publish a book which backed efforts to counter human-influenced climate change?

Because of Ian Plimer's Heaven and Earth we were approached by another prominent scientist who also challenges the status-quo on climate change, but more importantly he also challenges the politicisation of science. This book will be our second published book. Both Plimer and Garth Paltridge present to us scientific arguments. We have no more scheduled after this one.

This second book by Professor Paltridge is very important as it will show that Plimer is not alone. I guess the question is why aren't other publishers publishing books that present a different position on climate change? There is plenty of publishable material and as Plimer has demonstrated there is a market for another view. At the moment I have four other manuscripts by other prominent scientists also sceptical about the science of global warming.

As for the Connor Court position on the issue, I would argue that we are environmentalist without being committed to the Green ideology. We strongly believe in reducing waste, pollution, and being self-sufficient. This has been a long standing Catholic position right back to the 1930s when G.K. Chesterton, Hillarie Belloc and Vincent McNabb were preaching for a return to the land for self-sufficiency and strongly against urbanisation. Then there was the work of the National Catholic Rural Movement in Australia which was miles ahead in the care of the environment. Ballarat was one of the nerve centres of this movement.

However, when it comes to the science of climate change a debate is needed and Plimer has started the debate.

We are publishing a book in September on economics by several Swinburne academics. The authors, there are three, all hold the current climate warming line and are working on economic models based on an ETS becoming law. They support an ETS and are quite excited about it.

If reputable scientists come to us with manuscript that holds the climate warming line, we would consider it.

- You choose to have your books printed in Australia although many publishers have books printed overseas, why the more costly option?

We use two Australian printers and we use the local Ballarat printer for the smaller stuff. These three printers are good friends and have been a part of Connor Court from the beginning. It's about friendship, quality and commitment.

Because of this friendship we have flexibility and trust that one would not get, I believe, from a cheaper overseas printer.

- What are the advantages and disadvantages of operating a publishing house in a small town; and why did you choose Ballan?

We are a business that revolves around family life and we moved to Ballan about five years ago and have never looked back. We are trying to grow our own veggies, our trees and our family in a community that is non-urban.

B.A. Santamaria argued all his life for a decentralised Australia, small farms, self-sufficiency, the small business, and for family life to be on the top of the list. It's a philosophy we have adopted, although I suck at self-sufficiency and at the same time long to improve in this area.

Disadvantages, well, not having an Officeworks in Ballan. The Flying Teapot in Ballan not being opened on a Monday as I have to conduct my meetings on a Monday in Bacchus Marsh.

- How was Connor Court established? What was your first book? How many people does the company now employ?

I worked for John Garratt for three years then another publisher for five years. After I left my last publisher I got some research work at Victoria University. I started Connor Court in September 2005. Our first book was the conference papers of a conference which I attended in Chicago on the Italian migrants and the second World War. As many people do not realise several thousand Australians of an Italian background were suspected of being enemy aliens and were interned for the duration of the war. So I published these papers in a book called Enemy Aliens. We then published several Catholic titles, which have been quite successful. In fact, my Catholic titles sell widely in Australia and the world with Theology of the Body Made Simple being translated in several languages worldwide.

We employ several casual staff members, we have a sub-editor in Ballarat, a designer in St Kilda, a sales representative in Brisbane. Brigid, my wife, looks after the accounts and to be honest, keeps the business running smoothly and efficiently.

We have also published two local titles and are hoping to do another local publication in 2010.

Forthcoming Title- The Case for Christianity

2009-06-18T13:31:00.000-07:00

Connor Court Publishing is proud to announce its forthcoming title, expected in July, entitled: The Case for Christianity: St Justin Martyr’s arguments for Religious Liberty and Judicial Justice.

