It’s called “Here Comes Trouble” and (with his permission) the UK Guardian last week published an excerpt.

The Guardian extract focused on the period after Moore’s famous 2003 Oscar acceptance speech when he condemned the Iraq War and President George W Bush. According to Mr. Moore, this speech was thought of as “career suicide” and more alarmingly made him “the most hated man in America”.

Death threats followed and Mr. Moore decided to hire bodyguards – “nine ex-Navy Seals surrounding me, round-the-clock,” he writes in the book.

Then when he made the documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11″ – which was acutely critical of the Iraq invasion and the Bush administration – the bodyguards were really needed because the hate poured in.

As Mr. Moore relates in “Here Comes Trouble,” the hate was “generated toward me by the Republican pundits. It had the sad and tragic side-effect of unhinging the already slightly unglued. And so my life went from receiving scribbly little hate notes to full out attempted physical assaults – and worse.”

Mr. Moore outlines three attacks in particular to illustrate the level of violence he was enduring.

However, his accounts raise questions about these incidents and reasonable doubts if they happened as outlined.

Having doubts, I emailed his spokesperson a few detailed and pointed questions asking for times, dates, locations and police and medical reports that would normally be generated by such incidents.

In response, I received a somewhat defensive email from the Gavin de Becker the owner of Gavin de Becker & Associates, the security company Mr. Moore hired to protect him during this time.

“Security agents from my firm were present at all events and I can confirm the book’s account entirely. Each event occurred just as Mr. Moore described it,” said Mr. de Becker.

Notably missing from Mr. de Becker’s email were any of the details which I requested. These details would make it easier to independently verify Mr. Moore’s accounts of the alleged assaults.

One of the most serious and most public attacks was in Tennessee.

According to Mr. Moore:

“In Nashville, a man with a knife leapt up on the stage and started coming toward me. The Seal grabbed him from behind by his belt loop and collar and slung him off the front of the stage to the cement floor below. Someone had to mop up the blood after the Seals took him away.”

However, Officer Don Aaron of Nashville Police Public Affairs Department said there is no record of such an incident involving Mr. Moore occurring in the area.

Granted the details offered in “Here Comes Trouble” are vague but Officer Aaron said an extensive search of their database found 700 incidents involving a “Michael Moore” but none involved the filmmaker (either the wrong date of birth or incorrect middle name). And none of the incidents in the database involved an assailant trying to attack a Michael Moore with a knife.

And no detectives had any memory of such an armed attack on a public figure at a public event with the alleged assailant being seriously injured by Mr. Moore’s bodyguards.

It is possible the police were not called which would be very strange given that Mr. Moore was apparently being defended by professional bodyguards from a reputable company. It’s not unreasonable to expect that they would not report such a serious event to the police – even if it was just to protect them from litigation. After all, due to the reaction of an ex-Seal bodyguard, blood from the knife welding assailant had to be mopped up.

Mr. de Becker, the owner of the company which supplied the Seals, failed to provide details of the specific incidents described in “Here Comes Trouble” but did say:

“While thousands of people at these public appearances observed several of the security incidents involving Mr. Moore in 2004, few such incidents are ever documented in “police reports,” even though police are involved. “

Mr. de Becker said that “our protectors are trained to always hand off assaulters to police and/or venue security staff, and they did so in every instance described in the book.”

“Not surprisingly, police and/or venue security people virtually never make arrests for crimes that fall short of successful attack at public appearances. (my emphasis) There is no time, and typically, no inclination for police to conduct extensive assessments of people who failed in an attempt to harm or interfere with a public figure,” Mr. de Becker added.

However, it is difficult to accept that the police would not make an arrest in the Nashville attack. But strangest of all, a good faith search found no news reports of the Nashville incident. Michael Moore attracts hundreds and sometimes thousands of people to his public appearances and yet no journalist or blogger I could find reported this violent incident, or if they did notice it – failed to mention it in their reports.

Also, we are being asked to believe that no one in the audience photographed or recorded the attack on their phone and that even if they missed the initial incident no one even photographed or videoed the blood that had to be mopped up where the attacker fell.

