The American Spectator

The Spectacle Blog

VodkaPundit co-blogger Will Collier exposes an AP error: They said someone selling Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows on eBay "declined immediate comment when e-mailed by The Associated Press." The seller turns out to be Collier. "I have not been contacted by them either by email or in any other medium, and as such I have not declined to talk to them." Even if they tried to email him and didn't get an answer, the proper phrase would be "couldn't be reached" -- "declined immediate comment" implies that they know he got the message, which he didn't.

On NRO, Collier tells the story of how he got the advance copy from DeepDiscount.com (a company which might be sued by Scholastic). The best part is his reaction to having sold the book for $250 -- to Publisher's Weekly:

Well, this was great stuff. Not only did I make a very nice profit, I got the best of all possible outcomes: Instead of taking a desperate Harry Potter fan to the cleaners, I got to fleece a media organization. I will sleep with a profoundly clean conscience.

Heh.

UPDATE: Sean Higgins emails to note this Washington Post story:

In lieu of further details, Collier responded by offering for $300 a written account of his story, which he'd sentimentally titled, "I Was an eBay Voldemort." [That's the piece that's on NRO. -JT] The Washington Post declined.

Double-heh.

ANOTHER UPDATE: This keeps getting funnier. J.K. Rowling's literary agent bullied eBay with a bogus copyright-violation claim into... giving Collier more money:

That's right--not only did The Christopher Little Literary Agency's nastygram accomplish the decidedly quixotic feat of cancelling an auction that had already been over for about seventeen hours--they made sure that eBay would give me back everything I was charged to advertise sell the book in the first place. I just went to my account and checked; sure enough, eBay's mindless bureaucracy has given me a full credit for all fees, a sum I'm more than happy to add to the profits I've already collected on the "Hallows" sale.

Oh, and incidentally, I got a nice email from Robin Lenz at Publisher's Weekly while I was typing up this post; she's received the book and is quite pleased with her purchase.

So, let's all enjoy a fine laugh at J.D. Nimrod and his firm of officious idiots. Nice work, guys. Be sure and bill the good Ms. Rowling for all the many hours you've spent in making yourselves look like utter morons.

Triple-heh.