From the Preface
Why is reading about St Justin of Neapolis, a saint and martyr of the second century AD, important for Christians of the twenty-first century?
St Justin lived during times similar to our own in many ways. Rome was the dominant world power and appeared for all intents and purposes unassailable. Economically, militarily and geographically Rome was at its height. Yet, it was beset by a number of growing problems––moral decay, family breakdown, falling birth rates, just to name a few. Religiously, Rome was conservative, yet eastern religions and mystery cults were spreading westwards and gaining many adherents. Fidelity to the gods was seen as essential to Rome’s continued prosperity and survival. Failure to render the gods their due threatened to bring down their wrath and despoil the empire.
Hence, the problem of the Christians. They refused to give any acknowledgement to the Graeco-Roman pantheon, and thus were considered as dangerous and impious atheists. For Rome’s survival, they therefore needed to be eliminated. In their efforts to destroy Christianity the Roman judicial procedure was arbitrary and ruthless. All that was needed for summary execution was the admission of bearing the Christian name and refusing to sacrifice to the Graeco-Roman gods.
St Justin’s efforts were urgent and heroic. He petitioned the very authority that persecuted Christians with a series of arguments pleading for judicial justice and religious liberty. His arguments appealed to the nobler sense in Romans, as well as to common sense. At the same time they contained an ‘evangelistic edge’ that sought his readers’ conversion to Christianity. This spirit of evangelism is very pronounced in St Justin’s other great work, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew.
In a number of respects the plight of second century Christians reflects the suffering of Christians in various modern-day contexts. St Justin’s arguments are, therefore, of a nature that can be appreciated by many a modern reader and should be of interest and relevance to Christians deprived of religious liberty today. St Justin’s struggle also reminds us that we in the West who enjoy religious freedom should never take it for granted.

About the Author
Robert Haddad is married to his wife, Suzy, and currently has four children, Elias, Anthony, Catherine and Christina. He holds qualifications in law, theology and religious education, namely a LL.B, Grad. Cert. RE, Grad. Dip. Ed., M.Phil., MA (Theo.) and MRelEd. Robert is also the author of Christ the Teacher Series (4 volumes), Lord of History Series (2 volumes).

Since 1990, Robert has worked full-time at St. Charbel’s College, Punchbowl, teaching Religion and History for 15 years. This was followed by 4 years as the Convener of the Catholic Chaplaincy at the University of Sydney. He has also been a lecturer at the Centre for Thomistic Studies since 1996, teaching Apologetics, Church Fathers and Church History, as well as assisting part-time with Lumen Verum Apologetics. He currently is the Director of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine for the Archdiocese of Sydney and lectures in Scripture and Church part-time at the University of Notre Dame, Australia.

- Anthony Cappello

Bishop Porteous Booklaunch in Sydney

2009-06-15T18:33:00.001-07:00

Meet Ian Plimer in Perth, Boffin's Book Signing

2009-06-15T18:20:00.000-07:00

Boffins bookstore in Perth will be hosting a book signing session with Ian Plimer at their store. This is a wonderful opportunity to get a copy of the book while getting it signed by the author himself.

Details are as follows: Boffins Bookshop, 806 Hay Street , Perth

Friday, 10 July 2009 - 12:30PM – 2:00PM

Hunter Valley Launch of Ian Plimer's Heaven and Earth

2009-06-14T23:29:00.000-07:00

The Hunter Valley, NSW, is an interesting place to live – combining heaving industry and mining with the natural beauty of the Hunter Valley – vineyards, beaches, lakes and waterways. Every weekend those employed by the heavy CO2 emitters take advantage of the great outdoors in sports that Sydney neighbours wouldn’t dream of participating in. Hunter Valley residents don’t want climate change to affect their leisure but they also want to keep their jobs.

It should be no surprise that civilised debate about climate change occurs in the lunch rooms of a city where the BHP Steelworks once reigned. Coal mining is still a booming industry in the region and with easy access to this resource, some of Australia’s largest users of electricity reside in the Hunter.

The unions representing these workers cannot support an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) but some are fearful to speak out publicly lest there be ramifications from city head offices – run by people without the first clue of the rigours of work in industry let alone the process itself. Or they fear consequences within the larger body – the Australian Labor Party – which appears to be contemplating suicide by killing off those whom they used to hold dear. The steel industry, the coal industry and the aluminium industry – the heart and soul of the Australian economy – would all be ruined if the new Left had their way.