Furthermore, Mr. de Becker’s response about arrests is even more bizarre given that other two incidents outlined by Mr. Moore did not “fall short of a successful attack.”

They involved a stabbing and second degree burns which required hospitalization.

Mr. Moore states that whilst holding a press conference in New York City, “outside one of the cinemas showing ‘Fahrenheit 9/11′, a man walking by saw me, became inflamed, and pulled the only weapon he had on him out of his pocket – a very sharp and pointed graphite pencil.”

According to Mr. Moore, in a dramatic last minute move one of his bodyguards managed to put his hand “between me and the oncoming pencil. The pencil went right into the Seal’s hand.”

Again a serious incident but there is also a serious lack of corroboration. At the time of writing the New York Police Department have not responded to questions as to whether they have a record of the incident.

But more than any other of the incidents a police record of the event is perhaps unnecessary. The attack happened in the media capital of the world at a press conference given by a public figure who at the time was fronting the number-one movie in America and was the self-described “most hated man in America.”

But again, a good faith search did not find one newspaper, TV station, blogger or website in the most competitive media environment on the planet having ever mentioned or reported on the incident.

And the third incident mentioned in the book extract also has verification issues.

The filmmaker describes how in Fort Lauderdale, a man “in a nice suit” saw him on the sidewalk and “went crazy.”

Again Mr. Moore was saved because of the heroics of his ex-Navy Seal bodyguards:

“[The man] took the lid off his hot, scalding coffee and threw it at my face. The Seal saw this happening but did not have the extra half-second needed to grab the guy, so he put his own face in front of mine and took the hit.”

The alleged assault was the most serious of them all. According to Mr. Moore, on this occasion the Seal needed medical treatment.

“The coffee burned his face so badly, we had to take him to the hospital (he had second-degree burns) – but not before the Seal took the man face down to the pavement, placing his knee painfully in the man’s back, and putting him in cuffs,” the book states.

According to Fort Lauderdale Police Department there are no police records of this incident ever happening.

“Our electronic records go back to 2000 and nothing shows with an incident involving Mr. Moore,” a police spokesman said.

The spokesman even went the extra mile and asked the local media if they knew of such an event affecting such a prominent national figure.

“The local media said they had never heard of it,” he added.

One Fort Lauderdale detective added that Mr. Moore’s description of the incident read like “a fantasy novel.”

“It just doesn’t make sense in the real world. Real life assaults are much more messy than that. It sounds like an assault that took place not in the real world.”

Michael Moore has often been accused of having difficulties with the truth. Sometimes these criticisms are unfair because they attack his opinions rather than his facts.

But it is now clear that there are serious questions surrounding the assaults that he is supposed to have suffered. Apart from Mr. de Becker, who was a paid employee of Mr. Moore, there is no independent evidence that the assaults happened as Mr. Moore described.

Mr. de Becker. in a series of peculiar emails, that ranged from argumentative to joking, consistently stated that the filmmakers accounts were accurate. However, he also consistently declined to supply dates and locations for the incidents or details of police reports.

Mr. de Becker made vague claims that at least one of the incidents could be viewed online: “I’ve given you that YouTube hint several times; it would sure enlighten you on the specific topic you’re evaluating,” he said in an email.

However, he refused to provide a link to the particular YouTube video.

Perhaps the YouTube video does exist. Mr. Moore can clear up this matter very quickly by releasing the link. He could also explain why there are no reports of these violent assaults in the media (that I could find) even though two of them took place at a press conference and a public event. He should also hire new publicist – because their failure to release these records has led to unnecessary and unwelcome publicity.

Mr. Moore could also release medical records, suitably anonymized to protect the ex-Seals identities. He could tell us the date of each alleged assault and exact location – and the names of independent witnesses who were there.

And Mr. Moore could release copies of the relevant police reports and let us know what happened at subsequent court hearings – if there were any.

He could do this, but if he does not then there are serious questions about his honesty and reliability. Unless, of course, he wants to tell us that the disclaimer that opens his book is his explanation:

“This is a book of short stories based on events that took place in the early years of my life. Many of the names and circumstances have been changed to protect the innocent, and sometimes the guilty.”

Until then, there will be questions over the truth of his stories.

