Surprise! It was a big fucking scam.

Well, go figure. The original giant Illinois-shaped corn flake has been removed from Ebola. When I clicked on the link, this message appeared ...

This listing (110233337338) has been removed or is no longer available. Please make sure you entered the right item number. If the listing was removed by eBay, consider it canceled. Note: Listings that have ended more than 90 days ago will no longer appear on eBay.

Oh, I entered the correct item number. You betcha.

I checked it earlier today, and the bids were up to $200,000 and the "seller" had added some caveats that the "winner" must have at least 10 ratings as buyers or sellers.

Now, another listing has been added with the same phony photograph of the flake and a dime. Only this time, the seller has a different eBay ID and the bidding starts at a dollar with 9 days remaining. Click here to see it, if you dare. One problem ... the caveats remained from the original ad, specifying Thursday as the end date.

Thank you for all the encouraging responses from the press and fans of the Illinois Corn Flake all over the world and we look forward to congratulating the winner Thursday. Good Luck!

Ooops. Read the fine print ...

Replica may slightly different than pictured.

No kidding. It looks like the quality control people at Ebola had the week off. It also looks more like Madagascar than Illinois.

Supposedly big news media suckers like USA Today, The Washington Post, Yahoo News and ABC News bought into this nonsense and reported it as though it were real news. One would think that they did absolutely no homework (or actual reporting) and merely clicked on an eBay listing and typed up a story. Shameful.

Meanwhile, I have to cancel that Home Equity loan and post up that ad for the Rice Krispie that looks like Rosie O'Donnell.

I need to eat more cereal.