On the other side are those with a ‘Green Conscience’ whom, without logic, campaign for almost living in squalor rather than mining and converting coal to energy. Evidence of this are their life threatening attempts at protests against the aforementioned industries.

This is why Professor Ian Plimer’s latest contribution – Heaven and Earth – is fascinating to residents of this region. The contribution is a step-by-step scientific analysis that could be understood at the most basic level of scientific knowledge. At the book launch in Maitland, attended by plenty of supporters, sceptics, academics and unionists – those generally interested in debate rather than blind emotion – Professor Plimer emphasised that he did not support pollution but CO2 in itself was not pollution. And the ETS, he said, was just a “tax on the sixth element of the Periodic Table”.

Launching the book at a local drinking hole was John Maitland, the former National President of the CFMEU. Maitland’s activism against the absurd ETS and government lobbying shows that those labelled by the media as ‘sceptics’ aren’t just from the right of politics – National Party MPs, conservative Liberals and Family First Senators – but that there is real concern within the ALP. The fact that the CFMEU is aligned to the Left of the ALP gives rise to the probability that sections of the Left and Right may defeat the ETS on the floor of the Labor Party Conference later this year.

What Rudd will do after that is anybody’s guess.

An ETS will destroy the Hunter Valley, Newcastle and the port operations which export to the world, and the likes of Maitland and other union leaders in the region are right to work with their businesses to defeat a “tax on the sixth element of the Periodic Table”. Now they have a sound scientific argument to support their claims.

- Aaron Russell

From Publisher's Weekly - US

2009-06-10T16:18:00.001-07:00

Rowman and Littlefield Acquires Aussie Bestseller
By Rachel Deahl -- Publishers Weekly, 6/10/2009 7:37:00 AM

Rowman and Littlefield Publishing has acquired North American rights to In Heaven and Earth: Global Warming: The Missing Science, by leading Australian geologist Ian Plimer. In the book, Plimer makes the scientifically controversial argument that carbon dioxide has an insignificant role in affecting climate. Heaven and Earth was originally released in Australia in May by Connor Court Publishing and has already gone through five printings, after hitting local bestseller lists there. According to R&L, as of May 15, Plimer's title was #1 on Bookdata, the Australian equivalent of BookScan.

R&L said Plimer refutes much of the science Al Gore presented in his bestselling primer on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth. In a statement from the publisher, Plimer said Gore's book and documentary are rife with "misrepresentations" and that "trying to deal with these misrepresentations is somewhat like trying to argue with creationists, who misquote, concoct evidence, quote out of context, ignore contrary evidence, and create evidence ex nihilo."

R&L, through its Taylor Trade imprint, is crashing the book for July 1 and expects the title to stir up debate. Jed Lyons, CEO of R&L, added that the book's message is particularly urgent. "When our children are being taught that carbon dioxide—food for plants—is a pollutant, and that climate change is somehow unnatural, then clarifying views need to be heard."

Where to buy Ian Plimer's book in Perth

2009-06-09T23:02:00.000-07:00

You can also get your copy signed by Ian Plimer on July 10th at the

Boffins Bookshop - 806 Hay Street, Perth, Western Australia 6000

PO Box 7349, Cloisters Square, WA 6850

T: 08 9321 5755 F: 08 9321 5744

stephen@boffinsbookshop.com.au

www.boffinsbookshop.com.au

IN DEFENCE OF IAN PLIMER

2009-06-09T20:59:00.000-07:00

Open letter to the President of Australian Academy of Science is now online here:

CLICK HERE

- Maria Giordano

Another critic on Climate Change!

2009-06-09T00:51:00.000-07:00

Here is another forthcoming title on Climate Change. It is a hot topic and a topic that needs debate. Connor Court Publishing seeks an open-minded and challenging debate on this important issue. We believe in looking after the environment, being self-sufficient, recycling and using our resources wisely. We don't preach it, we live it. We also believe in an open and even-handed debate on what causes Global Warming and we welcome another contribution to this important topic.