As a documentary filmmaker there is no worse fate.

“Here Comes Trouble” indeed.

I travelled to Chicago for a Q&A where Fox admitted hiding facts from his documentary that contradicted his scaremongering about drilling for natural gas.

And Fox’s response when we posted the video on YouTube – he got his lawyers to have YouTube pull it down.

——

That’s right – he has tried to use lawyers to silence journalist from asking difficult questions and putting his answers to those questions on the Internet.

Fox’s excuse is a breach of copyright. In a video that is 3:10 minutes long we used 26 seconds of Gasland only to show how Fox was being unethical and misleading. It is a classic case of “fair use” of someones work for the purpose of criticism and is totally legally allowed if not encouraged under fair use law.

But Fox does not want any criticism. He does not want any freedom of speech.

We now have to hire lawyers to try and have our journalism restored to our own YouTube channel. In the meantime we have put the video up on Vimeo (a YouTube rival). You can see it here until Fox’s and his lawyers try to force vimeo to pull it down.

We will fight all these attempts to silence our journalism. We have been here before. The Society of Environmental Journalists turned off my mic for asking Al Gore tough questions. The UN used armed security to try and stop me asking difficult questions of a scientist and a politician at the UN climate conference in Copenhagen. Environmentalists attacked me on live television for daring to question the orthodoxy.

And the makers of the Age of Stupid, another eco-disaster fantasy, had me removed from their press gallery for asking the “wrong questions”. They also took legal action to have the blog showing their behaviour removed from the Internet.

They did not succeed and Josh Fox will not succeed. You can watch my questioning of Josh Fox above. Please send it around to as many people as possible. It needs to be seen before Fox and his lawyers try to crush journalism again.

This is of course nonsense but it has proven a persistent and popular narrative. Hollywood does not like to admit it but the film industry is often woefully late coming to social and political change.

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It was only after gays became one of the world’s most protected and revered minorities that Hollywood felt it was ok to give them a movie all to themselves. And so Brokeback Mountain came to pass. And everyone in the industry congratulated themselves on how courageous they were tackling a subject that almost every family in America has had to deal with for decades when their sibling, child, uncle, aunt, mother or father came out of the closet.

The truth is that Hollywood generally makes movies that repeat received wisdom that has since been disproven by the facts.

Take communism. Please.

We are still being provided with “courageous” movies that show how “courageous” journalist/actors/writers coped with being prosecuted for being communists or supporting communist regimes.

Well I used to be a journalist in Romania and on Christmas Day 1989 after opening the presents and eating too much, the Romanian people felt the need to have a revolution and execute by firing squad Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu – communists – whose ilk and ideology are still being celebrated in Hollywood.

For the people of Romania – that Christmas really was the start of a Wonderful Life.

And so it is with environmentalism and climate change.

Hollywood is making more and more movies telling us that man is bringing about the end of the world as opinion poll after opinion poll show Americans and the world believe less and less in environmental alarmism.

If you needed any confirmation that Hollywood is very often an ideology in search of a business model – then you should look at the issue of climate change. Big Business used to be the biggest supporter of Cap & Trade legislation – that was going “to save the world from Climate Change.”

They could see a lot of profit in rationing energy which would then enable them to charge extra for providing it. Rationing and regulation would also ensure they could keep smaller rivals from entering their market.

But – no matter how much they lobbied – the American people remained unconvinced and after the Climategate scandal the Big Business Climate grouping split apart. Of course some businesses will remain addicted to government regulation as a way of maintaining their profits but others see value in understanding customers and the society they operate in and trying to work out and provide for those needs.

And so it will come to pass that long after the rest of America became a skeptical nation Climate Change skepticism is being brought into the heart of Hollywood.

On Thursday I am debating Climate Change with alarmist author  and broadcaster Simran Sethi at a debate in the Palihouse, West Hollywood.

The Palihouse discussion is a follow up to the Sarah Silverman hosted event in New York in April.  The Los Angeles debate is also being sponsored by Lexus, and will be moderated by Andy Samberg (Saturday Night Live).

It is probably no surprise that these debates are being sponsored by Lexus who are using them to promote their new Lexus CT 200h premium compact hybrid.

