Last week, American media types of all sorts swooned over the tale of an Arkansas couple who had just given birth to their 16th child.    Mr. and Mrs. Duggar—Jim Bob and Michelle to their friends—told reporters that they were looking forward to having a 17th child someday.

Now I will keep my comments brief on this because I certainly don’t want to come across as being...mean-spirited.  But was I the only guy to read this story and suspect a hint of religious zealotry going on?  I found their family website via a quick Google search (you’ll have to Google it yourselves, dear friends.  I sure as hell ain’t linking to this one...) and my suspicions were confirmed pretty quickly.  Go ahead and have a look.  Weird, wild stuff...

You can learn a lot about somebody by checking out what they link to from their site.  The Duggar family's site includes links to cornerstones of the religious right, such as “Focus on the Family” and “Family Research Council,” as well as a site called “Creation Science Evangelism” (Incidentally, if you visit the “Creation Science Evangelism” site, you’ll find that they are promoting something called “Defeat Darwin Month.”  I didn’t read the specifics about this, but I am willing to bet that it involves digging up Darwin’s corpse and stoning it or something like that.)  All in all, my favorite link on the Duggar Family’s site is for something called “WholesomeWear Modest Swimwear.”  According to the folks at WholesomeWear, “(t)he need for modesty in swimwear is greatest and the supply is almost non-existant (sic).”  You have to admit that it is more than a little ironic that the Duggars include this link on their site, isn’t it?  I mean, if Mrs. D. actually wore WholesomeWear clothing in the first place, then chances are that she wouldn’t have ended up with 16 kids!