Here is the blurb to this important title
So you think the theory of disastrous climate change has been proved! You believe that scientists are united in their efforts to force the nations of the world to reduce their carbon emissions! You imagine perhaps that scientists are far too professional to overstate their case!
Maybe we should all think again. In his book The Climate Caper, with a light touch and nicely readable manner, Professor Paltridge shows that the case for action against climate change is not nearly so certain as is presented to politicians and the public. He leads us through the massive uncertainties which are inherently part of the ‘climate modelling process’; he examines the even greater uncertainties associated with economic forecasts of climatic doom; and he discusses in detail the conscious and sub-conscious forces operating to ensure that scepticism within the scientific community is kept from the public eye.
It seems that governments are indeed becoming captive to a scientific and technological elite – an elite which is achieving its ends by manipulating fear of climate change into the world’s greatest example of a religion for the politically correct.

Emeritus Professor Garth Paltridge is an atmospheric physicist and was a Chief Research Scientist with the CSIRO Division of Atmospheric Research before taking up positions in Tasmania as Director of the Institute of Antarctic and Southern Ocean Studies and CEO of the Antarctic Cooperative Research Centre. He retired in 2002 and continues to live in Hobart. He is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Tasmania and a Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University.

His research ranged from the optimum design of plants to the economics of climate forecasting. He is best known internationally for work on atmospheric radiation and the theoretical basis of climate. He is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science.
He was in industry for a while as Director of the Environmental Executive of the Institute of Petroleum. He spent various separate years overseas in postings concerned with research or research administration - in the UK, Geneva, New Mexico, Colorado and Washington D.C. In Geneva he was involved in the early development of the World Climate Program. In Washington he was with the US National Climate Program Office at the time of the establishment of the IPCC.

- Anthony Cappello

After the Heart of God - Booklaunch

2009-06-08T00:07:00.000-07:00

Bishop Julian Porteous has just completed his new book entitled:
AFTER THE HEART OF GOD- THE LIFE AND MINISTRY OF PRIESTS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE THIRD MILLENNIUM.
The book will become available on June 22nd. Cardinal George Pell will launch the book at St. Mary's Cathedral Hall in Sydney on June 24th at 5.30pm.
For details and RSVP check out the facebook page by clicking here.

- Anthony Cappello

Steve Fielding has an open mind

2009-06-07T16:53:00.001-07:00

In today's Australian, Senator Steve Fielding writes about keeping an open mind on the issue of global warming. To his credit, Senator Fielding has read Ian Plmer's Heaven and Earth.
Click here to read the article.

- Anthony Cappello

Plimer in the Adelaide Advertiser

2009-06-05T16:03:00.000-07:00

Why I'd put global warming on ice
Article from: The Advertiser

WORDS: PENELOPE DEBELLE,
MAIN PICTURE: MATT TURNER

May 28, 2009 11:30pm

GLOBAL warming is a load of hot air and the world is actually in an ice age, says the scientist who has made his reputation taking the contrary view.

IAN PLIMER LIKES to think of himself as a professional sceptic. He wears doubt like a badge of honour - except when it comes to himself. A decade ago the Adelaide geology professor was so outraged by a creationist minister's claims that Noah's Ark had been found in Turkey that he sued in the Federal Court. Now he has his sights set on the scientists who are predicting another apocalyptic flood; one that will make sea levels rise, melt the ice caps and change the climate of the planet.

This time Plimer, a geologist and academic with interests in the mining industry, has taken on a sea of atmospheric scientists, biologists, meteorologists and oceanographers, and declared them all wrong. Plimer's view is that man-made climate change is a myth and we should be enjoying what is a warm break between glacial stages of a prevailing Ice Age.

The fact that most climate scientists say he's talking a load of rubbish bothers him not at all. Meet him and you get the strong sense he enjoys the limelight and is blithely unaffected by criticism. Nothing challenges his view that he is right. "I look at everything," Plimer says. "I have a bigger picture of the planet." Clearly, this hands-on scientist who cut his teeth in the rough- and-tumble of the mining town of Broken Hill is not short of self-confidence.

He has been awarded the Eureka Prize twice, once for the promotion of science, and he writes not for other scientists but for ordinary people. The author of seven books, he also knows a good story when he has one. He was convinced his new book denying the science of climate change, Heaven+Earth. Global Warming: The Missing Science, would be a best-seller even when he could not find a publisher.