Because cars are so expensive to design and take so long to come to market car companies spend a lot of of time and money trying to figure out how we will be feeling and what we will be wanting in five years time. And so, looking into our futures, Lexus have started a series of debates on environmentalism and climate change. They have called the events an examination of The Darker Side of Green.

Maybe its time for Hollywood to follow.

The Lexus Debate – The Darker Side of Green is on July 8th at the Palihouse west Hollywood  It starts at 9pm. To get on the guest list go to lexusdebates.com

Disney is famously apolitical. In fact, it probably prides itself as an anti-political organization. For years its calling card has been producing family oriented fare that would be welcome in any American household.  Indeed it famously declined to distribute Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, which Moore managed to turn into a David v. Goliath story about censorship and corporate greed. This allowed the millionaire filmmaker to find another large corporation to distribute the documentary… whilst getting huge publicity railing against large corporations.  Disney managed to survive this potential blow to their non-political reputation and saved their brand.

But tomorrow, it appears, Disney will be suspending those principles and will engage in political programming. To mark Earth Day the channel is carrying a raft of programs which push the Green/Environmental agenda.

Why would the company that stood up to Michael Moore be willing to make such a bait and switch?  My best guess is that these shows will not appear to be political programming.  But this is a fallacy.  One of the great victories for environmentalists in recent memory is that they have been able to portray environmentalism as apolitical.  And this will be on full display tomorrow on Disney Channel.

Banning fossil fuels or pushing recycling or opposing dams or mining projects are deeply, deeply political actions. They damage communities, they chase jobs out of the country and they tell people where and when they can work and even if they can keep their jobs. When the likes of James Cameron flies to an impoverished region to stop a dam, he may feel good about himself but this means many people will suffer without clean water or cheap electricity.

Environmentalism is politics at its most basic.

Disney and America need to understand this

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FROM THE EDITORS: Here are some more details into what is actually going on.  From the fan site Disney Dreaming:

Playhouse Disney will encore green-themed episodes of “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse,” “Handy Manny,” “Special Agent Oso,” “Imagination Movers” and “Jungle Junction” (8:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m., ET/PT).

Joe Jonas and Demi Lovato star in two new Disney’s Friends for Change: Project Green spots stressing the importance of protecting the planet’s oceans and waterways (6:25 p.m. and 6:55 p.m., ET/PT). Throughout the evening, Disney Channel will encore Disney’s Friends for Change: Project Green anthem, “Make A Wave,” performed by Jonas and Lovato, which will also be featured in the upcoming Disneynature film “OCEANS,” opening in theaters Earth Day 2010.

Disney Channel continues its Earth Day celebration with encore presentations of environmentally-themed episodes of hit series “Phineas and Ferb,” Hannah Montana,” “The Suite Life On Deck” and “Wizards of Waverly Place,” followed by an encore presentation of Disney Channel Original Movie “Minutemen” (6:00-10:00 p.m., ET/PT).

Of course, we haven’t seen any of the shows yet and there is certainly a chance Disney will have managed the politicize our kids’ television programming in a tasteful and educational way, but just in case they let us down, here are where we anticipate landmines:

-Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, 7:30am: Goofy is accidentally cloned.
-Special Agent Oso, 8am: Oso helps Joshua recycle.
-Imagination Movers, 9:30 am: The Movers teach our preschoolers how to save energy.
-Handy Manny, 9am: The Earth Day Challenge; Manny’s truck engine is replaced.
-Jungle Junction, 10 am: When Taxicrab’s cactus begins to wilt, he takes it back to the desert; Carla helps Crocker create a compost heap.

If these programs are political, as we suspect they will be, Disney Channel will be not only be targeting our kids, but our kids too young to attend school.  Only kids kindergarten-age or younger (as well as out elementary schoolers taking a “Mental Health Day”) will be home from school at 10am when Carla teaches The Crocker the importance of composting.

Make sure to keep an eye out for environmentalism in Disney Channel’s prime-time line up as well, as some of the shows that target older audiences might also have some green messaging.  As we learned two years ago, there isn’t anything cooler than “change.”

As always, we trust our readers to help us cover the Disney Channel, so let us know what you saw.

