No, no, no and no were the conclusions. Employing that age-old reporter's trick of contacting the primary source -- in this case, State Farm -- FactCheck.org was able to confirm that, yes, the insurance giant had asked the agent to stop using its brand name as his political soapbox. The group could find no evidence of political contributions or activism on the part of the Mikkelsons -- he's a former Republican turned independent; she's a Canadian who cannot vote.

From the FactCheck.org report: "We checked online to see if (David Mikkelson) had given money to any federal candidates, and nothing turned up. Mikkelson even faxed us a copy of his voter registration form. He asked us not to post an image of it here, but we can confirm that it shows he declined to state a party affiliation when he registered last year, and also that when he registered in 2000 he did so as a Republican.

"Do the Snopes.com articles reveal a political bias? We reviewed a sampling of their political offerings, including some on rumors about George W. Bush, Sarah Palin and Barack Obama, and we found them to be utterly poker-faced. David does say that the site receives more complaints that it is too liberal than that it is too conservative. Nevertheless, he says, 'We apply the same debunking standards to both sides.' "

Of course, the reason Snopes.com is more often accused of bias by conservatives than by liberals is that facts have a notoriously liberal bias.

The FactCheck fact checkers found plenty of evidence that the Mikkelsons are serious if not obsessive researchers, not exactly a revelation to fans of the site, such as yours truly. As for hiding their identities, the first of countless press mentions of Snopes dates back to a 1995 article in the Los Angeles Times that named David Mikkelson.