ABC Books was not interested, nor was Random House, which had published an earlier best-selling book, Telling Lies for God. He was also rejected by Allen and Unwin, Reed, and the niche South Australian publisher East Street. Plimer pressed on in the belief that someone would eventually wake up. He sought out Connor Court, an independent publisher based at Ballan in Victoria, that publishes Catholic books, including one by the Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell (God and Caesar). Plimer called, emailed, and 10 minutes later had his proposal accepted. "We know who you are," they said, and began preparing artwork before the manuscript had even arrived. He later met the publisher, Anthony Cappello, and reassured him he had done the right thing. "I told him, 'Anthony, this is going to be the biggest book you've ever had. This book will put your kids through school'," Plimer says. "He didn't believe me but I knew it was going to be good."

On that point, Plimer is being proved right. Heaven+Earth sold more than 12,000 copies in its first two weeks and is into its third print run. It is about to be launched in the United Kingdom - he is writing an article for The Spectator magazine and will visit London shortly - and the U.S. He has spent this month flying around Australia and has been interviewed by most of the major print and electronic media.

Plimer has a message to sell that many want to hear and he is enjoying tossing grenades into the global-warming debate. He presents himself as a crusader for truth, the lone scientist willing to stand up and explode with breath-taking assuredness what he says are a concoction of myths and misinformation that a gullible and badly-informed public has been bludgeoned into believing. "I've had the temerity to say the public paradigm might be incorrect," he says over coffee near the University of Adelaide. "There are a lot of very fundamental misconceptions out there and I think that is why the book has done so well because people have intuitively felt that something is not right."

How great for the planet, and for our consciences, if he were right. In these dangerous times it would be comforting to think that man-induced climate change was the result of confused thinking by a bunch of ill-informed scientists. Nothing left to do but turn on the shower and load up the Landcruiser.

Plimer set out in Heaven+Earth to destroy every argument that has ever been raised about human-induced climate change. It is a big claim. As the professor of astrophysics at the University of NSW, Michael Ashley, wrote earlier this month in The Australian, if true it would rank as one of the greatest discoveries of the century and would earn Plimer a Nobel Prize.

Plimer's reservations about climate science surfaced in 2001 with A Short History of Planet Earth which won awards and staked his claim to the belief that major climate change was a regular feature of life on the planet. The current temperature variations were nothing to worry about, he wrote, and carbon dioxide emissions were not to blame. Since then his thinking has evolved into a more aggressive check-list of rebuttals to the accepted wisdom on climate change and global warming. He says his truths - he won't use the word beliefs because that is too unscientific - are found in the earth, in the timelessness of geology where millions of years of climate change is written in the layers of stone, and in the negligible relative scale of human impact. It is comforting reading.

Are the speed and amount of climate change unprecedented? No, says Plimer.

Is dangerous warming occurring? No.

Is the temperature range observed in the 20th century outside the range of normal variability? No.

Most credible scientific bodies have accepted the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's assessments that the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is rising. Using peer-reviewed science from experts in the study of atmospheric gases and global temperatures, the IPCC accepted evidence of galloping global warming.

So who is Plimer to know more than they do? Aged 62 and with the dishevelled air of a busy academic, Plimer is a former Professor of Geology at Melbourne University who moved to Adelaide three years ago to become Professor of Mining Geology. Plimer says he chose Adelaide because of the co-operation between the University of Adelaide, the Department of Primary Industry and Resources, and the mining industry.

"I looked into it a bit further and I couldn't believe government, industry and the universities were working together as closely as that," he says. "By contrast, the University of Melbourne is quite poisonous in terms of anyone who had anything to do with industry."

Those who have hinted that Plimer has close ties to industry need only to ask; he does. He holds directorships with two mining companies, but claims with a hint of irritation that this does not affect the independence of his beliefs.

His mining interests grew out of a long association with Broken Hill. Plimer arrived there as a young man in the late 1960s and worked underground at North Broken Hill before moving into the science of mining, metallurgy and exploration. He owns a house in Broken Hill and one west of Silverton. Plimer is a director of CBH Resources, a Sydney-based mineral resource company with a mine at Cobar and an underground mine in Broken Hill. He is also a director of Ivanhoe Resources, which has a large ore body outside Cloncurry in Queensland.

