Debunked!: Conspiracy Theories, Urban Legends, and Evil Plots of the 21st Century | 
 enlarge | Author: Richard Roeper
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 62488
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.6 x 5.6 x 1
ISBN: 1556527071
Dewey Decimal Number: 364.10973
EAN: 9781556527074
ASIN: 1556527071
Publication Date: June 1, 2008
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Product Description
You know what's really going on, don't you? Flight 93 secretly landed in Cleveland, where the passengers were whisked off to a NASA facility. Nostradamus predicted JFK Jr.'s plane crash, which was engineered by the One World Government. Online poker sites are rigged to knock out the short stacks. Donald Rumsfeld was behind the bird flu panic. That's what it's like to live inside the mind of the 21st-century conspiracy theorist, who believes that all you have to do is look at the signs and you'll see what's really going on. And thousands if not millions of people actually believe this is the way the world works. Debunked! is a breezy but fact-filled dissection of more than two dozen of the most popular urban legends and conspiracy theories of the 21st century. As he did in Urban Legends and Hollywood Urban Legends, and as he has done in dozens of columns for the Chicago Sun-Times over the last decade and a half, Richard Roeper lays out the basics of each conspiracy theory, quotes some of the true believers—and then tears the theory apart with his bare hands. This book will provide you with invaluable ammunition for the next time you communicate with someone from that other, shadow world—that place where secret tribunals pull the strings and influence the outcome of everything from terrorist attacks to professional sporting events.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 Shallow & Silly November 25, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
In this age of new conspiracy theories being hatched daily, we are in need of a thoughtful work to shed the light of reality on many of them. Unfortunately, this book is not it. Most of the chapters, if submitted as Jr. High English or Creative Writing assignments, would be lucky to receive a passing grade. One problem is that it is too ambitious for the amount of work the author was willing to put in: He takes on 28 issues of varying significance (from 9/11 to the Virgin Mary in a grilled cheese sandwich,) and tries to cover them all in less than 200 pages of actual text. The results are necessarily superficial, but the author's attitude and choices make them even more so. For example, on the nuanced issue of media bias, the author merely compiles a simple list of 55 conservative columnists, publications, commentators and bloggers, sandwiches it between two sarcastic comments, and Presto! That's his chapter debunking "The Vast left-Wing Conspiracy." If you want to see urban legends debunked, go online to [...] and avoid wasting your time and money on this amateurish effort.
 More Conspiracies Please! ! ! August 13, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Roeper had me hooked from his FOXNEWS interview about his book - though in the book he makes his distaste for FOXNEWS apparent.
However I really was hoping for more - more on the JFK assassination hype, more on Roswell "cover-up," and other moronic conspiracy theories.
His film reviews should also cover the "Parallax View" which is another far-fetched "evil government cover-up conspiracy" flick which is even worse than "Capricorn I" if that were possible.
His point about the "9/11 truth"-squaders is well-taken - if there had been any conspiracy the same ruthless government would have had all of these morons buried in a mass grave under a toxic nuclear waste dump! ! !
Enjoyable Read July 23, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Richard Roeper again writes a book that is very enjoyable to read.I recommend every one to get yourself a copy to read.
Fun read July 22, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
This was a fun informative read. It makes you shake your head to think that so many people buy into the strangest theories about how something happened rather than going to the most practical and common place. I guess people don't want simple and common place. My only complaint about the book was that some of the theories got a lot of explanation...almost too much. I was surprised to find several urban legends and conspiracy theories that I had never heard of. I guess those believers would say I had my head in the sand. Recommended.
Who's looking out for you! It's Roeper's turn to.... July 12, 2008
9 out of 17 found this review helpful
I completely agree with Demon Ted's review, especially regarding the 9/11 issue. Roeper's book adds no weight to the subjects he talks about. If he were a full-time lawyer, academic or a serious journalist and scoured more facts, I would've have given a better review. Of course the book would have been too technical, academic, and dense, but serious subjects like 9/11, JFK, Lady Di's death, deserve that level of scrutiny. The fact that Roeper dabbles on these matters and then tackles the subject of the Virgin Mary image on the cheese sandwich is....comical. 9/11 alone deserves volumes of research, what was Roeper thinking? The book in my opinion would have been better if he decided to stick to either the lighter or heavier issues, not mixing up the big-scale national events with the trivial ones like... miracle cheese sandwiches. Let the 20/20 professional John Stossel walk that "thin" line.
To be fair, Roeper has always been a commentator on various news feeds so this is book form of that, so I suppose He needs to be givven some slack for now writing more "deeply".
All Americans, especially journalists, should see the various 9/11 videos on YourTube that DT describes. Many of the videos are from professors and engineers from top universities. I am a firm believer now that all three modern all-steel buildings could not have fallen the way they did. They WERE "taken down", using professional demolition terminology. There is even footage from the owner of "Building #7", the third buiilding that "collapsed" where he states that he agreed that the building be taken down, even before 9/11 happened. There is more to the 9/11 story than what we were so conveniently "told".
Mr. Roeper should stick to movie reviews but even then, I will no longer read them nor rely on them. Anyone remember Michael Medved, who was also once a well-known movie critic? He's now a right-wing nutcase weirdo my- morals-are-better-than-your-morals know-it-all, with his own web and radio show. Is there something about being a movie critic that makes one all of a sudden think they're an expert on just about everything in REAL life? At least Roeper has not yet become a full-blown right-wing-neocon whore like the Medved-O'Reilly-Rush-Hannity-Coulter crew.
Ultimately though, I'm very glad though that Medved and Roeper have both come out with their own polical or social views. We see their true colors, so to speak, and that's good! They're entitled to them, like all individuals, public or private. But their particular slant or judgement on matters OTHER THAN MOVIES makes one question the viability, quality or reliability of their other judgements, INCLUDING movies. It's kinda like a friend, neighbor, co-worker, or gulp, a family member you thought you knew. You think they're a nice, fair, honest, compassionate person. And they are on the outset on most things. They have and feed their kids, pets, mow their lawn every week, volunteer at their church, etc., but then one day they talk about how they don't like the blacks they see now in the mall, or on another day they confide on how gays are "ruining marriage", or they believe that evolution is just a theory unlike intelligent design. Or that a woman or a black person would not be a good president at this time. You think twice about that person now, how his/her outlook on life is skewed a certain (scary?) way. That's kinda how I now view Mr. Roeper, though not as nearly as bad as the fictional examples above (in my real life though these people exist, sadly).
I've never really liked Medved's movie reviews and was lukewarm toward's Roepers. Now I won't even bother. And I'm not always in-line with Roger Eberts reviews either. Geez, looks like I'm on my own regarding movie reviews. But wait, there is always a chance the O'Reilly-Rush-Hannity-Coulter camp will start doing movie reviews. Yay! I hope so cause I need a good laugh, because Roeper's book made me cry now that I have one less movie reviewer I can somewhat trust. Thumbs down on the book.
To be honest though, I'd rather have a 100 Richard Roepers doing a gazillion movie reviews than a single Michael Medved doing one movie review. Unfair and unbalanced I know, but you need that to counter the fair and balanced news reporting so prevalent and reliable out there these days ;-)
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