My questions were prompted after a “letter from Michael Moore” popped into my inbox.  It was promoting the DVD launch of his documentary Capitalism – A Love Story.

Mr. Moore acknowledges that some may not have watched it in the movie theater because they were working too hard but then blames poor ticket sales on the behaviour of the very workers he pretends to defend in his documentaries.

He seems to detest working people and how he thinks they behave in the movie theater.

But for those of you who didn’t get to the theater, what’s your excuse? Didn’t want to sit through 20 minutes of TV ads up on the screen before the movie started? Don’t like sitting next to people who have 6 important cell calls to make during the film? Feet get stuck to the floor after two hours of people spilling their 164 oz. sodas, thus preventing you from getting up when the film’s over?

So in Mooreland the workers of the world are boorish, inconsiderate slobs who eat and drink to excess and mess up their theaters.

It is clear Michael Moore despises his audience, but perhaps even more tellingly, he does not even seem to know how they live or even what the inside of a movie theater looks like these days.

For one, I travel a lot across America and in the movie theaters I go to most people seem to enjoy the trailers.

Honestly, when was the last time people made a phone call, never mind six, in the theater beside you? It simply doesn’t happen anymore (if it ever really did).

And feet stuck to the floor?  In most movie theaters nowadays you could eat your dinner of the floor.  Michael Moore likes to portray workers in some kind of Dickensian nightmare struggling against uncaring bosses who will work them to death in hellish conditions. In Mooreland there are no air conditioned offices and factories or on-the-job trainings and promotions.

And in Mooreland, the movie theaters are thirty-year-old caricatures that were inaccurate even then.

So I beg the question: Does Michael Moore actually know any working people and how they behave? Or does he just despise them and their habits from so far away that he doesn’t even know what their habits are?  And given his strange assumptions about the interior of movie theaters, it seems fair to ask, does Michael Moore even go to the movies any more?

Not Evil Just Wrong examines the true cost of expensive energy for those who already live in poverty or fixed incomes.

One of the highlights of the Alaska tour was a visit to Colony High School in Wasilla where we screened an excerpt of the documentary and took questions from students.

Sarah Palin, Wasilla’s most famous resident, did not attend but a large number of children were there and seemed interested and asked interesting questions.

Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth has been shown many times, in many classes at the school and the students seemed to appreciate an alternative.

However it seems that the school authorities were not so keen on the alternative.

In an unprecedented move they insisted that any student who wanted to see an excerpt of Not Evil Just Wrong must have a permission slip from their parents.

The school authorities put no such condition in place before screening An Inconvenient Truth even though both documentaries have the same MPAA rating.

Perhaps even more significantly, Alaska is a state where the state can arrange an abortion for a student without notifying their parents. Regardless of your opinions on abortion (or the issue of parental notification) the Alaskan authorities seem intent on sending out a clear message.

If you want to watch a documentary that challenges the liberal environmental consensus we will introduce barriers to access. If you want to have an abortion parents don’t need to know and we can probably fit it in after gym class.

With the mainstream media devoting to trying to turn policy differences into racism it leaves the task of asking hard questions to people in power open to the rest of us

Inspired by James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles who have shone an uncomfortable light on Acorn by asking obvious questions and by simply letting people answer I decided to cover the New York premiere of  “The Age of Stupid” – a documentary that claims the human race will be extinct by 2055 because of Climate Change.

–

Much of the “Age Of Stupid” is spent attacking those in the developing world who want our lives and lifestyles. The documentary is particularly critical of those in countries such as India who want to fly more for business or pleasure.

The documentary is quite clear that flying in aeroplanes is disastrous for the planet. “Apart from setting fire to a forest flying is the single worst thing an individual can do to cause climate change,” we are told.

So after applying for and being given press accreditation by their publicists I decided to find out whether the film makers and their celebrity supporters have stopped or even reduced their flying hours.

Or is it only the people of the developing world who must fly less while environmentalists continue with their luxuries because their campaigning is so important it has to continue.