This commercial interest in mining, according to Plimer, does not colour his arguments, which he says are based on pure science. His line is that the speed of light remains the same no matter who funds the research, and he is annoyed at being regularly questioned about his interests when, he says, other public figures like Professor Ross Garnaut, who is chairman of Lihir Gold, are not.

"Some of the major physical features of the planet don't change depending on who funds it," Plimer says. "Cosmic radiation drives a lot of climate. Now, it doesn't matter who funds work on cosmic radiation - it was originally done by Bell telephone. I think that it's a fallacious argument that you get a required result, and especially if the research is published, because it undergoes a review process."

But ordinary people must make judgments based on who they can trust. Better, then, to disclose a personal interest when opposing the Rudd Government's emissions trading scheme, which he has done more than once? "Well, I say very little about the emissions trading scheme, in fact I don't think I say anything about it there at all because it's a book of science," he says, tapping his book.

But Plimer recently wrote in The Australian that primary producers should be "very worried about an emissions trading scheme underpinned by incomplete science". Late last year he told the ABC's Lateline business program the scheme would create massive unemployment and lead to a change of government. In neither case were his mining directorships mentioned.

"The same argument you would have to say to the ABC; here you have the ABC who are funded by government," he says. "You have all the environment groups and it's very much in their interests to frighten people witless and go around rattling the can and getting more money, but that is never declared." Plimer comes to the climate change debate with another barrow to push. He is a sceptic opposed to certain kinds of orthodoxy. He argues this is a default position; he is a scientist and scepticism underpins science. But he pursues those who disagree and in the 1990s he took creationist minister Dr Allen Roberts to the Federal Court in an attempt to prove his claims about Noah's Ark wrong. According to Plimer, any "bushie" could have looked at the site in Turkey and known there were features of geology that explained the boat-shaped mass.

So why not just shrug off the claim as ludicrous, as most people did?

"Because it was a fraud," he says. "The punters were being told that Noah's Ark had been found, they were paying money to hear this. They claimed that science underpinned these claims and it was fraud." The outcome of the Federal Court case was not clear-cut but Plimer says he won. "The battle that we won hands down, and wanted to win, was the public one," he says. "I wanted people to associate the word 'creationism' with the thought that, hang on, this might be a bit dodgy." The Australian Sceptics were so impressed they made Plimer a life member.

Plimer says he wrote his book for the nameless mass of people he calls punters, who knew they were being fed hype. "They are getting talked down to by pompous, arrogant scientists and getting moralising thrown at them by various radio and television networks. They know that something is wrong but they can't put their finger on it," he says.

Plimer, genial in person but contemptuous of anyone with an opposing view, portrays his science as being above politics but buys willingly into the political debate. "It is very hard to politicise earthquakes and volcanoes and the way ice moves," he says in one breath. And in another: "I mean I'm pretty sure (Liberal climate change spokesman) Greg Hunt wouldn't believe in me on the conservative side of politics, and (Opposition Leader) Malcolm Turnbull wouldn't." What about Liberal Senator Nick Minchin? "He does, there is no doubt about that. Now I think that is very healthy that in the one party there is division. In Labor there is also division. This is the first time we have had a great spectrum of information that can underpin a debate."

Among other scientists, Plimer is all but out in the cold. Across the corridor from Plimer is the university's Professor of Climate Change, Barry Brook, who disagrees with him completely and contributed to a systematic online rebuttal of the book (complex.org.au). Plimer retaliates by saying Brook is a biologist who has done good work on the extinction of mega-fauna but his vision is too narrow.

The attack by astrophysicist Michael Ashley, based on the same body of pure science to which Plimer claims strict adherence, was a stinging rebuttal of the book's claims and credentials. Plimer, self-belief to the fore, does not accept there have been legitimate scientific inroads made into his argument or the book. Ashley's critique ignored the history of the planet, Plimer says, and made errors regarding the IPCC and carbon dioxide. "Nothing but grandstanding. He's a joke, it was quite amusing," Plimer says. "Academics fight very hard about trivial things."

