truTV: Not Reality. Actuality.

In January, the Chinese retailers at Silk Street Market, which is a notorious supplier of knock-off merchandise such as Louis Vuitton, announced that they would begin creating clothing and other items under their own SilkStreet brand, and they naturally issued the warning, "Anyone using the brand

California's Solar Shade Control Act protects solar panels from obstructions from sunlight, and in January, Santa Clara County officials sought to enforce the law against homeowners who themselves are staunch environmentalists. Since the back yard of Prius-owners Richard Treanor and Carolynn Bissett contains lush redwood trees that block their neighbor's panels, the county ordered that the trees be cut down.

Illinois requires all state employees to pass an annual 10-question, multiple-choice "ethics" test (whose format lends itself to simplistic answers that, for instance, most college students might handle easily). In January, state ethics officials declined to accept the passing grades of 65 Southern Illinois University professors because they finished "too quickly." Asserted a reviewing state official, anyone who failed to spend at least 10 minutes on the test was being unreasonable.

The Weirdo-American Community: Police in Madison, Wis., believe they ended the spree of vandal defecations in an apartment house on Schroeder Road (laundry room, hallways, items of clothing) with the January arrest of Ronnie Ballard, 19. At Ballard's first court appearance, Dane County Court Commissioner Todd Meurer set bail at $1,400 and issued a ruling he said he never imagined having to make: As a condition of release, should Ballard make bail, Meurer ordered him to defecate only in toilets.

The District of Calamity: Washington, D.C., firefighter Gerald Burton faced suspension in December for disobeying a direct order by fighting a blaze he had come across while driving his fire truck to a training class. A supervisor had ordered him on to the class, but Burton and his partner put out the fire (limiting damage to $150,000), along with the dispatched crew, which arrived shortly after Burton.

Government in Action! A commercial, pre-packaged ham-and-cheese sandwich using one slice of bread is regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which conducts daily inspections under its jurisdiction, but a ham-and-cheese sandwich on two slices of bread falls to the Food and Drug Administration, which inspects plants about once every five years. That anomaly surfaced in the current presidential campaign and was verified by a Congressional Quarterly-St. Petersburg Times "Politifact" researcher in December. A USDA official admitted to the Times that there "is no rationale or logic" behind the distinction: "