I had been told that Franny Armstrong “The Age of Stupid’s” director, had been careful whilst making the film but has been on a massive flying binge promoting the documentary. Then there were the rest of the celebrity supporters such as Kofi Annan, the head of the UN, Mary Robinson, the former Irish President, actresses Gillian Anderson and Heather Graham and Moby who is apparently a famous DJ.

Are they making the sacrifices they demand be enforced on the people of the developing world?

Unfortunately there seems to be one thing environmentalists dislike more than flying and that is hard questions about their own flying habits.

After a few questions which revealed that none of those at the premiere had the slightest intention of living up to the standards they demand of others the film makers decided they didn’t want to be accountable. Along with their security guards they manhandled me and and forced me of the press deck despite having given me accreditation to be there.

I didn’t realise press accreditation now comes with provisos that you are not allowed to ask awkward questions of environmental activists and their celebrity supporters.

They then used their security team to block my camera.

There were lots of other press at the premiere but they didn’t seem interested in seeing if environmentalists even tried to live up to the standards they demand of some of the poorest people on the planet.

They didn’t even seem interested in covering the obvious expulsion of another reporter for asking difficult questions.

And they wonder why no one is watching their TV news or buying their newspapers.

The first episode of “Law & Order” UK has just ended on British television. Spreading the franchise across the pond does have difficulties because of the differing legal systems but it still stays close to the setting and pacing of the US original.

Unfortunately, they have not escaped the predictability of the US show when it comes to the identity of the killer. The moment we saw the dead black child and later met his white businesswoman landlord it was fairly clear where the “mystery” was headed.

Just like the US show, the villain is always the white person who runs a business or is a corporate lawyer or landlord. 

It would be entertaining for the entertainment industry to put some mystery into our modern detective dramas. But it is probably more important to show that white landlords/businesspeople/financiers will stop at nothing, including child murder, to make more money.

The Irish Times is, like the New York Times, the country’s most influential newspaper. 

They recently teamed up with Irish government’s overseas aid department and produced an educational supplement for every Irish classroom. 

In the supplement Irish children are informed that “more natural disasters are happening now than in the past because the world’s climate is changing”. They are then invited to “hear about what happened to Vathyia when extreme weather affected where she lived.” (their emphasis)

Twelve year old Vathyia then gives a moving account of how her mother, sister and brother were killed in the 2004 tsunami.

 I had to read it a couple of times to be sure there was no mistake.

The Irish government and the country’s most influential newspaper were telling schoolchildren the tragic Asian Tsunami was caused by climate change. It seems no one is too young or too vulnerable to be misled for political reasons – even to the extent that earthquakes and Tsunamis are now being spuriously linked to climate change.

So children get this and so much more in the classroom, in newspapers and from their teachers and their government.

Which is why it is so important that that other great influence in their lives – the popular culture – tells the truth. However, in a land that created Bono, that could be difficult.

But most Irish children watch popular American TV shows and go to the cinema to see popular American movies.

But for too long they have been seeing more of the same. From” WALL-E” (consumption will destroy the planet) to “The Day the Earth Stood Still ” (Global Warming will destroy the planet) to the “Dukes of Hazard” movie (coal mining will destroy Hazard County). Children should be forgiven for believing that industry and progress are to be feared and not welcomed.

In the movies and TV shows the villain is always the businessman. (Don’t the makers of “Law and Order” ever get tired of people working out who the killer is in the first five minutes? Note to Producers – There really is no point in having all those dramatic plot twists if the killer is always, and I mean always, the richest person/biggest businessman on the show.)

Deep down Irish children and Irish adults know that their lives have been made better by industrial progress. They know that industry has created jobs that lifts millions out of poverty every year in some of the poorest regions of the world. They also know that their wealth has funded medical breakthroughs which extends life expectancy in the developed and developing world.

But who would condemn children, and eventually adults, for forgetting this if the government, the media and their movies and television shows constantly tell them the complete opposite?

Big Hollywood, by shining a light on how the entertainment industry distorts reality, may eventually bring change. The change may come because of the reasoned arguments by this websites writers or it is more likely to come because it will embarrass those in control and force them to produce original and interesting material that truly looks at who uses and misuses power in our society.

Then maybe Irish children will be able to watch entertaining movies and TV shows that reflect the reality of their lives