Plimer's minority position does not worry him. Science was never about consensus and as a geologist, he says, he has the bigger planetary view. "No one has ever lined up a scientist against me who deals with the breadth of the planet," he says. "People might cherry pick this or cherry pick that but they are not dealing with the holistic view of the planet."

As for the impact of the criticism so far: "I am being beaten around the head by a feather, a pink feather," he says. "Every time my critics bathe me in their vitriol, ad hominem attacks and pretentious pomposity, sales increase."

TWO FORTHCOMING CATHOLIC TITLES

2009-06-05T15:39:00.000-07:00

Connor Court is proud to announce the publication in July of two new books:
AFTER THE HEART OF GOD: THE LIFE AND MINISTRY OF PRIESTS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE THIRD MILLENNIUM by BISHOP JULIAN PORTEOUS. Bishop Julian Porteous is the Auxiliary Bishop in the Archdiocese of Sydney and past-Rector of the Seminary of the Good Shepherd. This is his second book with Connor Court Publishing. His first title published last December was THE NEW EVANGELISATION: Developing Evangelical Preaching.

The Second title is Fr Anthony Percy's Jesus Christ:Yesterday ~ Today ~ Forever. Fr Anthony Percy is the current rector of the Seminary of the Good Shepherd and his first book Theology of the Body Made Simple has sold over 3500 copies with editions in France, USA, Great Britian, Spain, Mexico, Singapore, South East Asia, Poland and Kenya.

- Anthony Cappello

Part 1: Professor Ian Plimer Interviewed by Brian Carlton; Heaven and Earth

2009-06-03T15:12:00.000-07:00

- Maria Giordano

PRESS IN THE UK

2009-06-01T15:28:00.001-07:00

Ian Plimer's Heaven and Earth is set to be released in the UK by English publisher Quartet Books. The book is already causing a stir with the Spectator's Melanie Phillips writing an excellent article. Click here to read this article.

- Maria Giordano

Ian Plimer in the Australian

2009-05-31T15:38:00.000-07:00

For those of you who missed out reading it in The Australian, here is the link for the article by Ian Plimer entitled: "Vitriolic climate in academic hothouse".

- Maria Giordano

Senator Joyce, Ian Plimer and Senator Boswell

2009-05-25T17:27:00.000-07:00

Senator Joyce, Ian Plimer and Senator Boswell at the Brisbane book launch, May 19th.

Some excellent Ian Plimer reviews

2009-05-24T17:26:00.000-07:00

Here are some excellent reviews.

1. Simon from the webpage Australian Climate Madness has an excellent reply to a review done on Ian Plimer in The Australian. Click here to read this excellent review.

2. Michael Cook is the editor of Mercatornet: A voice for human dignity. Connor Court Publishing highly recommends this online newsletter. Michael Cook interviewed Ian Plimer - click here to read the interview.

3. Michael Cook has also done an excellent review of Heaven and Earth for Online Opinion. Click here to read this book review.

- Anthony Cappello

The Brisbane Launch of Heaven and Earth

2009-05-24T16:01:00.000-07:00

Heaven and Earth – Global Warming The Missing Science by the geologist Professor Ian Plimer was a shock bestseller and reached number one in book sales in Australia and as Brisbane representative of Connor Court Publishing I had the privilege of chairing a lunch time and evening launch of this book in place of its publisher, Anthony Cappello.

Professor Plimer came and spoke brilliantly, taking the audience on a journey through time as he outlined the history of climate change on earth. He was introduced at the lunch time launch by veteran Senator Ron Boswell the man who campaigned against Pauline Hanson and kept her out of the senate. In the evening it was the turn of another well known and outspoken parliamentarian, Senator Barnaby Joyce.

Despite the onset of heavy rain in Brisbane both were well attended at the old time Brisbane Pub the Pineapple Hotel. But it is not surprising because this book has sparked weeks of debate and articles in the pages of our national newspaper The Australian. It has also received praise from one of the nations most widely read columnist, Andrew Bolt.

- Victor Sirl

Cardinal Pell on Global Warming

2009-05-24T15:58:00.000-07:00

Global Warming Pauses

The tide on climate change is starting to turn. The Australian government is becoming more cautious.

It is rare to read a new book likely to make a huge difference to public opinion. Professor Ian Plimer's 500 page book with 2300 footnotes "Heaven and Earth. Global Warming: The Missing Science" is such a book. 30,000 copies were sold in its first month.

Plimer is not a climate change denier, because history shows the planet is dynamic and the climate is always changing, sometimes drastically.

Ice Ages have come and gone and we don't know why. History has seen glaciers at the equator and at one time Scandinavia was under 5 kilometres of ice. Sea levels have been 130 metres lower than today. Some consolation comes from the fact that ice sheets predominated for only 20 per cent of the earth's history.

Plimer demonstrates that a considerable amount of scientific evidence has been produced to counter the still predominant view that human activity, especially through industry, has polluted the atmosphere with carbon dioxide, which will produce disastrous climate changes including a rise in temperature, a melting of the ice caps and rising sea levels.

Contrary evidence is already changing the debate. Australia, with its tiny economy, is no longer aiming to lead the world. The threat of massive job losses and increasing awareness of new evidence will provoke even greater caution in the future.

Originally we were warned about the "greenhouse effect"; then it was "global warming", followed in turn by "climate change". Now we talk about reducing the "carbon footprint". The light is dawning and 30 per cent of scientists are sceptics or deniers.

Non-scientists should not blindly follow expert opinion and this includes Plimer. To the extent we can, we should examine their evidence. While it is still early days in the debate, Plimer's critics have been heavy with the abuse and short on counter evidence.

We should also look back at history for more accurate information and ignore computer models of the long-term future. Climate models making claims for decades into the future cannot work, because we do not know enough about many factors which influence weather, such as the level of activity of the sun, the earth's orbit and wobbles, the level of cloud cover, volcanoes.

One basic claim of Plimer is that an increase of carbon dioxide does not cause temperature rises, but might follow such rises.

What do we make of these facts? The carbon dioxide in the atmosphere continues to rise, but the world's temperature has not risen since 1998.

In Roman times and in the Medieval Warming (900 - 1300 A.D.) temperatures were higher than today by five and six degrees Celsius. No industries then!

In different Ice Ages the earth's atmosphere contained five and ten times the amount of carbon dioxide today.

Evidence shows the wheels are falling from the climate catastrophe bandwagon.

- This article appeared in the Daily Telegraph, May 24, 2009

Some Ian Plimer facts

2009-05-22T07:44:00.000-07:00

Ian Plimer's Heaven and Earth.

1. Nearly sold 30,000 copies since publication on April 16, 2009.
2. Number 1, HEAVEN AND EARTH (Independent)
Neilsen Bookscan May 2, 2009.
3. Rights sold to the UK and USA
4. Anticipated print-run in the USA- 100,000.
5. The Ballan Post-Office has been flat-out with over 2500 parcels sent out from Ballan in April and May.

6. There have been launches in Melbourne – 350 (full house) Adelaide (parliament house) 100 people (full house), Brisbane 120 people at the lunchtime launch, 180 at the evening launch. Sydney 200 people and a sell-out. Maitland 80 people, Hamilton 80 people. There are launches planned in Perth, at the Sydney Institute and in Ballarat.

- Anthony Cappello

Connor Court Expands its Operation

2009-05-22T07:36:00.000-07:00
Due to the continuing success of Connor Court Publishing, Anthony Cappello - publisher of Connor Court - has announced the expansion of the Connor Court team.

Anthony Cappello will continue to publish and chair the editorial team, Brigid Cappello will continue with accounts while Jacki Meyer will look after customer service. Michael Casanova has been appointed as sub-editor, while Ian James will look after some aspects of the design work. Victor Sirl will operate as the Brisbane and North Queensland publicist and sales representative. There is hope that a Western Australian representative will be appointed soon.

Connor Court was publishing one title per month, but beginning in the new financial year will publish two titles per month. Connor Court hopes to list its publishing schedule later this month.

- Maria Giordano